How Patriarchy Conditions Men to Suppress Emotions
Patriarchy harms boys and men as well, even though it is believed to be a system that favors them and makes them superior. In this blog we are addressing emotional suppression as part of our Beyond Medicine series: Man-ic Masculinity.
What does it mean to suppress emotion? It means that when you feel something you’re expected to ignore it or push it away, and not express it. Emotions are a natural reaction to any stimuli; some activities, comments, movie scenes or real life events may make us happy, sad, upset or angry, anxious or frustrated, surprised or disgusted. When these emotions are not expressed, they get stored in the body and are later expressed in harmful ways.
As an example of how emotion suppression is initiated, we see that when little boys are physically injured and start crying, they are told to ‘stop crying, you are a boy and should be strong’ or ‘don’t act like a girl, stop crying!’ Sometimes boys are even verbally, emotionally or physically abused for appearing ‘weak’ or because they are expressing an emotion. They are told they should know better than to cry. The implication is that crying is a sign of weakness. Crying is a natural physiological reaction to strong emotion, and allows the body to release stress.
This tendency of being punished because they show emotion may lead boys to associate the showing of emotion as an unsafe behavior. In addition, verbal or physical abuse makes it dangerous to express emotion. Also, the expectation that they should have known better, makes them feel that they are not good enough.
As these boys mature into adults, they struggle with suppressed emotion. This can lead to a number of problems, such as mental health issues (e.g. stress, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, anger), harmful coping mechanisms (e.g. alcoholism, smoking, drug abuse, violence), and physical health issues (e.g. heart disease, high blood pressure, other non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as cancer and autoimmune diseases).
One of the most common outcomes of suppressed emotion in men across the South Pacific and around the world, is violence (including domestic and intimate partner violence (IPV)). Small triggers may lead to an explosive burst of anger and/or violence, causing harm to the partner – usually a female spouse.
The rates of domestic and IP violence, substance abuse, heart attacks, cancers and/or other NCDs in men can point to accumulation of suppressed emotions due to patriarchal expectations. Adult males suffer but hesitate to break out of patriarchy due to fear of being ostracized, the stigma of being called weak, and the shame associated with breaking this powerful social norm.
It takes a lot of courage and strength of character to oppose patriarchal expectations. Awareness and positive action by all members of society to get rid of patriarchy will help everyone, including girls, boys, men, women and non-binary people.
Share with us your experience with and contribution to breaking away from patriarchy. And check out our book on the topic.
