Chris WilliamsonWhat Telling Men To “Man Up” Does To Them
Chris Williamson
Man Up And Suppressed Emotions 0:00
You get told that men are not educated about emotional sensitivity, and as a psychiatrist watching mental health patterns, this becomes clear over time. Because of that gap, many men only learn to safely express one emotion, which is anger. Boys who are naturally sensitive get told to man up, and the result is that they grow into angry men rather than emotionally literate ones. From a young age, a girl who falls at a birthday party gets scooped up and comforted, while a boy who falls gets told it is not a big deal and to move on. There is no early space carved out for boys to explore emotional sensitivity the way girls are allowed to.
Anger Accepted, Sadness Punished 3:00
Anger is actually an antisocial emotion, dangerous and destructive, yet it remains more socially acceptable for men than sadness. In over 90 percent of cases where a man takes his own life in the UK, he had already gone to some form of mental health counseling, which shows the problem is not just getting men to talk but giving them room to actually feel. Much of this responsibility falls on other men, since people say they want a struggling friend to open up, yet a man crying online is still aversive to many. The idea of man points captures this: men need a surplus of masculinity, through muscularity, success, money, or notoriety, before they are allowed to withdraw from that reserve and talk about emotions. A man like Chris Bumstead, a six time Olympia champion, can cry publicly and be celebrated for it, while a man with nothing going for him gets no such sympathy, even though he is the one most at risk.
Suppression Is Not Strength 9:30
Suppressing emotion only performs composure, it is not the same as actually having composure or not feeling the thing at all. The real challenge lies not in feeling deeply, but in living in a world that does not always know how to support that sensitivity. There is a direct link between being highly emotionally sensitive and highly emotionally intelligent, which brings real strengths, including deep insight into other people's inner lives, useful in friendship, parenting, and psychiatric work where patients feel understood. Sensitivity can also damage self-esteem when emotional signals are misread negatively, though in fields like psychiatry that same sensitivity becomes a source of validation and connection.
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