I bet that every man reading this column has had those words hurled at him at some point in his life. I remember getting annoyed by them in elementary school. Whenever I got sick, my mom would break out the medicine cabinet, enforce bed-rest and keep bringing me soup or tea. My father couldn't stand to watch such erosion of my masculinity and would inevitably interrupt with something like "Oh come on-be a man! You don't have to lie in bed all day."
I guess I was a pretty stupid kid, thinking I needed antibiotics when clearly testosterone could have cured me.
Of course, my father didn't care for me any less than my mother, nor did he express a sentiment any different from what fathers have been telling their sons for ages.
Yet, that sentiment is still there. What is interesting is that men use the archaic notions of masculinity to not only oppress others, but to also, indirectly, oppress themselves.
At helm of this self-oppression is the need to repress emotions, or at least emotions that exhibit weakness. Therefore, you had better hold back tears-if you should ever be tempted to shed any-and instead channel your feelings into something that exemplifies strength, such as anger or violence. I read somewhere that swearing is to men what crying is to women, which sums up this whole concept pretty accurately.
As Freud argued a century ago, repressing something will only make it appear elsewhere. An example of this in action is the Napoleon complex, which holds that, since manhood is typically equated with size, a man lacking vertical (or horizontal) stature will try to compensate for it in a variety of ways.
For example, are men really buying enormous pick-up trucks because they need to haul lumber; are they buying huge SUVs because they go driving through the Grand Canyon? We drive our trucks across Wal-Mart parking lots, not mountains. But this doesn't matter. What does matter-subconsciously, of course-is that a pick-up truck or an SUV is often as large as the owners other possessions are small.
Did you ever notice how the loudest jerks and biggest class clowns are almost always below average height? And speaking of height, how many men are willing to date a taller woman, or even a woman with a bigger paycheck?
Freud was right. Napoleon rears his ugly head again.
Although these anecdotal examples are minor, masculine norms cause significant problems by creating an atmosphere where men are willing to oppress others in order to reaffirm their own masculinity.
If you've ever been on a sports team, you know that the repressive aspect of masculinity can find no ground more fertile than a locker room. In here, the mob mentality, along with the fact that every man's biggest insecurity is out in full view, are combined to create an apex of masculine conformity.
Despite all of this, if you pull a man aside and ask him about all the offensive comments and jokes that are said in such an environment, he will probably tell you that he doesn't agree with them; that he's perhaps even bothered by them.
And the point? He's probably telling the truth.
The problem is that it's extremely hard to speak out when you know your manhood will be automatically questioned. Any dissenter from the locker-room mentality will be automatically emasculated or-even worse-accused of being gay. The only thing that will silence a man faster than a threat to his masculinity is a threat to his heterosexuality.
How ironically sad is it that men, while repressing women and gays, are also doing a hell of a job of repressing themselves? All those comments and oh-so-funny jokes about gays and women create an environment where men have to disregard their own feelings in order to escape the jokes that they once aimed at someone else.
And how darkly funny is it that this self-inflicted restraint manifests itself in our willingness to be violent, start wars, buy large cars or date small women-and all to make ourselves look and feel like bigger men by comparison?
Maybe "funny" isn't the right word, but it seems the only other option would be to cry. If only all of us boys hadn't learned early on that crying is actually never an option.
Emin Hadziosmanovic is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Tuesday.
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