When he has to let go and let his He-motions rule

“When I see a guy in a ka-mood, I’m usually tempted to hand him a tampon”, read a post by a woman on Facebook a few weeks ago. A majority of those that commented found it hilarious. The number of ‘likes’ the post received rose by the hour, not to mention that more than half of them were from women. However, one woman’s comment opened a can of worms.

“Men are just human beings too subjected to the same stresses of life just like us.” To this comment, the author of the post inquired, “So men are hormonal?” “Hormonal? Not at all,” came one offended gentleman’s response. “Men are programmed robots, immune to emotions, obviously.” But are men robots? Do they have feelings or can they respond to their surroundings like women do?

In yet another Facebook post, a man posted a meme of five colourfully dressed, flamboyant young men. The caption reads; “I’ve finally managed to put faces to Maina Kageni’s male callers with relationship problems”. Maina Kageni is a radio personality, who runs a popular morning show, which is known for its sensational debates on relationships and other related social issues. A majority of those who call in to air their views and vent their frustrations are women.  I shared this post with a male friend, who shook his head and sarcastically said: “Men who talk about their relationship problems are sissies or must be gay.”

This reflects what most men feel about talking about the drama in their relationships, or lack of it. 

‘Mwanaume ni kujikaza’ (translated loosely to a real man perseveres) is a popular Kenyan saying. ‘Boys don’t cry,’ ‘Women are emotional, men are practical,’ are some of the lines you are bound to hear thrown around, notes, Alex, a man Saturday Magazine approached in the streets.

“These same lines are also weapons used to bash men when they express any emotion that isn’t considered manly – actually, when they dare express any emotion,” he says. “If a man cries, he is considered less of a man.” Society has socialised men to bottle up any emotions they may feel or at least be wise enough not to show feelings lest you scare away women and children, he says. 

“My husband was going to be stationed at their head office in Europe for a year,” Sheila shares, “I  was getting frustrated because I felt like he wasn’t upset about the fact that we were going to be apart. I kept telling him we needed to talk about it and it seemed like every time he’d dismiss the talk with ‘it’ll be fine, honey, don’t worry. It’s only one year. I’m coming back’. He didn’t show any emotion. Was he looking forward to being away from me?”

One day, Sheila having had enough decided to ask him one last time. “He grabbed me by the shoulders, squeezed me firmly, as if he really wanted me to understand what he was about to say, then he growled between his teeth and said: ‘I don’t know, okay? I don’t have the answers. I know I’m supposed to but I just don’t.”

That’s when it occurred to her that even though he wasn’t displaying any emotion, it didn’t mean he was not feeling anything. “He was frustrated at not having our living situation under control. In fact, now I notice that when he is all quiet and withdrawn, that’s when he’s going through an emotional turmoil. I used to think it meant he just doesn’t care,” says Sheila.

MACHO MAN

The break up

Society has taught women to think that men take break-ups easily. But this might not be further from the truth as men experience more depression, distress and anxiety after break-ups than women do. When he is dumped, his first reaction is ‘I’ll show her!’ He does this by either getting drunk with his guys or pretending to take it all in very well. It’s not until they get after the initial reaction that men actually mourn the loss of the relationship. Women face the blues head on – men suppress their emotions. 

On grieving

His father had just died. As is typical in African settings, family and friends flocked their home to comfort the bereaved. Reuben, then a 23-year-old university graduate says he remembers feeling numb. “Being the eldest and only son, I think I went on auto pilot mode. I automatically took charge,” he remembers, “I had to stay strong for my mother and two sisters. I felt a dull sense of sadness but I felt more the need to hold things (and myself) together,” says Reuben.

He took charge of the funeral arrangements and helped his mother put the father’s affairs in order. Four weeks passed and he eventually went back to his apartment. He hadn’t shed a tear. “Then I remember I started feeling this sense of fatigue,” he narrates, “I also started losing sleep. I didn’t feel sad but a doctor I saw about the sleep issue said I was depressed. The first time I broke down was in therapy – eight months after dad’s death, he confesses. “From then on I just couldn’t stop crying. I literally cried myself to sleep every night,” says Reuben. 

He was put on anti-depressants for two years. He didn’t tell anyone in his family that he was on therapy or on meds. Apart from his therapist and girlfriend, he doesn’t remember anyone in his family asking him how he was doing. “I was the official (male) caretaker. I couldn’t appear to be falling apart.” His job was to make sure the women were okay. 

Self esteem

James Bond, an International award winning actor and role model to most boys growing up is the ultimate image of machismo, sex appeal, charm, power, intelligence, sophistication, and good looks – the image of manliness. “Every little boy while growing up desires to emulate or have at least one of these characteristics,” says Kariuki, 28, a gym instructor in a fitness centre in Westlands. While his opinion is that a majority of Kenyan men are less likely to be concerned about their physical attributes, attaching more importance to money and wealth than in good looks, Kariuki does, however, admit that there is no man alive who will not have his self-esteem boosted by being perceived as being physically attractive.

