A few months ago, as I sat outside a classroom waiting to be let in, I overheard an intriguing conversation. Two students, a guy and a girl, were sitting across the hall from me. The girl was talking about a recent break-up, complaining about her now ex-boyfriend’s reaction. The guy sitting beside her asked if he had cried when she broke up with him, and when she answered yes, he replied; “He just lost his man card. No guy should cry that hard unless all guns were outlawed, or something.”
My reaction (which they did not see) must have looked something like this:
And my reaction was not due to the fact that this girl broke up with her boyfriend. I don’t know her, I did not know the nature of their relationship, and I should not have been eavesdropping to begin with. It’s not my place to validate whether she should have broken up with this dude. My reaction was to the comment made by the person she was talking to. The only reason a man should cry is if guns were outlawed? A gross overstatement, but it leads to a bigger issue.
In the U.S. and the U.K., the male-to-female suicide death ratio is 3:1, and the global ratio is 2:1. These numbers are surprising, as it is typically reported that women have higher rates of mental disorders like depression. However, it has been shown that women report mental health issues more often than men, and that men are less likely to seek emotional support during trying times. In one study, it was found that one in five men felt that showing their emotions was a sign of weakness. The study also found that almost a third of men would be embarrassed about seeking help for a mental health problem.
Researchers have found that boys and girls cry just frequently as each other before the age of 12, but after that, boys cry four times less than girls. As a camp counselor, I can confirm that in my experience it seemed that until ages seven and eight, boys and girls cried about the same, or reacted in similar fashions when something happened to them. However, by the age of 10, I noticed young boys started either holding back emotion or reacting with anger.
While hormone changes can also be considered a factor, so can the fact that society teaches boys to suppress their feelings, except for anger, in order to appear masculine. Boys are told to "tough it out" or that "boys don't cry" in order to not seem weak or vulnerable. By being trained to conceal emotions at a young age, grown men are then unable to ask for help when they really need it.
Although mental health issues are becoming more accepted, our society still has a long way to go. Crying is not just for women, and no one should be ashamed to experience feelings of hurt or sadness. We need to stop telling boys that they can't cry, and start telling them that true, honest masculinity comes from caring for themselves.
