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It is human to err and to err is to be human. Why has society then made it so difficult for people to own up to their mistakes? Why have emotions been so sidelined that an entire gender finds it difficult to cry? Being a man can mean a variety of things. Just like being a woman has individual definitions as well. However, there are some notions that are more popular and appear in more people’s sets than others. One of them is – being a man means to not cry.
This has severe implications for mental health for all men who are made to believe this. Studies done by NGOs that promote mental health show that globally, male suicide rates are increasing at an alarming rate. Organizations such as Movember have dedicated themselves to work on improving these numbers and ‘Changing the Landscape’ of mental health for men. In this article, we try to look at 5 basic reasons why men can’t cry.
Garbled views of masculinity
Masculinity in our world is synonymous with being stoic. Hence, most men are scared that crying in public will raise questions about their masculinity. They tend to then suppress their emotions and use humor as a self-defense mechanism. So much so that men’s mental health awareness campaigns use humourous devices to improve their outreach and make it effective. God forbid, two men sit down and have a serious and candid discussion about their mental health!
Low awareness regarding mental health
Expanding the above argument, since men don’t think it’s masculine to discuss emotions, there are no such discussions. Consequently, there is a lack of awareness regarding men’s mental health. Haven’t we all seen people be completely unaware of the emotional trauma of their male friends? Men don’t discuss their mental health and so people around them don’t expect there to be any problems.
Unreal expectations from society
Men are expected to be strong physically. You never hear someone say I want that man to be mentally strong. They just say strong and more often than not, it means physical strength! They are expected to not feel pain. Haven’t you ever heard the phrase ‘Man up!’? What do you think it means? If you man up, you won’t feel pain and you won’t need to cry.
Nurturing gender stereotypes from childhood
From when we are born, it is decided what gender is going to mean for us. If you’re a girl, you have a pink room. If you are a boy, blue. Girls play with dolls while boys play with stronger stuff. Girls can put on make-up, while boys can’t even put black nail polish! This adds to the persona we formulate of men, which features no crying.
Not in touch with their inner realities
All the above points result in a human being who is now distant from his inner reality. He is not allowed to deal with emotions that the world tells him he can’t feel. So he has to put up a facade that soon becomes his reality and he never cries
Men can cry. Men should cry, if only to ensure they can remove one reason from the huge list of reasons to cry that plague all human beings. So maybe, it’s time that the world’s gender norms shift enough that we let it be okay for our men to cry.
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