For as long as I can remember, men are not encouraged to be emotional simply because “you don’t want to be a bitch.” It is like an unspoken rule everywhere because it was the case in East Africa, Congo, Jamaica, and now in the United States. I remember back in my early childhood, whenever I fell and hurt myself playing outside, the people around would just whisper “shhh shh stop whining, be a MAN!” It was so engraved in me that every time I saw a boy crying, I would view him as weak, and incompetent; real men don’t cry. However, whenever I saw a girl crying, the first thing I would think of is “I wonder what is wrong with her? Does she need someone to talk to?” As I grew up and started experiencing more of life, I got that revealing moment like “Ok, I see why people cry now.” It’s not a secret that life gets hard. It will get hard for everyone no matter their background, and every once in a while, you will reach a point where you just have to let it all out. 

In my case, I found it difficult to cry, for instance, l will get really emotional but nothing will come out; no tears. So, I will end up forcing it out but to no avail. Next thing you know I’m on YouTube watching sad videos hoping they will pull a tear out of me like my situation isn’t terrible enough. An hour in after doing everything in my power, guess where I end up? On google just like every sensible person. There I typed, “why won’t tears come out when I cry.” The results were varying but I found it funny how one of the results was “you live in a dry climate; therefore, you don’t have a lot of water in the body.” I knew right away that this didn’t apply to me because it was a humid summer evening in Maryland and I sweat all the time. After a considerable amount of reflection and reading sources from mindbodygreen.com, I realized that the reason I won’t fully cry is that I won’t let myself get there, and that is because of all the cultural stigma that has been ingrained in me for years on end. Crying puts you in a vulnerable position and that can be hostile because we grew up seeing people get shamed and called names for simply expressing their emotions. It is very unfortunate that some people end up taking their own lives because they don’t feel comfortable or scared to express their emotions, so they end up burying them deep inside them until they can’t anymore. According to ourworldindata.org, men are twice more likely to commit suicide compared to women and the main reason is that most men would rather take their own lives than put themselves in a vulnerable position like sharing their deep feelings with the people around them. With proper education and awareness, we can eradicate stigmas like this and make it a safe place for everyone to share their feelings and have them be heard by someone. Just like the article by Iris Young Throwing like a girl, some actions and ideas just should have a gender attached to them because not only are they offensive, they can be hostile and take from one’s wellbeing.