The Manliness in Tears

By Sarisha Jaggi

“But by far the worst thing we do to males — by making them feel they have to be hard — is that we leave them with very fragile egos. The harder a man feels compelled to be, the weaker his ego is.”

― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists

Picture this, an Indian movie with men as gangsters torn between family and stealing. They find themselves feeling hopelessly upset and are cautioned by their ruthless buddies that they’re men and they’re not supposed to bring emotions into the picture. They do so using the evergreen, apparently whimsical and witty line, “Mard ko dard nahi hota”. As droll or epic as it may sound, what people don’t acknowledge is the orthodox undertone behind this line. The whole concept of “Men don’t cry” and anything remotely similar is absolutely incongruous, ominous, and needs to be changed with immediate effect. It’s not like men don’t have a heart. Knowing that anyone with a heart can feel, why do we encourage men to shy away from expressing their love, concern, or pain? Crying doesn’t make us look weaker and powerless. On the contrary, it shows that we worry and makes us more benevolent. Then why do we say it’s okay for women to cry but when men try to open up about their feelings, they are derided for the same?

In my opinion, toxic masculinity is an adverse effect of gender inequality. Since we’ve always let men take the lead and be the ones who make money and verdicts, we’ve also led them to not think about their feelings. I believe, if equality is practiced, society will learn to create a balance, and women will take decisions, and men will feel.

The patriarchal society considers men the ones who are luminary and are the decision-makers. They are portrayed to be both professionally and personally ruthless. With changing times, as women in society have progressively started to work and gain independence, I believe we need to encourage men and young boys to open up to their warm and passionate side so as to not keep them bottled up. Everybody feels emotions, and it’s natural to do so. However, those who don’t express and keep their thoughts and emotions away from loved ones are the ones wrecking their health and causing bodily harm and exorbitant stress.

Studies and data prove that men tend to have shorter life spans caused due to mental stress by keeping emotions and feeling bottled up. This tells us that it’s a grave mental health issue and reckless for one to keep one’s emotions clogged up, so, why do we do it? Or why do we even encourage it by letting it continue?

What people don’t realize is that offhand comments to keep one’s thoughts to themselves are also the epitome of the fact that participating in toxic masculinity is something our human brains have gotten used to. Examples of such unintentional participation are endless.

Very often, in front of my own eyes, I've seen people tell younger boys that they shouldn’t cry because they’re men. They tell these kids that they need to focus more on the task at hand and less on their feelings as they are of little importance. While maybe at the minute it seems like the perfect thing to tell our younger generations, a constant re-iteration of the same leads to this feeling getting embedded in young mindsets.

Social media trolling men who emote by calling them gay, weak, or some abusive slur. This is absolutely unacceptable because firstly, a person is not necessarily weak if he weeps during the death of a loved one (or any reason), it shows the person mattered and pays homage and respect to those who they lost. Calling someone gay for showing prudence is also very wrong because sentiments and sexuality are two very different topics that should not be mixed together.

We assume men to be strong. We think that strong people don't feel agony, but this is a wrong hypothesis. Humans, irrespective of their genders have hearts that feel, and these feelings are meant to be expressed and worked on. “People cry not because they’re weak. It’s because they’ve been strong for too long.” By telling young guys around us to not cry because it’s unmanly, we only manage to break them from the inside. This causes stress and disturbs one’s mental sanity. If you want to call yourself modern, maybe begin by encouraging your younger brothers to talk to you when they are hurt and upset. The next time you see someone tell a guy, “don’t cry, it’s not for me”, “be a man, stop crying”, or something similar, take a minute and explain the whole idea of toxic masculinity to them and make sure they open up. For us, and for the upcoming generations, let’s make this world a safe space where men can be honest without getting taunted.