cultures

There are various opinions as to why men in most cultures of the world do not cry or express fear. Some say it is because men’s brains are wired differently from women’s. Others claim that almost all cultures “train” men to hide sadness and fear since those emotions are seen as “unmanly.” Whatever the reason for men behaving this way, most experts claim that repressing these feelings can lead to health issues – such as heart trouble and other stress-related health problems – as well as cause relationship difficulties, psychological problems, and violent behavior. Do you think men should express these “unmanly" emotions or not? Do you think we should acculturate our boys and men differently, or do agree that such emotions demonstrate weakness in a man and so must be avoided. Make sure to support your position with reasons, examples, and information from the 5 readings posted on Blackboard. Note: You can only use one other outside source than the readings provided to you.

ZMARZLY is a senior English and speech communications major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
As children, most of us were taught that God created man and woman. God created them in his own likeness to compliment each other and produce offspring. God provided Adam with no handbook or lecture on masculinity, and thus emotion and procreation abounded.
Imagine the same story set in the modern day. God created man and woman. Man felt an obligation from society to display the true essence of masculinity and male responsibility. Man guarded his emotions and never allowed himself to care for woman. Along the way were one-night stands, broken promises, a pass at woman’s best friend, and in the end, no man at all.
You’re probably saying, "What is this idiot talking about?" What I am trying to get at, is that somewhere since the beginning of life, things have changed in the male world. The first man in history was never told that if he displayed emotion he would be looked down upon. His life was one of emotion and love. To be a man in today’s society is difficult. A male must be successful in work and family. To be masculine is to be physically and emotionally strong. Somewhere along these guidelines, emotional strength became emotional suppression.
Let’s take a survey to prove my point. I want everyone who has cried in the last year to raise his or her hands. (For those of you who have actually raised your hand, this is a rhetorical thing. Put them down).
Why aren’t there more males represented? Two simple reasons: Guys rarely cry, and those who do, don’t want the ridicule of their friends. Crying is just an obvious emotional expression. The thing that most concerns me is the loss of the ability to express oneself emotionally, especially to a woman.
Males become so accustomed to masking their true emotions that it seems like second nature. At this point, the male behavior goes from unhealthy to dangerous. You begin to not care about women and finally fail to see them as people. It is easier to use a woman for physical means as opposed to actually caring for one. This behavior is not only common among males, but the effect is amplified when in a primarily male setting, such as a fraternity.
MATT HANEY/DN
I love my fraternity – always will. Joining was the best decision I have ever made, and I will always cherish the memories I have there and the experience I will take away from it. That being said, fraternity life can lead to the destructive lifestyle that I have described above.
For those of you who are now marching up greek row trying to close down the remaining fraternities, allow me to clarify my position. A fraternity is not a breeding ground for guys who use women. Some of my closest brothers have been with the same woman all through college and are getting married in the summer.
On the other hand, some of my closest brothers never last more than two weeks with the same woman, but these behaviors stem from personal choice, not group affiliation. As a group, fraternities attempt to teach respect toward women. I don’t think you will find one pledge program on campus where this is not a goal, but somewhere between group execution and individual attitude, this goal falls short. In the end, the fraternity simply provides males with the opportunity to use women, in the way of social functions, social skills and ample occasions to meet women.
The sad truth of the situation is that this type of behavior can flourish in any primarily male group. Let me give you an example: Let’s say five guys are sitting around in a room. One has a drinking problem, one comes from a broken family, one is getting kicked out of the university with a 0.6, one works in a porn shop and one has a girlfriend. Which one gets made fun of the most?
Obviously, the one with the girlfriend will be the target. He will receive taunts and whipping sounds when among his friends. A male’s tendency toward treating women poorly does increase when faced day in and day out with this kind of pressure. You lose sight of the fact that this friend of yours truly cares for a woman, and all you see is a "whipped little boy."
For those men out there who are frantically writing a response to my column to prove to women that all guys aren’t bastards, please grant me a small favor. Go take a close look in the mirror and ask yourself some questions. Have you ever dogged on one of your friends for being "whipped?" Have you made yourself emotionally available to every woman that you’ve dated? Have you ever made a degrading remark about a woman? Ask yourself these questions and then pick that pen back up if you think I’m wrong.
This is not an attempt to condone or justify this type of behavior. Males, myself included, have fallen off of the path of good intentions and must try to correct this behavior. It would be nice to say that there is a cure or a method to stop this destructive behavior, but there is no such 12-step program. If the men out there can look at this as a warning and not a how-to guide, then I think it’s a step in the right direction. The only real cure for this behavior is a woman.
