Mental health on college campuses around the country has just recently become more of an accepted topic of discussion, as it’s no longer scrutinized socially. The University of Idaho and its faculty have made it their mission this fall semester to confront this stigma and offer support to students in need.
With September being Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month and August signifying the 10-year anniversary of the passing of Katy Benoit, UI has collaborated with multiple organizations in order to honor her and the student body.
The Interfraternity Council, a Call to Men, ASUI, and university faculty and staff met Thursday, Sept. 16 in an organized keynote presentation to discuss what it means to have healthy and respectful manhood. Jeff Matsushita, the program specialist for A Call to Men’s Idaho Coalition Against Sexual & Domestic Violence, spearheaded the program with resonating enthusiasm.
The night commenced with an emotional introduction from Benoit’s parents, Gary and Janet Benoit.
Mrs. Benoit, overcome with emotion when discussing her daughter, attempted to keep her composure during the keynote.
“It’s important to be here, to lean in and talk about these things,” she said.
Mr. Benoit also shared these emotions alongside his wife.
“Nobody likes to face the death of a daughter,” he said, as he held his wife while she continued crying. “I urge you all to pay attention, these are hard lessons to learn.”
ASUI president Kallyn Mai shared a few sentiments before A Call to Men presented for the remainder of the keynote.
“My job here is to advocate for everybody’s experiences, to learn how to handle them appropriately and responsibly,” she said. “Gender violence is everybody’s issue”.
Matsushita began his keynote by immediately breaking down masculine language, such as “be a man” or “man up”, in front of the fraternity chapters present in the International Ballroom of the Bruce M. Pitman Center.
Following this, Matsushita presented that 14% of men make the choice to be sexually or physically violent toward women.
He also explained that more than half of female homicides are connected to intimate partner violence while one out of five women between 16-24 years old will be sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. Matsushita then offered the audience an invitation to have a conversation about ending gender-based violence.
After analyzing the flashcard statistics, Matsushita had the audience consider a photo of three young boys flexing their biceps to a camera. The child on the right, looking to the other two on the left for validation, is where Matsushita explained the roots of a man seeking validation in their masculinity.
“Our story was started when we were born, the trauma of performing manhood,” he said.
This sentence resonated with the thousands of men participating in the keynote.
The presentation shifted direction back towards unhealthy masculine language with a video clip of a small child getting a vaccine shot at a doctor’s office. Once the boy began crying, his father quickly focused his support by repeating “be a man”, only for his son to repeat back “I’m a man!”. Matsushita explained this as “ (…) subconsciously subverting emotions with ‘be a man,’ and soon introduced the Man-Box.
A Call to Men and Matsushita explain the Man-Box as ideas that men have generally grown accustomed to as societal expectations. Some of these ideas include “be strong”, “act like a man”, “be heterosexist”, “don’t support gender equality”, and “girls are sex objects”. Matsushita explained how the diagram “fuels our emotional intelligence” and contains a lot of “don’ts” rather than “do’s”.
Matushita explained to the audience of UI Greek members that we need to move away from this ideology, stating, “Men are socialized not to ask for, not to accept, and not to offer help.” He explained that the inability to reconnect our head to our hearts is what is the most impactful regarding mental health concerns – not just domestic abuse and interpersonal violence.
The evening concluded with an extended, productive Q&A-based platform in order to continue the conversation and further elaborate on the points Matsushita and A Call to Men brought up.
One of the inquiries posed towards Matsushita was that of a young fraternity man questioning the line between comforting men and building men of character. Matsushita responded by explaining how we can still love them and continue to still hold them accountable.
“Boundaries are healthy and setting them are acts of love,” Matsushita said. “but I’m always healing my wounds so I don’t bleed all over my loved ones.”
A Call to Men and Jeff Matsushita ended the night with a powerful statistic, via Mental Health America, explaining how male suicide rates are 3.5 times higher than female suicide rates.
The presentation closed with a mantra of “together, everybody achieves more.”
For further information and resources, contact Alternatives to Violence on the Palouse, 208-883-HELP (4357), Idaho Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence, 208-384-0419, Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN), 800-656-HOPE (4673), or the Idaho Suicide Prevention Hotline, 208-398-4357.
Caden Young can be reached at [email protected]