Are men just as sensitive as women? Sarah Fader writes a resounding yes.
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Our society perpetuates the idea that women are sensitive creatures. We are in touch with our emotions. We’re able to express ourselves and tell others when we’re sad or angry. We have no problems crying. In fact, women and girls are encouraged to cry if the occasion permits. Cry, let it out, it’s OK to cry, I’ve been told over and over again.
Little boys, on the other hand, are often told to “stop crying” from a young age.
There is a societal expectation for boys to display toughness. I took a developmental psychology course during my undergraduate career. In that course, I read a book called Real Boys By Dr. William Pollack of Harvard Medical School. In the book, Pollack talks about the issue of repressed emotions in boys and men. He specifically calls attention to the fact that men are discouraged from crying and expressing outward sadness.
Due to the fact that men are told not to cry and suck it up from a young age, they often become disassociated from their feelings of sadness.
What happens when you remove someone’s ability to express sadness? They find another emotion to replace it with. Often times this emotion is anger. Most men, from my experience, have no problem expressing anger. It’s a familiar emotion to them and society encourages them to express it. Unlike sadness, which they are told to hide at all costs.
When was the last time you cried?
I’ve dated many different men in my life. From the time I was 15 years old until now, I’ve noticed that they behave in a similar way when they express their emotions. As a sensitive person, I have no problem expressing how I feel, whether it’s sadness, anger, happiness, anxiousness or frustration.
The men that I’ve dated have typically expressed themselves the best in writing. Some of them were great speakers, but their writing was where they truly shined. I still have old love letters from my boyfriends from high school and college because they are beautifully written. Sure, call me sentimental, but I value the human ability to express genuine emotion.
Sometimes, I play this game with my male friends. I’ll ask a guy that I’m close to: “When was the last time you cried?”
The responses are fascinating. Often, the man won’t admit to crying recently. He’ll say “a couple of months ago.” He might even remark that it was years ago. The most troubling of these responses is: “I can’t remember.”
If you can’t remember the last time you cried, that’s a problem. That means that you’re repressing genuine emotions.
When my 5-year-old son cries, I tell him, “It’s OK to cry, honey. Let it out.” And I hold him. I rub his back. And guess what? His father tells him the same thing. We believe in encouraging emotions in our children. Emotions are a normal, healthy part of life. Boys are allowed to feel and express sadness.
We need to encourage our boys to be able express sadness in a cathartic way. As parents, we need to tell them that it is OK to let the tears flow when they’re sad, despite what society tells them.
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Sarah Fader’s article first appeared on Huffington Post
Photo: lil’_wiz/Flickr
You not only need to tell a child it is okay to cry. You also need to show by example.
When was the last time his father cried in front of him, and how was your reaction to that?
Crying is part of our human emotions whether we like it or not and we men should not be denied to cry whether in private or in public. In my life so far, I have never ever seen men cried in private or public nor have I seen it in many films and TV shows so don’t tell me that American men cried as part of their emotions, when actually they have been suppressed from doing so.
“Are Men Just as Sensitive as Women?” Ah, but which men? Which women? Nothing in this article is decisively & verifiably inaccurate (relatively, situationally, and subjectively speaking). But neither is it reliably accurate to pin emotionalism or sensitivity (or lack thereof) directly or exclusively to gender. Proceeding from a presumption that it is already indelibly tied to gender, of course, we’re bound to be more acutely sensitive & perceptive to instances which confirm or otherwise correspond with that bias, rather than the ones that defy or confound it. But regardless; correlation is not the same as causation. The breadth of societal expectations of… Read more »
To be honest, I’m really getting tired of these articles about men crying. I’m a 60 year old male and in ALL my years I have seen countless men of all ages cry. STOP stereotyping men! Yes, as with any issue, there will be some men who struggle but it’s not the norm. It’s reminding me of the 60’s where men were pegged as uncaring slugs that took advantage of their women whereas in fact the wide majority of men didn’t. But it sounded good and many females ran with it so that they could further their cause. One place… Read more »
It’s not about having to cry in front of others, but being able to without shame. The suicide rate for males is HUGE, men not showing and sharing emotions is part of the battle. I myself feel the enormous stigma of being a man and trying not to show emotions in front of others.
I think a more relevant question is not when was the last time a man cried, but when was the last time they cried in the presence of another person. For the former I suspect it would have been more recent than you would imagine, but for the later I would wager probably not since they were a child.