One day all of the guarding will cease and a woman will be allowed in to see what true masculinity should be.
Reading 2. “Big Boys Don’t Cry — and Other Myths about Men and Their Emotions”
By Dianne Hales from Reader’s Digest October 2005 from https://www.rd.com/family/big-boys-dont-cry-and-other-myths-about-men-and-their-emotions/

What lurks behind a man’s silent, stoic mask? Vulnerability.
Who chokes up at sappy movies? Who gets so swept away by excitement that they leap to their feet and hug complete strangers? Who falls apart when a relationship ends? The surprising answer: men. Granted, the movie is likely to be Field of Dreams, the exuberance explodes in stadiums and the breakup may be their idea. However, new research reveals that a man’s emotional life is as complex and rich as a woman’s, but often remains a mystery to him as well as to any woman who loves him.
Although emotions have long been considered a female trademark, men report feelings as often as women and describe their experiences of emotion similarly. In an analysis of the emotional intelligence of 500,000 adults, men rated just as high in emotional awareness. In studies of married couples, husbands proved as attuned to their mates’ stress levels as wives and just as capable of offering support.
Although both men and women sigh, cry, rejoice, rage, shout and pout, the sexes process and express emotions differently. “Emotions live in the background of a man’s life and the foreground of a woman’s,” says psychologist Josh Coleman, PhD, author of The Lazy Husband. “Testosterone dampens feelings in men, who compartmentalize and intellectualize more. Women seem naturally more in touch with their emotions, while men have to work at it. But when they do, it’s a win-win situation. They discover a whole new dimension of themselves. Their relationships are happier, and they’re happier too.”
Inside the Male Brain
Thirteen years ago, businessman Chris Schroder, 48, of Atlanta, had it all: robust good health, the job he’d always wanted, a wife and two children he cherished. In one soul-searing month, he was hospitalized with appendicitis, he was laid off and his marriage fell apart. “All three legs of the tripod of my life were kicked out from under me,” he recalls. “I had been cruising along, not expressing much of anything, not aware that you need to and not knowing how to.”
Why are many men so emotionally clueless? Blame the male brain. “Men are hard-wired differently,” says David Powell, PhD, president of the International Center for Health Concerns, who explains that the connection between the left brain, home of logic, and the right, the seat of emotions, is much greater in women. “Women have the equivalent of an interstate highway, so they move readily between the right and left brains. For men the connection is like a meandering country lane, so we don’t have such ready access to feelings.”
This may explain why, in 125 studies in various cultures, boys and men were consistently less accurate at interpreting unspoken messages in gestures, facial expressions and tone of voice. Men also react less intensely to emotions — and forget them faster. In an experiment at Stanford University, photographs of upsetting or traumatic images triggered greater activity in more regions of female brains. Three weeks later the women remembered more detail about the pictures than the men. In similar ways, the researchers speculated, a woman may continue stewing over a tiff or slight her husband has long forgotten.
Divorce, which typically is more emotionally devastating for men, forces them into unexplored emotional territory. “I had to face raw emotion for the first time,” says Schroder, who recently remarried after more than a decade on his own. “For years I wrestled with deep, intense feelings I never knew I had. Once you’re in touch with your emotions, you can’t bottle them back up. Now I appreciate life more. I’m in touch with my creative side. If I’d known everything I’ve learned, I might have been a better husband.”
The first time that Robert Westover, 41, of Washington, D.C., saw his dad cry was the day he graduated from the same Marine Corps boot camp where his father and grandfather had trained. “A little tear ran down his cheek,” he says. “I was shocked.” Growing up in a military family with three brothers, Westover learned to eat fast, talk loud, compete ferociously and keep his feelings under guard. “Showing emotion,” he declares, “is a no-can-do among men.”
Boys learn this lesson early. By age one, they make less eye contact than girls and pay more attention to moving objects like cars than to human faces. Both mothers and fathers talk less about feelings (except anger) to sons than daughters, and boys’ vocabularies include fewer “feeling” words. In the playground, if not at home, boys learn to choke back tears and show no fear. Their faces, once as openly emotional as those of girls, become less expressive as they move through the elementary school years.
As adults, men use fewer words, and they talk, at least in public, as a means of putting themselves in a one-up situation — unlike women, who talk to draw others closer. Even with friends, men mainly swap information as they talk shop, sports, cars, computers. “Women talk to clear their heads, but men think before they talk,” says psychiatrist Mark Goulston, MD, co-author of The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship. “If they didn’t, they’d risk saying something stupid and being humiliated or offending another man and getting beaten up. They’re safer not saying anything.”
