Take it Like a Man

"Cowboys are just like a pile of rocks- everything happens to them.  They get climbed on, kicked, rained and snowed on, scuffed up by the wind.  Their job is 'just to take it'."
                                                                                                              -Gretel Ehrlich, About Men

As a male, my role in society has been made very clear to me: I am meant to stay steady as rock, bottling up all of my emotions and letting the women in my life do the crying. Any emotion that I feel should not be expressed, but instead locked up in the deep dark cavern that exists where my heart should be. When men hang out in groups they are supposed to relax and play manly games like pool or ping pong.  For the typical group of women, a conversation is more of an emotional ping pong, where feelings are traded back and forth endlessly in a game that no one loses. Women are often seen having deep and intellectual conversations over tea as they nibble on crumpets and address each other as "Your Majesty." The last deep conversation a group of men ever had ended in them drunkenly deciding to get misspelled "Ghandi" quotes tattooed their forearms.

This is the way society says it has to be; however, I think it's only fair to question why it has to be this way. Some may argue that the media is to blame for way that men have to be so emotionally guarded.  Others might argue that traditional gender roles and family values are to blame. Though the list of reasons for these stereotypes may be as vast and endless as outer space, it seems more important to focus on ignoring them, and focus on a creating a world where both men and women can feel it is acceptable to express themselves in whatever way they choose.