The silent majority supporting men’s health

The conversation around men’s health and wellbeing has reached a pivotal moment in the United States. New research from Movember, conducted in partnership with More in Common, offers a comprehensive examination of how Americans across the political spectrum want to engage with issues affecting men and boys. The findings provide a roadmap for more effective advocacy and programming in this critical area.

A clear mandate for action

In an era marked by deep political polarization, a groundbreaking nationally representative survey of 2,000 American men and 1,500 American women has uncovered something remarkable: a broad, bipartisan coalition ready to address the crisis in men’s health and wellbeing. The findings challenge prevailing narratives about gender politics and reveal an American public far more nuanced—and unified—than contemporary discourse might suggest.

The numbers tell a compelling story of consensus. We found that 74% of women and 63% of men agree that society needs to talk more about men’s mental health challenges. We’re witnessing something beyond mere statistical significance—we’re seeing a cultural inflection point. Similarly, concern about boys’ educational underperformance (endorsed by 65% of women and 59% of men) signals recognition that these issues transcend traditional political boundaries.

Perhaps most significantly, women’s strong interest in these issues—consistently rating higher than men on the health front—upends tired narratives about gender wars. American women see men’s struggles not as a threat to their own advancement, but as a parallel challenge requiring attention and compassion.

Men recognize the barriers they face

Our research also asked men to rank barriers to their help-seeking and healthcare support. Even in the U.S. context where healthcare can carry prohibitive costs, men rank “stigma around seeking help” and “cultural expectations to man up” as greater barriers to accessing support than “cost of treatment.”

This survey finding is bolstered by insights from the study’s three focus groups, which were organized by political identification: traditional conservatives, liberal progressives, and politically disengaged men. One participant in the traditional conservative group, Jonathan, shared:

If you start saying depressed or whatever, people look down on you. As a man, you’re not supposed to be like that… I have friends that won’t open up to anyone, and you know there’s something wrong with them. And I even had one friend die by suicide, and he never expressed his inner feelings to anyone.

Another participant, conservative-leaning Frank, spoke to the absence of support networks and welcoming environments for struggling men:

There’s a lot of men who are really suffering, really struggling, but there isn’t really a support network there. There really isn’t a welcoming environment to be able to solve some of the issues that are plaguing us.

Frank’s insight points to a structural problem beyond individual psychology.

“Masculinity” talk: The words vs. the message

We were very interested in exploring language and word choices around men’s issues in this study, and as such we pursued creative survey techniques to test participants’ reactions to certain terms. Respondents were randomly selected to receive one of two variations of otherwise identical questions. In the first instance, half of respondents were asked about their interest in having a conversation about “what it means to be a man,” while the other half were asked about having a conversation about “masculinity.” The former option, “what it means to be a man,” generated significantly greater interest.

In a second instance, we randomly alternated the phrases “toxic masculinity” and “common male behaviors which can be harmful” in otherwise identical questions. We found that the term “toxic masculinity” triggered strong political polarization, with much greater endorsement among 2024 Harris voters and decreased agreement among 2024 Trump voters. No political pattern emerged whatsoever in the identical question about “common male behaviors which can be harmful.”

Figure 1

This isn’t mere semantic nitpicking; it reveals how our words can get in the way of our message. The findings reveal that Americans are broadly interested in conversations about “what it means to be a man,” and agree that “common male behaviors which can be harmful” are worth reckoning with. It is the insistence on using the terminology of “masculinity” which can inadvertently evaporate this interest and openness. Even terms like “healthy masculinity” or “positive masculinity” failed to resonate. Only about one in five survey respondents felt they could explain either “healthy masculinity” or “positive masculinity,” with the highest rates of understanding among Trump voters.

Focus group participants called for moving beyond such “camps” and “labels” entirely. Progressive participant Thomas offered insight into why this matters:

When you hear the word masculinity, everybody wants to sit here and say it’s toxic or it’s positive… they’re trying to take traits and move them into different camps, when it’s actually the perspective that you need to go ahead and have along with the traits.

What messages resonate: Growth and balance win

Our research tested five different campaign approaches for improving men’s overall wellbeing in the United States, each emphasizing different core values: growth, rigidity, loyalty, order, and balance. Each appeal was approximately 100 words long and all avoided the word “masculinity.”

Conservative respondents held strong, net-favorable views of all five appeals, while progressive respondents held net-favorable views of four of the five appeals (rejecting only the rigidity/resistance to change message).

In an encouraging sign for coalition-building, the same message held the highest net-favorability score among both conservatives and progressives. This winning message focused on growth, using language like “learning and adapting through life’s challenges” and “aiming to be better men today than we were yesterday.” This language taps into deeply held beliefs about self-improvement, progress, and the possibility of change. This isn’t the rigid masculinity of unchanging stoicism—it’s a dynamic, evolving conception of manhood that allows for mistakes, learning, and development.

The message with the next highest favorability scores emphasized balance, describing manhood as understanding “when to lead and when to listen, when to show strength and when to show gentleness.” In line with focus group participant Thomas’s insights above, this framing highlights the wisdom of knowing which qualities fit which moments, rather than dividing traits into rigid categories of good or bad. This message ranked first for moderates, second for progressives, and third for conservatives.

The progressive paradox

While the research found broad support for addressing men’s issues, the message testing revealed an unexpected challenge among American progressives. Progressive participants, even as they affirm the importance of the cause and hold favorable views of the growth and balance messaging, showed significant reluctance to publicly champion them. They were more unlikely than likely to “like” a social media post for all five messages, even those they personally endorsed. This result was flipped among conservatives, who showed much greater willingness to “like” social media posts about men’s wellbeing campaigns.

Several hypotheses might explain this paradox. There may be fear among progressives that supporting men’s issues signals alignment with regressive politics or men’s rights extremism. Others might worry about appearing to minimize women’s ongoing struggles or betraying feminist principles. Either way, the dissonance here is striking; progressive men are unwilling to be public about their support for, and interest in, men’s issues.

A coalition in the making?

In our fractured political landscape, issues that unite 60-75% of Americans are rare. But that is exactly what we found in this study. The fact that such consensus exists around men’s wellbeing suggests we’ve found something that transcends our usual divisions: a shared recognition that men’s health deserves to be taken seriously, not just for the good of men but for the good of all. For organizations like Movember and the American Institute of Boys and Men, these findings provide both validation and direction. The time is right, and the American public is ready for this conversation.

Success will depend on strategic communication that brings people together rather than driving them apart. The specific words and frames we use can determine success or failure. The best path is to use inclusive language that builds bridges, focusing on growth and balance, rather than shame and blame. Offering practical solutions rather than abstract theories will always win out. It is encouraging that conservative participants showed eagerness to champion practical and aspirational messages about men’s wellbeing, even those that push beyond simplistic appeals to traditional values. The reluctance among progressive audiences to publicly champion men’s health as a cause, despite private support, presents a unique challenge requiring thoughtful coalition-building and messaging approaches.

If we meet this moment with care, courage, and common purpose, men’s health can become not a wedge issue but a unifying cause that strengthens families, communities, and the nation as a whole.

Zac Seidler

Zac Seidler is a clinical psychologist, researcher and leading men’s mental health expert. He currently holds dual roles as Global Director of Men’s Health Research at Movember and Senior Research Fellow with Orygen at the University of Melbourne. He is a member of AIBM's Advisory Council.

Brian Heilman

Brian P. Heilman is a gender equality researcher, writer, and Senior Research Fellow at Movember.