What lurks behind a man’s silent, stoic mask? Vulnerability. Most men, experts agree, are far more insecure than they like to admit, and than their wives ever guess. “Inside every man is a secret fear that he lacks competence and courage, that he’s not as manly as he should be,” says Goulston. “A man knows he is supposed to take a bullet for his family. A man knows he is supposed to fix whatever gets broken. When he’s feeling powerless, when everything he says seems to be the wrong thing, he shuts down and withdraws.”
As gender roles and rules have loosened, some men — dubbed Sensitive New Age Guys (SNAGs) — have dared to let their softer side show. But many men remain confused about how much they can dare to share. “In one breath a woman says she wants us to be emotionally open,” says Westover, who is divorced. “In the next she wants us to be her rock. Women are asking us to perform these incredible emotional gymnastics, and it is messing with our heads. Men don’t have a road map or a role model to show us how to be both emotional and strong.”
Why Men Explode
Although women get angry just as often as men, rage remains the prototypical male emotion. “My kids still talk about my ‘freak-outs,’” says Kim Garretson, 54, a corporate strategist in Minneapolis, who once erupted into volcanic fury in a restaurant when served a still-frozen entrée. “I didn’t express much of anything, but once in a while, I’d just blow.”
Why do so many men lose their tempers? “The rage comes because there’s so much frustration when you cut off something that is you. Yet that’s what men do, because they’re afraid that if you give emotions an inch, they’ll take a mile,” says psychologist Kenneth W. Christian, PhD, author of Your Own Worst Enemy. “If you don’t develop all of yourself in some way, if you don’t learn how to work with your emotions, you’re a shadow figure, a small truncated version of yourself. It’s only a matter of time until the house of cards that you are falls apart.”
For Kim Garretson that day came four years ago when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. As often happens when illness strikes men, he realized he had nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by letting himself feel. “I’m no longer afraid of expressing almost any emotion, ” he says. “I get anger out with my quick, sharp tongue and move on. I use humor as an outlet. I’ve reconnected with old friends. I talk about the big questions of life. I search for spiritual meaning. I am so full of exuberance and joy that my wife describes me as giddy.”
Reading 3. “Men and Emotions” from https://www.menslineaus.org.au/Men-and-emotions.html
We all have feelings. Men and women typically handle emotions in quite different ways. When upset, women are likely to express their feelings directly, and to seek the support of friends and family, whereas men might typically hide their emotions or withdraw. What explains these differences?
What makes a man?
Men in Western cultures (and many other cultures too) are socialised to hide their emotions, be self-reliant, and ‘act’ rather than feel. These notions are embodied in the cultural stereotypes of the heroic male, so often represented in film and television. Fearless, resourceful, stoic and usually facing adversity alone, these characters tell us a lot about what our culture considers ideal male behaviour.
More powerful than film characters are the roles we see our parents playing. Many men have experienced fathers who were emotionally distant, who rarely if ever cried or expressed affection outwardly. The way we see our parents behave becomes the unconscious template on which our own behaviour as adults is built.
The four basic emotions
It is helpful to think in terms of four basic human emotions: sadness, anger, happiness and fear. These are sometimes referred to as ‘sad, mad, glad and bad.’ Of these four emotions, only anger, and to a lesser extent, happiness, are considered truly ‘manly’ in the conventional model of masculinity. Yet fear and sadness are universal to the human species, not just women! These emotions serve a valuable purpose and are normal responses to threat and loss.
Because of the taboo against these supposedly ‘weak’ emotions, men often ‘bottle up’ their sadness and anxiety, and channel it into the emotion most available to them: anger. This can cause some men who are suffering emotionally to become powder kegs of potentially violent rage.
Because they have been taught to suppress their feelings, many men simply do not have the words to describe their own feeling states. This can lead to great frustration in relationship when they cannot express their needs, fears and griefs. Men often feel overwhelmed by their female partners when it comes to discussing emotional issues, because they cannot articulate their feelings or stand up for them. This can leave them feeling confused, angry and powerless.
The costs of ‘bottling up’ emotion
The restriction of emotional expression in many men’s lives can lead to many problems including:
• Health issues, due to carrying chronic tension in the body.
• Relationship difficulties due to an inability to resolve emotional conflicts and/or a perceived lack of ability to be intimate.
• Psychological problems such as depression, insomnia and anxiety.
• Behavioural issues such as violence when bottled up emotions are channelled into violent outbursts.
