Boys Don’t Cry

 

“I admire a man who can burst into tears, who clobbers the stiff upper lip image of the British male at a stroke by letting the tears flow, unashamedly unchecked. And remains undeniably manly.” Rebecca Marjorie Proops, Journalist

 

 

emotion

noun

a strong feeling deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.

The 2022 FIFA World Cup got me thinking on one interesting topic that I thought was worth penning down. While sports has been an acceptable area where emotions are allowed to be let out by men, I paid more attention to it this time. This is something that goes against all social norms. Where else have you seen men express themselves freely without thinking of being judged? Sports allows us that freedom of expressing emotions freely (apart from all other things that sports teaches us).

 

          Since ancient Greece, sports has remained one of the only socially acceptable spaces for male tears. The heroes of the Iliad, in particular, are very often presented in tears, suffering grief and pain. The tears of Achilles, just as his military exploits, are present throughout the poem, from his first appearance to his last. When he is not fighting, he is crying. Warrior, hero, super-male Achilles, by the protocols of Western culture, should never cry. This conception of crying is seen as a manifestation of weakness, vulnerability, and cowardice. Diomedes is the only hero, in fact, to cry in a context outside of war. It is neither cruel combat nor the loss of his companions that causes him to shed tears, but his defeat at the chariot race during the funeral games in honor of Patroclus.

 

Athletes have been crying in sports particularly where national pride further ramps up the emotion levels, for stars and spectators alike. The earliest examples of crying in the games were by winners at the 1956 games in Melbourne. In 1996, with the number of athletes weeping in Atlanta Summer Olympics, it got the title of “The Crying Games” and in 2004, in Athens, the British rower Matthew Pinsent shed tears the “size of gobstoppers”, according to some newspapers.

Men get emotional about sports because it lets them. There is crying in Baseball, Basketball, Soccer, Cricket and Tennis but not in other aspects of life which cause happiness or sadness.

From Michael Jordan to Roger Federer to Neymar, Lukaku, Son, Suarez and      Ronaldo in the recent WC 2022. These are men who are physically extremely fit and showcase machoism. Crying for them would go against what they represent and look like.

It’s socially more acceptable to cry if something negative or positive happens in sports than when a family member dies or the birth of your child. We do not look fondly on male tears, in general but men are given the freedom to express their softer side through sports. In other words, men aren’t allowed to cry unless it’s over something serious and sports counts as “serious.” Men are socialised not to show their feelings but on game day it’s not just acceptable, its expected. 

“There’s no crying in Baseball” is taken from the 1992 film 'A league of their own', when Tom Hanks' character says it to own his female players who started to weep when she couldn't handle the criticism he had on her. Outside of baseball, people replace the last word with their occupation. When someone says that to you, they actually want to say something like 'Be a man'.

Research shows that men are more prone to committing suicides as compared to women and one of the reasons could be that they have limited avenues to express their emotions.

 

Why won’t society let men cry when they’re watching a movie but actively be proud of men who cry when their teams win or lose? 

 

A question worth pondering..