Everyone experience emotions, good or bad. In my opinion, emotions run everyone. They guide what you do with your life, they guide all your decisions. They are a beautiful part of existence. Even the bad ones such as pain or hate can help you by giving you insight into the way you act. But if these negative emotions are not in check and acknowledged, they can lead to dangerous actions, the worst being violence.
Men especially are prone to violent behavior, I believe the reason for this is the social stigma that surrounds men and emotions. Men are taught not to feel pain, it is seen as unmanly which can be detrimental to their health. Denying yourself the way you feel is like denying yourself food or water. You need food and water to live, personally, I think it’s the same with emotions, if you ignore the way you feel, you suffer. If you suffer, you look for ways to not feel that pain. Most of these coping mechanisms are negative, such as drinking, doing drugs, harming yourselves, or harming others. On a larger scale, ignoring the way you feel can indirectly lead to an increase in violence, or intolerance.
Personally, I don’t think its naturals for men to be more violent or intolerant, it’s just society’s standards that guide the way men interact with their emotions. Personally, let’s say since the dawn of humanity, the gender roles were switched, women were taught to be tough, strong, and resilient, while men were taught to be quiet, emotional and submissive. If this were the case, I’m not a sociologist, but I do believe that women would be the ones committing violent crimes, and men would be the less violent gender. The reason for this are feelings. They’ve been around as long as humanity has, and they will be there until the end of humanity. They are universal.
The point I’m trying to make is emotions are important. They are valued way less than they should be. There are so many unnecessary stigmas, that while we may be trying to undo, they are still prevalent in our society. As long as these stigmas and ideas are around, it will continue to harm humanity as a whole.
