‘Boys Don’t Cry’: A ‘Crying Boy’ Reflects on the Shame of Male Tears
All people experience shame. For men, shame often arises from our perceived ‘failure’ to inhibit the stoic masculine role. Men are expected not to waver or experience doubt. Men cannot be dependent or in-need. Men must be strong and feel powerful. Those are the messages consistently drilled into us by the masculine constructs of our culture. For men, shame rises in our hearts for not being able to tackle something alone, for relying on others, for being vulnerable, for being physically ‘inadequate’, for feeling helpless. Men are told to avoid expressing weakness. As Brene Brown summarises in her book Daring Greatly:
Men live under the pressure of one unrelenting message: Do not be perceived as weak
Crying is one of the earliest and most critical lessons young boys receive about what not to express. As the infamous phrase goes, “boy’s don’t cry!” It twists itself into a gender-defining paradigm: big boys don’t cry, real men don’t cry, crying is for pussies. A natural response to sadness, stress, frustration and hurt is conditioned out of us by gender expectations.
As a child, I was sensitive. I’d wager I was one of the most sensitive children in my school — more so than many of the girls. I was ‘the crying boy’, the one who responded to criticism with tears, being yelled at with…
