As I watched last week's episode of "The Bachelorette", a popular reality T.V. show, another disheartened suitor began his journey home alone, as many have before him. All the men on the show arrive intoxicated with the idea of falling in love with one girl, and seemingly do.
When the suitor began to depart to the airport, he began to cry. Of course he was dating this woman amongst the other men he lived with, but nonetheless they were dating.
"Ah Chion. You don't cry over a girl" a voice said next to me, "real men don't anyways."
Even as an avid viewer, I am skeptical of the depth of the relationships, but I responded, "What if he was in love? You wouldn't cry over the one you love, breaking up with you?"
"Not on camera, we are stronger than that," the voice said.
What. Men have emotions. People have emotions. Emotions do not make you weak. Emotional vulnerability is not negatively tied to strength. Stop. Stop. Stop.
As a girl I may not be the most qualified to speak on the topic of what "being a man" is, but I know what it is not. "Being a man" does not constitute hardness, pride or superiority. That does not constitute being a person.
Remarkable leaders and personal role models such as Ghandi, Dr. Martin Luther King and Pope Francis are men because of their strength, work on equality and compassion. Their lives are testaments to the power of sentiment and its ability to radicalize nation's mind sets toward peace.
Statistically speaking not everyone will be the next peace symbol or Pope, but that does not mean that one will not be a role model to someone else.
That voice is someone's father, husband, son, best friend, neighbor and the list continues.
Engraining that men don't cry, especially over a girl.
Biologically that is just ridiculous. Men are predisposed to cry less than women but less is not never. In the brain the amygdala controls and exercises fear and neural pathways form attachments, whether you are a man or a woman.
Men are creative, so are women. Men are sexual, so are women. Men are emotional, so are women. Frowning upon crying is prisoning. Women are expected to, whereas men are not allowed to. It is as if men are supposed to cage every feeling. That is an unjust punishment for solely being born male.
When did crying become a privilege that men do not have?
There is a societal shame against expression when expression itself was the reason why society was built: for language, relationships, art, and politics.
I hope it would not be too difficult to find characteristics of a person, rather than of a people.