Reading 4. “Emotional Wiring Different in Men and Women” from https://www.livescience.com/4085-emotional-wiring-men-women.html
Men and women are actually from the same planet, but scientists now have the first strong evidence that the emotional wiring of the sexes is fundamentally different.
An almond-shaped cluster of neurons that processes experiences such as fear and aggression hooks up to contrasting brain functions in men and women at rest, the new research shows.
For men, the cluster "talks with" brain regions that help them respond to sensors for what’s going on outside the body, such as the visual cortex and an area that coordinates motor actions.
For women, the cluster communicates with brain regions that help them respond to sensors inside the body, such as the insular cortex and hypothalamus. These areas tune in to and regulate women’s hormones, heart rate, blood pressure, digestion and respiration.
"Throughout evolution, women have had to deal with a number of internal stressors, such as childbirth, that men haven’t had to experience," said study co-author Larry Cahill of the University of California Irvine. "What is fascinating about this is the brain seems to have evolved to be in tune with those different stressors."
The finding, published in the recent issue of the journal NeuroImage, could help researchers learn more about sex-related differences in anxiety, autism, depression, irritable bowel syndrome, phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The new study focused on activity in the amygdala, a cluster of neurons found on both sides of the brain and involved for both sexes in hormone and other involuntary functions, as well as emotions and perception. Cahill already knew that the sexes use different sides of their brains to process and store long-term memories, based on his earlier work. He also has shown that a particular drug, Propranolol, can block memory differently in men and women.
Cahill and his co-author Lisa Kilpatrick, scanned the brains of 36 healthy men and 36 healthy women. The subjects were told to relax with their eyes closed during the scan, so that differences between the sexes could be studied at rest rather than during heavy lifting like accessing memories.
The scans also showed that men’s and women’s amygdalas are polar opposites in terms of connections with other parts of the brain. In men, the right amygdala is more active and shows more connections with other brain regions. In women, the same is true of the left amygdala.
Scientists still have to find out if one’s sex also affects the wiring of other regions of the brain. It could be that while men and women have basically the same hardware, it’s the software instructions and how they are put to use that makes the sexes seem different.
Reading 5: “Emotions — Differences between Men and Women”
By Margrit Bradley from
https://www.healthguidance.org/entry/13971/1/Emotions–Differences-Between-Men-and-Women.html

Of the two genders, there is a stereotype that women are much more "emotional" than men. While it is certainly true that by nature women are more focused on their emotions and refer to them more commonly in conversation than men, both the genders will experience emotions and emotional reactions to different stimuli and situations. What is interesting is that men and women can experience their emotions differently, and for different reasons. With so many potential emotional responses possible, here we focus on some of the more significant differences between men and women and their emotions.
There is a common stereotype that men should not show their emotions and that "real men" do not cry or get upset. This as a result is often the view that women have of men. There is an element of truth in this idea, and compared to the more emotional in tune women, men certainly show the world at a whole less of their emotional side. However, men do express their emotions. Compared to women, men often show their emotions to less people, and often only to their nearest and dearest. Also compared to women, men will display their emotions with less intensity, and tend to down play how they are feeling. Men tend to have a greater control over their emotions and what they will display to the world, possibly due to having more difficulty displaying emotion than women.
Often emotional differences between men and women come down to their physiological make-up. For example, while the same group of neurons in the brains of both men and women process emotional experiences of fear and aggression, these neurons are connected to different regions of the brain in men and women. For women, these neurons connect to areas of the brain regulating internal areas of the body, thus focusing on aspects such as her hormones, blood pressure and respiration. On the other hand, these same neurons in men will connect to areas of the brain focused on the external areas, including vision and movement. This will cause a significant difference in the behaviour of a man and woman experiencing the same stressful situation.
Many men will often express emotions such as rage or frustrations significantly more than other emotions such as depression. This is thought to be because these emotions are considered by many to be "male emotions", that is, emotions that men will commonly display. For a man concerned about how it looks displaying how he feels, these are emotions he would feel much more comfortable displaying. In some situations too, these reactions can be admired too.
Although a man may feel comfortable keeping how he feels to himself, if you are concerned that he is not being open enough or bottling up negative emotions, it may be worth encouraging him to open up to you and developing a relationship in which he feels comfortable talking to you. Of course, this may feel uncomfortable for him, and in these situations he may feel more comfortable using an emotions diary to record how he is feeling. This technique allows not only for his emotions to be recorded and out in the open, but also for him to face exactly how he feels, and use this expression to move forwards and improve on his mood.
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