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• This weekend brought more bad news about men: girls are outperforming boys not only in school but also at university. One commentator is concerned at the implications for society of an army of under-educated and alienated males. Whether or not you dismiss this as moral panic, concern about men, it seems, is growing. The recent ‘Get It Off Your Chest’ campaign’ from Mind has prompted us to revisit the subject of men and mental health. The Mind report behind the campaign found that although in the recession 37 per cent of men are feeling worried or low and that men account for 75 per cent of suicides, they were only half as likely as women to talk to friends about problems and only 23 per cent would consult their GP if they felt low. 

  The message from the ‘Get It Off Your Chest’ campaign is that it’s OK to ask for help. There is talk of changing the look and feel of doctors’ waiting rooms which may be off-putting to men who perceive them as feminine and catering mainly for women and children. Given that we have a women’s mental health strategy, there are also calls for a mental health strategy for men. These are all important developments but we know that the problem goes deeper than the recession. Not only have males had a really bad press in recent years – girls do better than boys at school, are better behaved, less likely to get into trouble etc – but women are set to outnumber men in the workplace in the not too distant future. Given that work and providing are still so central to male self-esteem, how will men adapt to these changes? John Hilton explores men in crisis on page 10. 

  Readers will recall that an article we published about Palestine earlier in the year was met with criticism for being one-sided and for not mentioning the mental health of Israelis affected by the conflict. In this issue David Bedein writes about the trauma suffered by residents of Sderot in southern Israel, a city which is subject to constant missile attack from Gaza.