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What would Marcus do?
13/01/21 .
Blog
Whether it’s footballers, pop stars or politicians, we’re all getting a little fed up of stories about people in the public eye breaking the letter or the spirit of the rules on lockdown.
Sage member and behavioural scientist Stephen Reicher thinks these stories are counter-productive. They suggest widespread disregard for the guidelines when the opposite is true: most of us are following them.
But does any of it really matter? Do we need ‘role models’ to tell us what’s the best thing to do in the current circumstances? Just because these characters choose to break the rules doesn’t mean we have to. Someone else ignoring the guidance is unlikely to affect my family’s health but if I do it, it well might.
Yes, it’s very frustrating that test and trace doesn’t work, that testing is still not available easily if you have no symptoms and that there’s no support for any money (or even) jobs that might be lost through self-isolating. Doubly frustrating that some other countries don’t seem to have these problems. But there will be time to point fingers later. However, for now, Covid is at its most dangerous and the NHS is at its most fragile so let’s just stay home and try to keep risk to an absolute minimum.
You need a role model? Come on, we’d all rather be Marcus Rashford than any of the 'rule-breakers'. Even the 'rule-breakers'. What would Marcus do?
Jim Pollard,
Editor
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The Men’s Health Forum need your support It’s tough for men to ask for help but if you don’t ask when you need it, things generally only get worse. So we’re asking. In the UK, one man in five dies before the age of 65. If we had health policies and services that better reflected the needs of the whole population, it might not be like that. But it is. Policies and services and indeed men have been like this for a long time and they don’t change overnight just because we want them to. It’s true that the UK’s men don’t have it bad compared to some other groups. We’re not asking you to ‘feel sorry’ for men or put them first. We’re talking here about something more complicated, something that falls outside the traditional charity fund-raising model of ‘doing something for those less fortunate than ourselves’. That model raises money but it seldom changes much. We’re talking about changing the way we look at the world. There is nothing inevitable about premature male death. Services accessible to all, a population better informed. These would benefit everyone - rich and poor, young and old, male and female - and that’s what we’re campaigning for. We’re not asking you to look at images of pity, we’re just asking you to look around at the society you live in, at the men you know and at the families with sons, fathers and grandads missing. Here’s our fund-raising page - please chip in if you can.
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