We call it a man’s land and all we do is talk about women's disputes.
Men are at the receiving end of stereotypes, prejudice, and biases too. Have you heard the phrase, “men don’t cry,” it starts early in life for them too? Boys are asked to like the color blue because pink makes them look uncool. Did anyone ever wonder if colors are gender-specific too?
While growing up he said, “I want to learn cooking,” but he landed up with guns and video games on his shelf. He didn’t want to be an engineer, he wanted to be called an interior decorator or a chef. It is so strange that restaurants recruit maximum male chefs and we propagate at home that the kitchen isn’t a boy's best friend.
Boys love to chatter – put their feelings into words. It is just they prefer hidden corners in the fear of being called a girl. Sexism is all around us, either a man becomes woman alike or is called-out as gay. At 15, he was wondering if “my bicycle isn’t manly enough, I will swing between homosexuality and femininity.”
The transition between adolescence and manhood was to learn to toughen up. If women are treated as sex objects, don’t miss out that men are evaluated as the success objects. Their chivalry is demanded but mistaken as a weakness. Nice boys are not masculine enough and their narcissism is toxic enough. Is there a middle ground?
The price tag attached to them isn’t of a beauty standard, it is their monetary savings. He didn’t want to be a breadwinner, he wanted to be a sit-at-home dad. He was told, “be man enough to take responsibility” and now he is known as “The man with the four-bedroom flat.”
This wasn’t the end of his journey, it’s just a start. Wait till he struggles as a son and a husband and falls apart. He couldn’t be the man of her dreams because society always told him, “your mother has sacrificed all her life for your needs.” He was conditioned to be a momma's boy – a different notion to man-up.
Now that you know that men struggle too, let’s find out about their encounters of abuse too. He wrote in his journal, “other men touch me too, I am just not allowed to be loud as you.” When the society tells you, it is a man’s land, let’s come together to realize – men are afraid of it too!
Take a minute and tell your father, brother, husband, and friend – you’re allowed to talk, vent, and cry without being judged by the unsaid rules.
#menandconditioning #menandmentalhealth #menandpatriarchy #mentalhealth #mentalwellbeing #mendontcry #themadnessforreal
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