Manly Crying and Why We Should Do it More

Have you ever heard of manly tears? It’s such a strange concept, isn’t it?

It’s the world’s most persistent farce that water from eyes can be gendered, and yet we still have boys and men being socialized and conditioned to suppress a very natural emotional response, for no tangible identifiable reason.

Men in ancient lore were copious criers from King Arthur to King Hrothgar of Beowulf fame to even Jesus Christ– all for a variety of reasons ranging from joy to gratitude to devotion to longing.

Exactly how and when and why did we decide that men shouldn’t be crying outside of specific circumstances, when some of the greatest figures of history were free weepers?

“It will look weak.”

So what? You’re entitled to feel weak. There are a lot of things in life that chip away at your emotional health – from death and illness to pain and rejection, and it’s abundant enough that we’re going to feel that way regularly.

Do you even realize how hard life is? Have you looked around lately?

The economy is steadily worsening for every new generation, the environment is caving in around us, the world slipped into a pandemic for the last couple of years, and global bureaucrats are doing their absolute darndest to slow any progress possible to the point of futility. You’d be an insane person to not be depressed about the state of the world we have to push our way through. Who isn’t sad these days?

“But you’re not supposed to show it.”

Again, why not? What happens if you do? Expression of your feelings helps you get through them faster and in a healthier way. It helps you through the hard times and helps you soldier on.

Crying is one of your body’s natural mechanisms to processing grief and a variety of emotional harm. It’s the most relatable experience everyone has and the ones who don’t internalize that pain and it fails to process in a healthy natural way.

“People will make fun of you. They’ll laugh at you. They’ll tell you you’re not a man. It’s womanly, they’ll mock you. They’ll tell you you’re pathetic. They’ll look down on you.”

And how terrible is it that we do this? Isn’t it about time we stopped?

We took a natural emotional response that every person on the planet has to healthily process the struggles and hurt caused by so many regular harmful experiences, and we stigmatized it for men and boys because… of a made-up ideal for what it means to be a man?

Does this make sense to you?

It serves no understandable purpose and it’s high time we ended the stigma because it literally has no tangible benefit.

Scientifically, it actually harms you when you force yourself to not cry. Every time you make the choice to be a man’s man and stifle those womanly tears, your stress hormones – such as adrenaline and cortisol – cause chest tightness and heavy breathing which in turn messes up your appetite and blood sugar levels. It has the ironic effect of actually exacerbating your feelings (such as sadness, frustration, and grief) and making you feel worse.

You’re literally ruining your own health to fit an imaginary standard based on irrational notions of manhood. The manhood badge is fake fellas, and it has no real-world value or currency or benefit, and the mad pursuit to attain it is costing you your health.

Your most alpha-est of alphas is miserable and sick and his reward for this self-inflicted suppression is that we can applaud him for how sigma he is for stifling his tears to an early grave.

Of course, this is assuming you’re actively choosing to not cry.

Maybe you can’t cry. Maybe you’re like me this past year and can’t really get it out of you even if you want to.

I had to learn to cry this year and it was hard because I wasn’t even sure why I couldn’t to begin with.

In 2021, all three of my remaining grandparents died within months of each other and I bottled up. A subconscious part of me thought I needed to stay strong to weather the year and keep moving but all that did by the end was prolong and mummify the grief in my system.

I wasn’t even doing it on purpose – a very natural reflex kicked in and stifled any emotional response I had to all that tragedy around me. I was socialized through my school, through my peers growing up, and partially through my upbringing, that crying was an unhealthy response and I internalized that harmful lesson so thoroughly that even though I knew better, I didn’t feel safe enough to cry and feel the grief.

“You’re pathetic, what grown man cries? Suck it up and be strong.”

But, not crying weakened me. It made me struggle with my grief more than I otherwise would have if I had just cried it out when I wanted to.

I don’t like not being able to cry when I watch sad scenes in movies. I don’t like the fact that I can only cry in private. And I especially don’t like the fact that I couldn’t cry out the grief that was inside of me this past year to the point where I needed my therapist to help me out.

Don’t you wish you could cry around your friends and they’ll just let you and surround you and give you the space to do so without judgment?

“But men don’t cry. It’s pathetic.”

But men do cry and we beat it out of them and it serves nothing.

Boys and girls cry at the same rate growing up and, along the way, around puberty, we instruct and stigmatize boys from tearing up. It leads to long-lasting emotional damages that contributes to heightened feelings of isolation, diminished self-worth, and a higher chance of suicidal tendencies when they’re older.

Now, I cry when I’m sad. I cry when I’m stressed. I cry when I’m lonely, when I’m feeling rejected, when I’m disappointed by things not working out for me. I cry when I see something terrible is happening in the world or when I watch a sad scene in a movie.

I cried when my sister left to pursue a new life abroad. Every time I cry, it’s a release and I begin to come to terms with the painful feelings I have.

I’m able to process them healthily and they don’t linger and fester inside of me, accumulating steadily for an inevitable meltdown. I’ve learned to cry through therapy and I wish I was never taught to stifle it in the first place. I didn’t grow up in an environment that normalized crying but we can do our best to change that for ourselves and for future generations.

Real men don’t cry. They bawl.