In 24 years I’ve only ever seen two men cry.
I see women cry all the time. If someone brings a baby to work, if there’s a sad film on television, if someone starts playing ‘Everybody Hurts’… It’s not an unusual sight and it’s not a sign of weakness, it just means you’re crying.
Struggling with mental health issues is difficult enough in a society which is so quick to dismiss them, without also having the responsibility of an imposed masculine, unbreakable identity.
The gender constructs we allow ourselves to be sucked into are equally as damaging to men as they are to women, but as a society we’re very unwilling to talk about that fact. The oppression that women feel has existed for so long, that the idea of men being victimised by the same scenario makes people angry. We perpetuate the myth that men need to be strong and macho by dismissing the suggestion that they could oppressed by something too.
But the numbers speak for themselves: Men are three times more likely to commit suicide than women, yet women seek help for depressive illnesses much more than men do. It is much easier for women to be weak and not judged, and sometimes everyone needs to be a little bit weak.
The reason contact sports are so popular amongst men, it’s argued, is because it allows them to create bonds with others in a non-feminine way. The UK’s first male-only mental health clinic does the same thing for those seeking help.
“It’s important to have a male-only centre, because men find it hard to talk about their feelings. It’s that age-old thing of men being macho,” Alex Eaton, founder of the Eaton Foundation said.
The centre takes a comprehensive approach to help, dealing issues including financial struggles to clinical depression.
He explains: “When you’re going to one service for housing, another for debt and another for mental health, you’re constantly telling your story here, there and everywhere. We do not believe that men’s issues should be treated in a vacuum, because they did not arise or affect them in a vacuum.”
“Having a men’s centre is a very simple concept. I’m surprised we’re the first of its kind.”
It’s not surprising, but it is long overdue. If I’m sad, I drink too much wine and cry with my friends until I feel better. It would be very hard to deal with life if the only emotions you were allowed to exhibit were happiness and anger, ‘Inside Out’ taught us that if nothing else.
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