Australia: International Men’s Day

Australia: International Men’s Day – 19th November 2008

From John Flanagan:

Hi to Everyone

Warwick Marsh from the Fatherhood Foundation has called for the recognition of International Men’s Day on 19 November 2008. Please see the media release below.

The Non-Custodial Parents Party (Equal Parenting) and the Fatherhood Foundation support both men and women. For example, a very large number of our valued members in the Party are women. However we feel that it is also very important to recognise this particular day for men.

As such, we will be attending a Conference at the NSW Parliament House, Sydney. This will be held on 19 November 2008. It is being organised by Warwick and Alison Marsh. The main speaker will be Dr Elizabeth Celi.

By coincidence, it was on this day in 1941 that the HMAS Sydney was lost during the Second World War.

Regards

John

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Media Release

International Men’s Day – 19th November 2008

International Men’s Day will have its inaugural celebration in Australia on 19th November 2008.

Russian President, Mikhail Gorbachev, first called for an international day to celebrate men in 1999 at the United Nations in Vienna . International Men’s Day is celebrated on many different dates around the world with varying degrees of success.

To help standardize International Men’s Day and increase its success the Indian ‘Save the Family Foundation‘ launched an international campaign and called for the celebration of International Men’s Day on 19th November along with Pakistan , Trinidad and Tobago.

Australia is joining with India, which has the second largest male population in the world, to call other countries around the world to make 19^th November 2008 a day to honour men for the contribution they make to their family, friends, work, community and nation.

Warwick Marsh, from the Dads4Kids Fatherhood Foundation said, “We contacted the leaders of the Save the Family Foundation in India , the leading advocates for International Men’s Day, before sharing the vision with several leaders in the Australian men and father’s movement at the National Shared Parenting Conference in Gosford, NSW on 14th June 2008.

The response in Australia for an International Men’s Day has been really positive. Already in Australia we have watched the phenomenal expansion of Movember, which promotes men’s health, so it’s great to see all these things happening for men in the month of November. Movember is exploding in influence around the world.”

Mr Marsh continued, “The 19th November is historically a day of great significance for every Australian. In 1941 it was the day that the HMAS Sydney II was lost. The 19th November 2008 commemorates the loss of 645 men when the HMAS Sydney sank off the coast of Western Australia, the greatest  loss of men’s lives on any one day by Australian forces in World War II.“

“The theme for the International Men’s Day 2008 is ‘Honour and Sacrifice’. This commemorates what our Aussie men, sons, fathers and grandfathers, both past and present, have sacrificed for their families, communities and nation,” Mr Marsh said.

“We call on other countries to join in solidarity to celebrate, on International Men’s Day, Wednesday 19th November 2008, the positive contribution that men make to the world.”

For more information please contact:

Warwick Marsh
Dads4Kids
Fatherhood Foundation
0418 225212
02 4272 6677
info@fatherhood.org.au
www.fatherhood.org.au

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Comment by F4L: It is perhaps a sign of a fractured international men’s movement that there is no consensus amongst nations as to on which day of the year the International Men’s Day should be celebrated.  Still, it is more likely that the differing dates for celebrating a men’s day and the lack of such a celebration in many nations (e. g.: USA, Germany and many other developed nations) is a consequence of the disdain in which many countries in the world hold men.

In contrast, International Women’s Day is being celebrated in almost all nations in the world.  Moreover, the celebrations of International Women’s Day are being held on March 8 throughout the world.

Canada celebrates International Men’s Day on November 25.

One gains the impression that men’s sacrifices to society are so commonplace that they are being taken for granted, while it took nothing more than relatively and extremely rare disasters, such as the March 25, 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York that killed 146 garment workers (most of them women), to get an International Women’s Day off the ground.

Comparable plights by men, such as that more than 100,000 men died in mining accidents throughout the world during the last century and that they still die by the thousands each year in such accidents don’t need to be noticed, not to mention the more than a hundred million men who died through military actions throughout the last century in the world — all for nothing less than to save home and country.

No, why worry about men? Men are beasts of burden.  Moreover, it is women who must suffer when men die, right?  That is men’s fault, and why should it be celebrated that men are permitted to abscond by dying on average so many years sooner than women do?