Movember rips off men's health dollars

It was a great idea - a charity started by a couple of Aussie blokes who persuaded men to grow moustaches to support the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Twenty years later, Movember has grown from that small group of men sporting hairy upper lips to become the major male health charity in the world.

Every November, in country after country, blokes fondly imagine they are doing their bit growing a Mo to support men's health. As one of the very few events where men's issues make it onto the public agenda, men with Mos and their financial supporters bask in the glow of raising funds they think will improve the welfare of other males.

Little do they know that this huge enterprise, run by a feminist and supported by mainly female staff, is increasingly committed to diverting men's health dollars away from real male health concerns towards woke projects promoting anti-male ideology.

Last year Movember formed an alliance with UN Women. Movember's CEO Michelle Terry became one of four global "Champions" feted at the HeForShe summit, designed to mobilize the world for gender equality. Here she is on video boasting of raising $1.1 billion over the last twenty years through Movember's 6 million supporters.

Terry made a series of commitments to UN women including that Movember would promote "healthy masculinities" – which generally means publicly denigrating men and taking boys to task for their toxic masculinity.

Terry also promised Movember would implement "inclusive hiring", develop mentorship programs for women, and maintain gender parity in her senior leadership group – goals which few would see as relevant to a men's health charity.

But Terry has certainly nailed the female leadership issue. Her leadership group is now 70% women. Take a look at the Movember team at a recent conference on the French Riviera.

It's the weirdest thing that these women don't see it as inappropriate to boast of taking over a men's charity. Can you imagine the fuss if the genders were reversed? It's always a tricky business to include any men in prominent positions in organisation raising funds for women – their role is usually very well hidden.

But look at this brazen pair, shown in a 2020 Movember feature celebrating that their workplace had hit 51% women. Here's the headline: Mo Sisters #BreakTheBias this International Women's Day!

The entitlement is breathtaking. Clearly it never occurs to them that this is in any way inappropriate.

And when it comes to their goals, it's not surprising that this mob would have a rather different agenda to the blokes who started the whole thing off.

Look at this graph showing Movember's expenditure in recent years, particularly since Michelle Terry took over in 2020. The big drop – see blue line – is from the initial major focus on prostate and testicular cancer research, which declined from 30% of the total spend to only 7%.