I remember the day my brother stopped crying. He was about nine years old—his hair still the fine, silky hair of a young child, his skin soft and unmarked.
I don’t remember why he was upset—perhaps a twist of fate that felt unfair. It could have been something I had done myself; an act of cruelty at the hands of an older sibling, real or imagined.
I do remember how his face flushed. I saw the emotions rise in his chest. But instead of exploding into tears or wails—as he would normally have done—he stifled them, he swallowed them down. There was only a small, faint squeal to mark the suppression, as if something was dying inside of him that day.
And it was. His emotional life was being neutered.
Here is the thing I think about:
My brother didn’t learn to stifle his feelings at home. Our mother is a psychologist—we were encouraged to have feeling and to express them. When we got frustrated in our teen years, she sent us to her client office with a tennis racket and told us to beat on the foam rubber futon that was in the corner for just that purpose. (We hated this, by the way).
And our parents were divorced—my father left when my mom was pregnant with my brother and never came back. There was no father figure telling my brother to “man up,” no uncles or grandfathers around, either. We weren’t allowed to watch television at home, so media influence was limited to the occasional TV show seen at the homes of friends.
And yet, somehow my brother picked up the message that boys should not cry.
I don’t know if it came from a sports coach, a teacher, a fellow student—or just absorbed from the atmosphere. Perhaps he had been called sissy, perhaps he had been mocked, or told to “toughen up.” I don’t know. But I never saw him cry again, not really. Once, as a teenager, he got so upset he made horrible noises to keep himself from crying; it sounded like there was a seal dying in his bedroom.
I think about this every time I see the news that another boy has shot up his school, another man has taken his anger, his rage, and turned it into a lethal weapon. Were they also little boys told not to cry? What happens to men when they get the message that they must swallow their hurt? What does that do in their bellies? Does it turn toxic and slowly poison them?
When I was young, it seemed like we could balance society by raising strong and empowered women and girls, by breaking down the barriers. Now, I’m firmly convinced that we will never move forward entirely until we take a closer look at what happens to boys and men. How our culture attempts to drive all that is soft and gentle out of them. It’s a wholesale rejection of the feminine.
And it starts early. In an article in Alternet, Kali Holloway writes:
“Psychologist Terry Real, in his 1998 book I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression, highlights numerous studies that find parents often unconsciously begin projecting a kind of innate ‘manliness’—and thus, a diminished need for comfort, protection and affection—onto babies as young as newborns.
As Real explains, ‘[l]ittle boys and little girls start off... equally emotional, expressive, and dependent, equally desirous of physical affection. At the youngest ages, both boys and girls are more like a stereotypical girl. If any differences exist, little boys are, in fact, slightly more sensitive and expressive than little girls. They cry more easily, seem more easily frustrated, appear more upset when a caregiver leaves the room.’”
I’ve seen this in my own life. When my friend group started having babies, I noticed how the baby girls were praised for their beauty, while baby boys—even newborns—were complimented for having a strong grip when they held onto visitor’s fingers with their tiny hands, or for “flirting” when they batted their eyelashes at women nearby. “He’s going to be a lady killer!” was the comment made when one baby boy seemed particularly interactive. I found it strange that we were sexualizing babies in this way.
I got another dose of it when, after two nieces, my brother and his wife had a boy. I went to the store to buy gifts for my new nephew, and the little romper suits marketed for boy babies proclaimed things like: “Chick Magnet” and “Daddy’s #1 Draft Pick.”
Girl babies get butterflies, flowers, and rainbows; boy babies get sex and sports, apparently.
I’ve felt this urge to gender babies as well—I’ve had to train myself in the way I talk about them. I am now just as likely to mention a girl baby being strong or a boy baby being beautiful. Because they are. (Not to mention, their gender may be fluid or change, so what do we even know?). It’s hard to ignore the way we treat babies differs.
Holloway continues to cite Real in her article:
“‘…from the moment of birth, boys are spoken to less than girls, comforted less, nurtured less.’ We begin emotionally shortchanging boys right out of the gate, at the most vulnerable point in their lives.
It's a pattern that continues throughout childhood and into adolescence…both mothers and fathers emphasized ‘achievement and competition in their sons,’ and taught them to ‘control their emotions’—another way of saying boys are tacitly instructed to ignore or downplay their emotional needs and wants. Similarly, parents of both sexes are more punitive toward their sons, presumably working under the assumption that boys ‘can take it.’”
Considering these points, I wonder what happened to my brother. Did we—unconsciously and unintentionally—ignore his emotions, until he got the message that he shouldn’t have any? (Or, rather, only have aggressive, competitive ones).
I’d like to say no, but considering these statistics, it's hard to feel confident in that. Even though we had an intentionally egalitarian household, I am sure the culture seeped in and influenced us.
According to Holloway’s article, “…research suggests they [boys] begin to hide their feelings from as young as 3 to 5 years old. ‘It doesn't mean that they have fewer emotions. But they're already learning the game—that it's not a good idea to express them.’”
And the fallout of these early influences has an impact that ripple out into every aspect of life.
“Men are twice as likely as women to suffer from rage disorders. According to the Centers for Disease Control, men are more likely to drink to excess than women, leading to “higher rates of alcohol-related deaths and hospitalizations.” (Possibly because men under the influence are also more likely to engage in other risky behaviors, such as “driv[ing] fast or without a safety belt.”) Boys are more likely to have used drugs by the age of 12 than girls, which leads to a higher likelihood of drug abuse in men than in women later in life. American men are more likely to kill (committing 90.5 percent of all murders) and be killed (comprising 76.8 percent of murder victims). This extends to themselves, according to studies: “males take their own lives at nearly four times the rate of females and comprise approximately 80 percent of all suicides.” (Interestingly, suicide attempts among women are estimated to be three to four times higher than that of their male counterparts.) And according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, men make up more than 93 percent of prisoners.
‘Men’s willingness to downplay weakness and pain is so great that it has been named as a factor in their shorter lifespan. The 10 years of difference in longevity between men and women turns out to have little to do with genes. Men die early because they do not take care of themselves. Men wait longer to acknowledge that they are sick, take longer to get help, and once they get treatment do not comply with it as well as women do.’”
When I ask my brother about these things, he doesn’t want to talk about it. He says he doesn’t remember, but I think about it all the time.
I have a nephew now, and I wonder about the messages he may be getting. I’d like to think that things have softened a bit—he was raised in a house where his father made dinner every night, where his creativity was encouraged just as much as his sisters, where nail polish was something anyone could wear, if they wanted to. But my nephew was the one who wanted his hair cut short, like in the military, when his mother preferred it long. What sort of messages is he getting from the culture, from the atmosphere? Has he already decided it is not okay for him to cry?
If we want to do better, we have to talk about this. We have to be more aware of what we’re doing. It seems the only way forward.
Kali Holloway’s full article is very much worth the read. She links these roots of toxic masculinity to an impact on politics and the Trump presidency.
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*Photo of young boys playing soccer by Alexander Nadrilyanski, via pexels.com