How many times as a kid did you ever get the "Don't be so sensitive" line shoved at you if you began to cry about something? I don't know how it was for women growing up, but as a boy or a young man it was considered suspect to ever get upset about anything.
"Cry Baby", and "Momma's Boy", turn into "Weenie" and 'Wuss" as you get older if you show any inclination to be anything other than tough when it comes to dealing with life's circumstances. People wonder why the United States is in Iraq these days; it's because George Junior has to reclaim the family male pride. His Daddy was called a Wimp because he wouldn't destroy Iraq, so George Junior is compelled to show that he's tougher than tough.
How else can you explain someone boasting about how many people he sentenced to death while Governor of Texas? That's the sign of someone compensating for a perceived lack of toughness in the family line. His presidency is marked with slogans like "Get Tough On…" or "War On…" No ones going to accuse him of being a wimp.
Let's backtrack here for a bit. This isn't meant to be a tirade against George Junior; I'll leave that for tougher people than me. But he's just an obvious and easy example of people's fear of the "S" word.
Long ago when someone was referred to as being sensitive it was usually preceded by the word a. A sensitive was a person who was "sensitive" to the spirit world or who was considered aware of things beyond the ken of human understanding.
I'm sure any of you with Irish backgrounds have heard older relatives talk about someone being sensitive in this context. Being able to see the little people etc. Of course this type of behaviour was frowned upon as heretical and devilish, and treated accordingly depending upon the practices of the time.
Article comments
1 - diana hartman
because i was the only girl in the family for so long, i assumed many of the same roles/fears as my brothers and cousins because no one came right out and said "you're a girl" until it was time to cook and clean...
i felt very uneasy about being told "you're too sensitive" and, perhaps unlike my male counterparts, felt the pang as if it were my own when they were told the same thing...
by the time i was 20 i understood "sensitive" to mean "not violent"...years later i watched "bedazzled" starring brendan fraser and saw the sensitive creature i suppose my elders were trying to prevent with their use of the word sensitive...
on the other hand, a crying male, while not necessarily the norm in my family, was not unheard of...i've seen both grandfathers cry, my father and his brothers, etc...funerals, especially because of tragic ends, were not viewed in the same context as a hallmark commercial wherein i would sometimes get a little weepy...the men in my family were not cursed with the kind of emotional censorship i would later see in some families...instead of seeing men who didn't cry as pillars of strength, i saw them as men who could not feel at all and i wanted nothing to do with them...
a man like that wouldn't let a 4 yr old boy have his sadness when his big wheel was stolen -- and would subsequently delay that 4 yr old's ability to grow into a bicycle...
it is correct to suppose sensitivity to mean the means by which one is compassionate...you can't be compassionate about someone's needs if you're not open to sensing what those needs are...if being strong means dismissing other's needs, it means first dismissing one's own needs -- and that's just weak...
having long understood the male need not to feel weak (and the bizarre lengths -- bizarre to this female -- they will go to in order to avoid the perception of weakness), i raised my son, now 20, with a mix of opportunities to express his need to take charge and be compassionate doing so...i'm delighted to report the (so far) end result is someone who thinks his greatest strength is acknowledging his weaknesses, developing them, acknowledging his strengths, and using them for good...
given the research of late on the human brain, i can see where it would be difficult for men to resolve the conflict of being (perceived as) both strong and sensitive...once parents know, it's not that difficult to raise a son with this mix, but to find a man with this ability is not so easy...
i've seen my son give shit right back to someone who accuses him of weakness when he assists someone or just doesn't join in on making fun of someone else...this is what i taught him to do: feed back their hateful loathing to them for all to hear and watch them try to squirm out from under the pillar of "strength" as it collapses around their weak arguments...i've also seen my husband and many men his age visibly internalize similar accusations...
i would hope this means my son won't die of a stress-induced illness and that my husband will somehow learn to relax but i'm not holding out hope for the latter...
my time in europe has shown me that european men aren't as hung up on these issues as american men...perhaps my son's emotional success can be in part attributed to the examples he's seen here...perhaps this too is why so many american men see european men as weak or at least as being not as strong...
allowing a man his feelings and their expression doesn't automatically mean dismissing his strengths...there are many ways to incorporate the two and maybe this is where some get confused, having gotten it in their head that a man cannot be both compassionate and strong but rather compassionate or strong...
given that all human beings are born with both, it seems quite unnatural to disregard one in favor of the other...men develop and use these traits differently than women, so it seems unfair to compare them or measure one against the other as if the other were lesser somehow...
a strong and compassionate man makes a good husband and father...the men seeking to maintain one without the other may want to look back on their lives and see just how well this worked for them...
2 - deekay
Great post, gypsyman. Men tend to be in a Catch 22 emotionally. In personal relationships, women are longing for them to be sensitive, vulnerable, in touch with their feelings. But in public life, at work, with your buddies, whatever, any such emotion can be seen as weak.