WOMEN are being urged to ‘kiss away the blues’ this September with an initiative aimed putting female mental health in the spotlight.
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Tamworth’s Billabong Clubhouse has rallied behind the fundraising and awareness cause.
“Liptember is in recognition of women’s mental health and it encourages women to wear a different colour lipstick everyday,” clubhouse manager Michael Herden said.
“It’s like Mo-vember, but for women.”
Mr Herden said the awareness drive has already gained “a lot of support” from the community, which will culminate in a morning tea at the Clubhouse on Wednesday morning.
Local ladies going along to the morning tea are encouraged to wear a colourful lipstick to help celebrate the cause.
The Liptember campaign is aimed at getting women talking about their mental health, and the drive comes on the back of some strong strategies aimed particularly at men.
The #itsokaytotalk and 22 push-up social media campaigns have been aimed at getting men to open up about mental health, but Mr Herden agreed there had been a gap in awareness for women’s mental health.
“Women tend to be more open,” he said.
“Men are the one’s who tend to bottle it up.”
But the Clubhouse operations manager said there was a way to go with mental health.
“Mental health is probably 20 or 30 years behind disabilities,” he said.
“So it’s good communities are doing a lot of awareness.”
Liptember organisers say one in three women will experience anxiety in their lifetime, while one in five will experience depression and suicide remains the leading cause of death for women aged 18 to 34..
The organisation also says up to 15 per cent of women will experience post-natal depression and the rates of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in women are twice as high than males.
Organisers say “the majority of mental health research is focused on men’s mental health” resulting in strategies that are unable to to fully assist the mental health needs of women. Funds raised from Liptember are donated to Lifeline and the centre for women’s mental health.