don's report archive

by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.

Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

On August 2nd of this year, National Wellness Institute (NWI) Executive Director Linda Chapin sent an e-mail to board and trustee members asking for ideas for programs to offer at the next (29th) annual conference that might better address topics of importance and interest to men, such as "men's health, men's issues."

As a trustee who has attended the week-long wellness festivals every July for 22 years, I agree with the director that an infusion of new and different topics is very much needed, and not primarily because the conference in Stevens Point attracts a disproportionate female audience! (How disproportionate? Data are not released by the NWI but I estimate the ratio, while way out of balance, is not nearly as desirable as 98 women for every two guys.)

The real reason few men attend, I suspect, is that sessions are devoted primarily to touchy-feely, feminine, quasi and not so quasi-religious messages, and outlandishly squishy, airy-fairy hand-holding irrational and sentimental kind of stuff -- which women seem to love. NOT that there's anything wrong with that! Some of the regular patrons have never complained about the gender gap; many of us have, however, bemoaned the lopsided focus on the touchy-feely to the neglect of critical inquiry, debates, alternate views and a focus on reason and science.

In any event, good business practice and hopefully a desire for a broader, fresher and more challenging agenda have moved NWI management to seek out ideas for rendering the annual conference more appealing, not just to any males, but hopefully to sensible as well as "sensitive New Age guys." Consistent with past recommendations, my response to this request was to suggest once again that the biggest challenge is not so much overcoming a male deficiency (that is, getting more males to attend) but rather better balancing the nature of the presentations. Rather than male/female imbalance, the need is more reason and less promotion of magical/irrational thinking.

I passed the director's e-mail along to a few male friends who once made a habit of attending the summer conferences but no longer do so. One of the most interesting reactions came from Australian polymath Grant Donovan, whose presence and that of other male (and female) Aussies is very much missed at these gatherings. Grant wrote, "So the NWI group needed 28 years to realize that real men aren't very interested in hand-holding and swaying? I guess they missed their chance with the WO (a session Grant and I conducted in 1993 -- 'WO' stands for Wellness Orgasm.) We have been asking the following question in every workshop for the past few years. This is true! 'What are men really interested in and motivated by? The five most common answers from many hundreds of Australian men (which may have zero correlation with US men) are:

1. Sex

2. Boys toys, like cars and boats

3. Sport

4. Money

5. Competition

So, there you have it, the answer to Linda's questions. I'm happy to do a keynote or workshop on the subject." Grant Donovan

If you would like to do a keynote or a session on any of these five topics, or otherwise make suggestions for programming that might draw more critical thinking if not more men to the annual National Wellness Conference in Stevens Point in July, please write or call Linda Chapin (800 244-8922.) This would also be a good idea if you LIKE the touchy-feely, feminine, quasi and not so quasi-religious messages, and outlandishly squishy, airy-fairy hand-holding irrational and sentimental kind of stuff -- or a conference where just about everyone is female.

Be well, enjoy and look on the bright side of life.

(Note: This essay will be filed in the archives in the MENTAL DOMAIN under the skill area of factual knowledge. Additional articles related to this theme may be found there.)

(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)

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