Sunday, February 14, 2010

No Emotions

I can't really understand why men are the way they are. I know men wonder the same about girls. Why do lil' things matter? Why can't men show their emotions? Why do they shove away emotional people? I'm finally figuring why they do it. I thought it was very interesting.
This semester, I'm taking psychology course. I had no idea psychology is all about science in order to understand and figure out why we think and act as we do. My classmates and I in the beginning were silent to disguss about the modules we were assigned to read. I thought the class was boring. Until we contributed to talk during the hour. My instructor became at ease.
One module was talking about culture norms, gender typing, etc. I learned men are naturally aggressive physically. It's in their genes. I wondered if they aren't so emotional because of aggression. I was wrong.
I learned that parents and peers shape what is expected from a boy and a girl. One example was asked by our intructor: How would two parents react when their son trips and falls? Do they tell him he's a big boy and big boys don't cry? How about to girls? Would they have the same reaction to their girl? Yes, parents would tell their son not to cry and 'man up'. This tells them, crying isn't for boys. It does block their emotions.
Even boys in school teases a boy who is more emotional, taunting that he's a cry baby. Where do these kids learn from this gender typing? When I was in preschool, I hated going to school because I was always teased I was a cry baby. I was told by boys who were one grade up from me. I was surprised other girls in my class never cried at all, even they were bothered by older boys. In villages, I see a lot of children who never made a sob even they fall hard on the head.
I think it's sad most boys are taught not to have feelings and taught it's bad to express them to other people. I also started reading this book, Raising Clain, which is also assigned to read for psychology class. I recommend it to all men! This will make them understand, yet hard for them to read. Also to mothers who are raising their son or sons.
I also didn't know men who were taught not to be emotional as young boys, will more likely be lonely men and with depression. SCARY.
We can always make a change, but it doesn't always mean it'll be easy.

2 comments:

Deanna said...

That's interesting, Charlene. I completely agree with it. I see (and saw) it in my own family, since I grew up with four boys. They didn't cry anywhere near as often as I did. In fact, I was expected to cry, I think; whereas it really wasn't acceptable for them to.

I'm glad you're blogging! =)

Irniaq said...

I'm glad you're blogging, too. And not it's different for me to think about this. I've thought about it before, but now I HAVE a son. How do I help him be OK with his emotions, but not just be made fun of by other kids? And today, in fact, there was a boy (11 years old) in my class who started crying. I think he was really frustrated and mad at me. I thought of your blog and wondered how to help him. Maybe I should just talk to the whole class and ask them if they think it's OK to cry, or not, and why. Maybe that would make it a safer place for him to cry sometimes. I think he does that when he's mad (that's what I do, too!).

OK, I was rambling. Thanks for sharing and for making me think! ; )