ARE WE GROOMING TICKING TIME BOMBS?

Sir,

Unless we change the way we view men and realise how much they are hurting, we will keep losing them because of suicide. The emotionally damaging masculinisation of boys starts even before boyhood, in infancy. I will narrow this down by giving this example – I live with my niece and nephew, they are twins and 15 years old. From birth, my nephew has always been the one who was emotionally expressive – he would cry more, want more affection from his mother, he’d easily get upset, in a nutshell – he was the sensitive one. We all noticed this because we had our ideas of inherent sex-related differences between baby girls and boys.

Emotional

But the beautiful thing about my nephew is that even now at 15, he still is the emotional one. The only difference is that our cultural representation of manhood is restricting him. He still has the soft side in him, but he can no longer freely express it because he does not want to seem weak. According to a study that was done by Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, six-month-old boys cry more than baby girls do. And that held true for my niece and nephew, and yet every time I look at how much my nephew has changed on the outside, and how that hurts him on the inside, I get a true reflection of how stereotypes have created a culture that has a narrow and repressive description of manhood, designating manhood as defined by violence, sex, status and aggression.

Manliness

It’s the cultural ideal of manliness, where strength is everything while emotions are a weakness. It is perfectly normal for humans, of any gender, to cry and show emotions, but our society socialises men to be less vulnerable than girls.Discouraging men from expressing their emotions is not only unnatural, but it is also dangerous. Men suffering from depression are more likely than women to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol. They are also more likely to commit suicide. We all grew up believing that hiding your emotions is a sign of strength, and expressing how you feel is weakness.
Undeniably, these kinds of lessons impart deeply damaging messages to both girls and boys, and have lifelong and observable consequences.

Violence

This needs no explanation – it is evident by the endless reports of violence against women that are committed on a daily basis. Ironically though, violence is a sign of deep emotions. We need to stop asking ourselves questions like - what made him snap, but instead, start examining the things we teach boys and our expectations of them. We need to stop imparting myths of total strength and independence to men, because when they actually need help, they are flooded with feelings of loss, shame and uselessness, then they think they can’t manage these feelings, resulting in them hurting themselves, or taking it out on those who they consider weaker. Ask yourself today – are your perceptions of men, when it comes to masculinity healthy, or are you grooming a ticking time bomb?

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