No wonder some men shut down, check out, don’t share their feelings, and have higher rates of depression
As a result of this trend, over and over and over again, my staff and I have heard from men who have felt that their feelings, way of processing/communicating, and way of being are not valid or validated. In many cases the men themselves didn’t even realize that they had a unique set of feelings and predispositions that were common to most men—that they weren’t alone!
For years these men have plowed forward, trying to be good husbands, fathers, salesmen or students, internally accepting the assumption of their wives, teachers, the media, their pastors and even their marriage therapists or business coaches that they are the ones who need to be fixed. That they don’t study or learn the right way. That surely the marriage problems are their fault, because women of course are better at relationships, right?
Think about the level of cluelessness that this represents toward half the population and you’ll see how astounding this truly is.
More fundamentally: Think about how hard it would be to keep going, keep trying, in the face of this constant, subconscious blame; this undercurrent of cluelessness and disdain, and suddenly, you start to see how easy it would be for a man to shut down and check out. You start to see how easy it would be for a schoolboy who doesn’t learn well in a girl-centric learning environment, to feel stupid and decide he’s better at basketball than science, thanks. How easy it would be for a young man in this environment—especially a young minority man who feels not only disdained as a man but as a person of color!—to have a lack of hope.
And as Proverbs so aptly captures it: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.”
That is the malaise I’m worried about, for men today—and our sons. A subconscious but very real lack of hope. A lack of belief that they are valuable. That they make a difference.
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