International Men’s Day is observed every year on 19 November, though it often receives far less attention than other global commemorative days. The day was established in the late 1990s to draw attention to men’s health, emotional well-being, social expectations, and the pressures created by rigid gender roles. In many countries, discussions also include workplace stress, mental health, violence affecting men, and the need for healthier ways to understand masculinity.
This day arrives in a context where gender conversations are usually dominated by women’s rights and rightly so, given the scale of violence and discrimination women face. But International Men’s Day points to another layer of the gender system: how certain expectations placed on men, being unemotional, powerful, financially stable, “in control,” also shape behaviour, relationships, and mental health. In Bangladesh and elsewhere, these norms influence everything from family dynamics to violence in public life, from online behaviour to internalized shame around vulnerability.
International Men’s Day does not ask for celebration; it simply offers space to notice that masculinity, too, is shaped by social pressures. It highlights that men’s experiences, whether emotional strain, silence around trauma, or the weight of expectations, rarely enter public conversation in meaningful ways. Acknowledging this does not reduce or distract from women’s struggles; it helps complete the picture of how gender operates across society.
So the message today is straightforward: Recognizing men’s experiences and pressures does not undermine gender justice; it expands our understanding of how people live within gendered expectations.
International Men’s Day can be a moment to acknowledge complexity, encourage honest conversations, and hold space for reflection without turning the day into a competition with women, or a celebration of men as a category.
Bangladesh Feminist Archives 