A Silent Pandemic: Men's Mental Health
I’d like you to picture this scene: a group of men gathered after work, or around a braai on a Saturday afternoon. The conversation flows easily, covering soccer, rugby, work or money hassles, and the latest news. But there's one subject that rarely comes up: how they're actually feeling. It's not a topic that springs to mind when men get together, yet the effect of men's mental health on themselves, their loved ones and everyone they interact with cannot be overlooked.
And that, in a nutshell, is why we call it a silent pandemic.
What Is Mental Health?
Mental health is not just the absence of illness. It covers many areas of functioning. These include our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. Life is unpredictable, and daily stressors are part of the deal: work pressure, finances, relationships, disappointment. None of us are immune. But when a person possesses good mental health, they are capable of adjusting to and handling these life stressors — bending without breaking and recovering when they do.
The question is: what happens when someone has never been given the tools to do that?
Why A Silent Pandemic?
The statistics around this issue tell a striking story. Among young people, only about 13% of men between the ages of 16 and 24 seek help when they experience mental health difficulties, compared with 31% of young women (Ellis et al., 2013). Similarly, research in Australia found that just 13.2% of young men with mental health needs had accessed services in the previous year (Sheikh et al., 2024). In South Africa, the picture is sobering; the country ranks eighth globally for suicide rates, with 450 men taking their own lives every month (Molokoane & Modipane, 2025).
These are not men who are unwell; these are men who are unwell and unheard. So why is seeking support such a daunting prospect for them? The reasons are layered: how men are socialised to view mental health, the narratives young men are taught about it from childhood, and what researchers call mental health literacy, simply put, the ability to recognise, understand, and articulate psychological distress (Barkley et al., 2026).
Messages To Young Boys
It often starts early on in our upbringing. From a young age, many boys are taught that life stressors must be handled individually. In many South African homes, phrases like "indoda ayikhali", meaning "men don't cry", are passed down as wisdom. The message, however, is clear: a man carries his own weight, quietly.
This isn't a myth; it's a pattern researchers have documented repeatedly. A systematic review of 47 studies found that traditional masculine norms significantly deter men from seeking mental health support (Mokhwelepa & Sumbane, 2025). Young South African men describe being socialised from childhood with the understanding that "we do not like talking about our problems," and those masculine ideals drive help-seeking avoidance (Sikweyiya et al., 2025). Adolescent boys in townships describe the feeling of being "put in a box" where mental health challenges are associated with weakness, and emotional expression is discouraged (Barkley et al., 2026). And in Mpumalanga, young men report that fear of stigma, masculinity norms, and societal expectations are exactly why they can't talk to family and friends about what's troubling them (Molokoane & Modipane, 2025).
The pressure to embody strength, self-reliance, and emotional control is so pervasive that reaching out for help can feel like a betrayal of what it means to be a man (Mokhwelepa & Sumbane, 2025).
Uncomfortable Truths
Here's the uncomfortable truth that the "men don't cry" philosophy forgets: the body is honest, even when the man isn't.
When increased stressors are left unattended, they give rise to mental health difficulties and, in some cases, physical problems. The evidence backs this up. Men tend to seek support later in their illness, leave significant health issues unattended, and are more likely to express psychological concerns through physical symptoms (Palmer et al., 2024). Delaying help-seeking doesn't just prolong suffering; it leads to poorer health outcomes and places an extra burden on the healthcare system (Yousaf et al., 2013). The suppression of emotional expression drives maladaptive coping and has been linked to depression and higher suicide rates (Kim & Yu, 2023).
Men often feel that physical illness is a "legitimate" reason to see a professional, while emotional struggles are not (Vickery, 2021). So, the pain moves sideways: it shows up as exhaustion, irritability, back pain, high blood pressure, anger, substance use, or withdrawal. The man who "handles it himself" often carries a weight his body eventually refuses to hide.
Breaking The Silence
Loved ones are often the first to notice, because the ripple effects land on those closest to the man who is struggling: partners, children, colleagues, and friends. The silent pandemic is not silent for the people who love these men; it shows up in every strained relationship and every unspoken worry.
The good news is that silence can be broken. Research increasingly points to the value of gender-sensitive, culturally grounded mental health treatments: interventions that normalise emotional expression among boys and men, meet men where they are, and challenge the rigid norms that equate vulnerability with weakness (Sikweyiya et al., 2025). It starts with small acts: a friend who asks, "How are you, really?" and waits for an honest answer; a father who tells his son it's okay to cry; a man who decides that seeking help is not a failure of strength but a reclaiming of it.
Mental health affects everything: how we work, how we love, how we cope. And it cannot be ignored in men any longer, because when a man suffers in silence, the silence affects everyone around him. Let's start talking.
References
Barkley, C., Mnculwane, S., Merrill, K. G., & Kafaar, Z. (2026). “Being a man is like being put in a box”: A qualitative study of adolescent boys’ and young men’s understanding and experiences of mental health in an urban community in South Africa. PLOS Mental Health, 3(2), Article e0000365. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmen.0000365
Ellis, L. A., Collin, P., Hurley, P. J., Davenport, T. A., Burns, J. M., & Hickie, I. B. (2013). Young men’s attitudes and behaviour in relation to mental health and technology: Implications for the development of online mental health services. BMC Psychiatry, 13, Article 119. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-13-119
Mokhwelepa, L. W., & Sumbane, G. O. (2025). Men’s mental health matters: The impact of traditional masculinity norms on men’s willingness to seek mental health support; a systematic review of literature. American Journal of Men’s Health, 19(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/15579883251321670
Molokoane, P., & Modipane, M. (2025). Young men’s perspectives on expressing problems affecting their mental health to family and friends in Ehlanzeni district, Mpumalanga province. Journal of Men’s Health, 21(3), 119–126. https://doi.org/10.22514/jomh.2025.043
Palmer, R., Smith, B. J., Kite, J., & Phongsavan, P. (2024). The socio-ecological determinants of help-seeking practices and healthcare access among young men: A systematic review. Health Promotion International, 39(2), Article daae024. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daae024
Sheikh, A., Payne-Cook, C., Lisk, S., Carter, B., & Brown, J. S. L. (2024). Why do young men not seek help for affective mental health issues? A systematic review of perceived barriers and facilitators among adolescent boys and young men. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 34(2), 565–583. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-024-02520-9
Sikweyiya, Y., Mahlangu, P., Jewkes, R., Brooke-Sumner, C., Gibbs, A., Dartnall, E., Pillay, M., & Machisa, M. (2025). ‘We do not like talking about our problems’: Socialization and idealized masculinity as drivers of help-seeking avoidance among college men in South Africa. BMC Public Health, 25, Article 1091. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-025-22252-y
Vickery, A. (2021). Men’s help-seeking for distress: Navigating varied pathways and practices. Frontiers in Sociology, 6, Article 724843. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2021.724843
Yousaf, O., Grunfeld, E. A., & Hunter, M. S. (2013). A systematic review of the factors associated with delays in medical and psychological help-seeking among men. Health Psychology Review, 9(2), 264–276. https://doi.org/10.1080/17437199.2013.840954
Related Resources:
For an overview of related MJT services and relevant information, visit Core Services, Expanded Services and Men’s Mental Health.
