A significant division has emerged around International Men's Day in Australia, with the government-funded peak health body for men publicly distancing itself from a conservative organisation running a parallel campaign with strikingly similar branding.
Two Campaigns, Divergent Messages
The Australian Men's Health Forum (AMHF), the official government-funded peak body for men's mental and physical health, has coordinated International Men's Day events since 2017. This year's AMHF campaign, running under the theme "supporting men and boys," maintains an inclusive approach to addressing men's issues.
Meanwhile, the Fatherhood Foundation, trading as Dads4Kids, claims to be the "global digital driving force" for International Men's Day. This conservative Christian organisation, which promotes traditional gender roles, has adopted the theme "celebrating men and boys" and operates websites with domain names and logos remarkably similar to the official AMHF campaign.
AMHF's chief executive officer, Glen Poole, explicitly stated: "AMHF is not affiliated with any International Men's Day website that does not support this inclusive approach to marking the date."
Controversial History and Stances
Dads4Kids, led by founder Warwick Marsh and his son Nathaniel Marsh, has promoted content that researchers describe as containing anti-feminist and anti-LGBTQI+ sentiments for over two decades.
In materials related to this year's International Men's Day, Warwick Marsh wrote that "masculinity is in danger of extinction" and described feminist ideology as "a cancer on society." The organisation has repeatedly referred to homosexuality as a "perverse" lifestyle choice in government submissions and described transexuality as a "deceptively fierce disorder."
Marsh was fired as a health ambassador in 2008 after then health minister Nicola Roxon called his published document "21 reasons why gender matters" "quite abhorrent." Despite this, the organisation has continued to reference the document in subsequent government submissions.
Academic Perspective on Evolving Dialogue
Professor Michael Flood, a Queensland University of Technology researcher specialising in masculinity and gender studies, noted that International Men's Day events have historically often featured anti-feminist framing, though this has decreased in recent years.
"In the last decade I've seen a growing number of events and discussions about IMD that acknowledge issues of mental health, suicide, other genuine forms of disadvantage that some men face but without the broader kind of anti-feminist framing that had troubled me," Flood explained.
The academic, who was initially hostile to International Men's Day, now speaks at events and believes the day is "redeemable" despite its complicated history. He suggests that while it can be "tricky" to identify whether an event promotes anti-feminist views, most contemporary events represent "well-intentioned efforts to address genuine forms of harm that men face."
Both organisations claim connection to International Men's Day founder Dr Jerome Teelucksingh from the University of the West Indies, though they maintain separate campaigns with fundamentally different approaches to addressing men's issues in modern society.
