Why Don’t Boys Cry?

May 25, 2007

As I’ve pointed out on numerous occasions as of late, I’ve been on a book-reading kick lately. In the past two weeks I’ve plowed through three of them. They were all different. Each one had a unique story line, unique characters, and unique authors. But they also shared one thing in common: emotional male characters.

The Cure - Boys Don’t Cry

On more than one occasion in each book, the main characters - who were male - cried about something. The first time it didn’t phase me. The second time I raised an eyebrow. But the third time I started to wonder what was up with all the boo-hooey men in these books. I started thinking of all the reasons those books just weren’t true to character.

But today I stopped and asked myself why. Why would I naturally assume that male characters crying was “untrue to form” or “not realistic”? Is it really that big of a stretch of the imagination to have men show emotion in fictional novels?

The answer, I’ve decided, is obviously no. But it also made me realize that I never would have second-guessed a crying male character if society didn’t expect me to.

Historically speaking, men were expected to play different roles in society. They were the protectors… the warriors… the knights… the soldiers. To see a man cry in one of these societies might have been a sign of weakness. Big, brave men don’t cry. They face their fears and deal with them.

Times have changed. But our attitudes haven’t.

We have more gender neutrality today than at probably any other time in history. Sure… we’ve still go a way to go. Men and women are still not treated equally in all regards. There are about a zillion studies out there that show men make more than women in the corporate world. Women are allowed into The Army… but are they treated equally? Women’s sports are growing in popularity every day. But they don’t rival their male counterparts.

Most would say that our Western societies are still tipped in the favor of the Y chromosome. But emotionally speaking - and thus developmentally speaking - this is not the case.

I’ll argue that emotionality is a critical part of our development any day. I may not be the poster child of the full range of emotion. But I’d never suggest that someone with a blunted bank of emotional responses was the poster child of human development, either. Without full access to our emotional faculties we’re simply not taking advantage of all that it means to be human.

So as far as the differences between men and women go in that regard, men have the short end of the stick. All humans, regardless of sex or gender, experience the same emotions. We experience them differently. But the range of emotion in a healthy human being is the same across the board.

So why are men still socially trained to suppress their instinct to cry?

It starts at birth. And it continues well into adulthood. Society says boys don’t cry. They fall of their bikes and scrape their knees. They bleed just like girls. But society says they don’t cry about it. Boys get dumped and cheated on but do they cry about it? Heck no. That’s unmanly. Boys get just as sad and just as depressed and just as angry as girls.

But instead of expressing themselves - and crying - they repress the emotion and keep it bottled up inside.

Maybe this is why there are so many more violent male criminals? Maybe this is why certain psychological disorders are more prevalent in men than women? Maybe this sociological de-emotionalization of men is hurting them on two fronts: 1) psychologically and 2) developmentally.

Do you think it’s unmanly for a guy to cry? If your brother or husband or boyfriend or co-worker broke down and cried about something would you think less of him as a person? Would you think less of him as a man? Should that even matter?

Guys… I say it’s time we took our developmental potential back. I say it’s time we started wrenching every last emotion out of that Y chromosome that we can. I say we redefine what “manly” means. I say we get it all out in the open, clear our minds, and express ourselves as openly and freely as the opposite sex.

I say we cry.

This post is part of The Emotional Roller Coaster: Taking the Track Apart. Please visit the Series page for a complete index of all related posts.

Posted in Emotions, Series, Society

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