He further says that women will often joke about a man’s kitambi (distended belly) or how useless Kenyan men are assuming that the men will take that as a joke. “The same way it’s not a joke when directed at women is the same way it’s not a joke to us,” says Kariuki. “Men might not show you it hurts, but we do take offence at unkind remarks concerning our bodies,” he confesses. “That’s a stab to our ego,” says Kariuki. 

Gender violence

The most recent (2014) Kenya Demographic & Health Survey was the first one of its kind to include data on violence against men in Kenya. It found that 44 per cent of men (against 45 per cent of women) have experienced physical violence since age 15. Six per cent of men (against 14 per cent of women) report having experienced sexual violence at least once in their lifetime. 27 per cent of men (against 44 per cent of women) and have sought assistance from any source to stop the violence they have experienced.

Amidst a vastly growing Men’s Right Movement in the United States, concerns have been raised about why campaigns against gender violence seem to only cater for women. In a documentary titled  ‘The Red Pill: A Feminist Look at the Men’s Right Movement’, one Marc Angelucci, a Men’s Rights Attorney tells this story; “My best friend was being physically abused by his wife of 20 years. She’d throw glass (at him) and punch him - there would be yelling and he knew that the neighbours might think it was him. So he would usually just go outside. He didn’t want the children to see this. I’ve seen it just happen spontaneously and it was frequent. Eventually I told him he needed help. I called a number of domestic violence shelters and each one of them said ‘we don’t help men at all.”

Erin Pizzey, known for founding the first women’s shelter in the US says; “Most domestic violence is consensual. Both are involved. Sometimes one is the perpetrator, the other plays the victim - then it crosses over. Occasionally there’s an innocent victim – but mainly both are involved. What I said to make the feminist movement hate me is that women could be equally as violent as men.” Pizzey says that 62 of the first 100 women to enter her refuge were just as violent as the men they left and violent towards their children. The argument the documentary puts across is whether the fact that there are more female victims of gender violence excuses denying men help. “Roughly 78 per cent of suicide cases are men,” argues another activist on the show. 

RAW EMOTION

The question that begs is whether assuming that being masculine is equal to not showing emotion denies the male population compassion and empathy to enable them to feel, act and be inherently human. Aren’t men just as vulnerable as women? 

Psychologist and relationship expert Chris Hart describes the subject of men and emotions as complex. But intrinsically, he says, the whole range of complexities stem from how men are socialised. A strong emphasis lies on what they have learnt are the traits that will win them the attention and affection of women.

“It’s a bit of both an evolutionary and a social trait,” Hart says, “men and women have different reproductive roles. Women are geared to choose the strongest and most successful man in the pack. A man therefore sits in this hierarchy in which he needs to maintain top position. To do that, he cannot be seen to show any weakness otherwise he will be rejected.” 

Hart argues that as it is, it all begins with women and which traits they have defined to show ‘weakness’, and are therefore not suitable in a mate. In today’s society, a strong man is tough, successful, independent among others.

If all of a sudden women begin to define emotionally available, warm and friendly as strong traits, then the whole scenario would change and men would begin to compete for these traits. “It’s not a conspiracy,” Hart infers, “It’s all very practical. If we went back to being a hunters and gatherers community, the best hunters would be on top of the pack. In the Amazon, it’s the guy who brings in most meat. In Nairobi, it’s about wealth and social status.”

Among boys and men, this is a success strategy involving fierce competition “You see it straight from primary school,” Hart points out, “boys and girls play differently – when the boy does something wrong, his mates laugh at him. His place is secured by not showing any sign of weakness.” The idea therefore, he says, is NOT that men don’t show emotion (as they can show anger for example), but that they just DON’T show weakness.

The fact that women say they want ‘emotionally available men’ but at the same time consciously or unconsciously choose ‘tough’ men is, Hart says, a ‘wonderful contradiction’. “If I have trained myself to be tough all my life, then it is very difficult to be both.”

Granted, Hart confirms that men experience the same emotions as women, they have just been conditioned to experience them differently, “In case of death, a woman is allowed to cry, to have her husband put his arm around her; he on the other hand isn’t supposed to break down in funerals, he is supposed to be ushering…he is strong, tough, coping. He can’t be a wimp.”

So how does he express his raw emotions? “In a perfect world, a man chooses a woman he can do that with,” Hart says, “But if he can’t, he’ll either end up very miserable or in therapy. But most men don’t even admit their feelings to themselves, let alone to someone else.” He says most men don’t even begin to look at their feelings until they are middle-aged and have had a lot of experiences that have forced them to look internally.

It is this competitive winning/losing strategy, where there’s a lot of pressure for a man to remain on top of the pack that pushes men to take risks (not show weakness) and not to seek help (admit helplessness); all perhaps at the expense of their wellbeing.

Hart says this scenario is not changeable. Not unless we choose to redefine ultimate masculinity “Imagine a world where everyone got a standard amount of pension, then men would have to compete on another basis other than money and success.”