“Stop crying, boys don't cry”
“Keep that up and I will give you something to cry about”, these
are just some of the examples of phrases boys have heard growing up.
These and many other statements are designed to teach boys to
suppress what are considered negative emotions, fear, sadness, anger,
physical pain. This conditioning can create men who seem emotionally
cold and uncaring when it comes to the suffering of others, it can
also cause these men to lash out in anger towards others because
these suppressed emotions can come to a head. But why is this? Why
would we want to take our young boys who are just as emotional as
young girls and teach them that feeling emotions are bad?
Though men and women both tend to
agree that emotions have their time and place the occurrences where
men are allowed to show negative emotions are few and none. This
training I believe comes from the fact that emotions get in the way
when performing the roles that men traditionally take part in.
Traditionally men have been the providers and protectors of his
family, and emotions such as sadness or anger can have a dramatic
effect on his productivity. If you come to work sad you cant work
effectively, if you cant work effectively you get fired, your family
goes hungry, thus you have failed your role. Another example is if
you are a soldier or a member of the emergency medical services, you
are surrounded by injury and death, if you succumb to your emotions
people other than yourself can become injured. So to be successful in
his role he must learn to suppress his emotions, if not he may find
himself destroyed by them. This suppression does not mean that they
can't feel them however, we still feel anger and sadness. But because
men have not learned how to properly deal with these emotions they
are unable to process them, this can lead to frustration and thus
anger. This idea is supported by the work of Marvil Allen, author and
therapist.
I agree with what your saying about when they are young, we teach boys to show no emotion and "rub some dirt in it", but it's also how we treat the young girls also. If a boy falls down and scrapes his knee we tell him to get up and keep playing. If a girl falls down and scrapes her knee we are quick to rush over and pick her up and cuddle her etc. The reinforcment we give to each gender further pushes these gender norms in society today. About the EMT services, we know there are both genders working in that field. And in that area, the women have to be just as emotionally strong as the men, given that's their job! Just because a woman is an EMT doesn't automatically mean if she sees someone die she gets a day off work to sit home and cry about it. I feel when children are young we should rush to pick either of them up when they fall, allow both genders to cry if they need, allow both genders to play dress up ad barbies, allow both to play outside with trucks in the dirt. Ultimately I feel we should let the child decide how they want to display emotion for themselves and stop shoving these gender stereotypes down their throat. Instead of the saying "let boys be boys and girls be girls", it should be "let children be children".
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