This month, Lewis from Takona explains why ‘Manliness’ does more harm than good.
There’s an image that comes to mind when you hear the word manly. For most, it’s an image of a big, muscular guy, probably in jeans and boots, with some amount of oil on his hands, and a beard. This image evokes an idea of strength, testosterone, and for some; the idea of being “dangerous”.
We’ve become quite accustomed to this being the portrayal of what it means to be a man, a bastion of strength, never showing weakness, just getting the job done.
Well it’s bullshit quite frankly. The notion of a man being someone who can’t show weakness or emotion has done nothing but ruin the mental well-being of men. For generations the saying “man up” has been thrown around as a way of pulling together some resolve and moving forward by ignoring the emotions that come our way, it’s not helped.
In recent years we’ve been subjected to our fair share of negative world events, including several recessions and a global pandemic for good measure. Enduring all of this was never a case of just ignoring the tough stuff and carrying on with what we were doing before. It’s required discussion, planning, and most of all, acceptance. So why don’t we have this mentality when it comes to men’s mental health?
In short, because it’s scary. The culture around manliness has built up barriers of ego in men to the point that anything that isn’t “winning” is seen as weakness, and weak is apparently the worst thing you can be. The irony in this mindset is that it completely misses the fact that it takes an incredible amount of strength and bravery to be vulnerable, putting ego aside and being open to pain is tough, and anyone who does it is a superhero.
It could be easier though if we as blokes put down the facade of manliness in the way it’s been instilled in us over the generations and acknowledge that we all go through tough times, we all suffer loss, and we all feel emotions, we can make these barriers much easier to overcome.
Maybe one day, talking about how we feel could even be a normal part of life, rather than us having to continue with the ever more frequent stories of “I never saw it coming, he was always so happy and outgoing”. We could make that person feel like they can share their struggles before they become too much.
After all, it’s the fear of asking for help or seeming like you’re not managing okay that leads people to hide it away. This is where it festers, and grows, having more and more compounding on top, until it becomes too much to bare and the last resort seems like the only way to make it stop.
Men, we’ve got to be better at this, the true sign of manliness shouldn’t be how tough you are, or how much you can take on the chin, we should be looking out for each other, making our mates feel safe in sharing when they’re finding things tough.
Ultimately, the real sign of manliness should be our security in ourselves, and our ability to be honest about who we are without fear. If we work together to make it that bit more normal to ask a mate how they’re doing, then taking the time to ask again when they inevitably respond with “yeah, fine”, we can make a difference to how normal it is to talk more.
There doesn’t need to be such a stigma abound talking, after all, it’s okay to talk.
