About not being man enough
There is this man in our office who feels he is turning into a woman — not because he wants a sex change operation or anything similarly drastic, but because he has started turning sensitive.
You gently point out to him that maybe he is only turning human, unlike many men he knows, and he laughs out aloud.
Perhaps that is because emotions have been taught by generations to hide and not sit — even lightly — on a man’s shoulder, howsoever slim or broad it might be.
Perhaps, that is the reason why George W Bush could brave the global mockery thrown at him after the infamous shoe incident. He put up a poker face and even made light of it. In that context, he could be called man enough. After all, he did not twitch a jaw muscle, let alone break down or even get angry. Does that mean he is not a woman because he is not sensitive to anything? Our man in office may think so.
Bush’s Iraqi misadventure is liable for meaner punishment but in these days of strict security, it would not be inappropriate to suggest that the shoe-thrower was somewhat innovative in showing his protest to American invasion of Iraq and anger for the man who is credited for this mess.
But coming back to the core issue of men being better equipped to handle out-and-out killing situations may just be a myth propagated in word and action both. That is the reason why tears and men have never been allowed to be comfortable with each other.
When cricketing legend Kapil Dev cried on national TV over the match-fixing issue, he first shocked the nation and only then did the views flow in, the prime one being how good an actor he is to have actually managed the tears. Not many believed the tears could be genuine because tears are a weapon of a sensitive woman. Perhaps, anger would have been a more macho emotion that Kapil could have used.
Talking of which you come to our own dancing cricketer S Sreesanth. He, too, created quite a storm by bawling in the middle of the field after being slapped unceremoniously by Harbhajan Singh after an IPL match. As he cried out loud, Bhajji was made to go from the tournament but the real talk was “how could Sreesanth cry, how could he be such a sissy!”
Sreesanth, both men and women felt, was not man enough to tackle an insult. He should have raved and ranted, hit back or done anything else except succumbing to tears. Crying? That is not done if you are a man.
But it is not just about crying, it is about a whole lot of other emotions men are told to suppress, and under traditional instruction they have largely managed to do so. How else could a Bill Clinton survive the global assault on his under-the-table oral activities that led him into the impeachment zone? Billy boy did the best thing one could do — he just refused to react and when he did apologise for his erroneous libido, he did so with a straight face. He was called macho — not with Monica Lewinsky but for holding on to himself in his biggest hour of crisis.
Coming back to our worried man in office who feels that to be sensitive is to be a woman, he has been asking for tips to get over feeling bad.
So how many of us would be telling this person that it is okay to be sensitive, to feel bad or good because it is only human to do so?
Not many because we largely believe what Amitabh Bachchan said on big screen some decades ago — “Mard ko dard nahin hota.”
However, things are changing somewhat for now. “I miss you so much, it hurts,” is one very-male catchline! Also, men have started wearing pink, making babies as gays, sporting jewellery and have also been keeping the house. But then, it is a small segment called the metrosexual man who is lauded for being like a woman. For whatever it is worth, he is already out of fashion!
You gently point out to him that maybe he is only turning human, unlike many men he knows, and he laughs out aloud.
Perhaps that is because emotions have been taught by generations to hide and not sit — even lightly — on a man’s shoulder, howsoever slim or broad it might be.
Perhaps, that is the reason why George W Bush could brave the global mockery thrown at him after the infamous shoe incident. He put up a poker face and even made light of it. In that context, he could be called man enough. After all, he did not twitch a jaw muscle, let alone break down or even get angry. Does that mean he is not a woman because he is not sensitive to anything? Our man in office may think so.
Bush’s Iraqi misadventure is liable for meaner punishment but in these days of strict security, it would not be inappropriate to suggest that the shoe-thrower was somewhat innovative in showing his protest to American invasion of Iraq and anger for the man who is credited for this mess.
But coming back to the core issue of men being better equipped to handle out-and-out killing situations may just be a myth propagated in word and action both. That is the reason why tears and men have never been allowed to be comfortable with each other.
When cricketing legend Kapil Dev cried on national TV over the match-fixing issue, he first shocked the nation and only then did the views flow in, the prime one being how good an actor he is to have actually managed the tears. Not many believed the tears could be genuine because tears are a weapon of a sensitive woman. Perhaps, anger would have been a more macho emotion that Kapil could have used.
Talking of which you come to our own dancing cricketer S Sreesanth. He, too, created quite a storm by bawling in the middle of the field after being slapped unceremoniously by Harbhajan Singh after an IPL match. As he cried out loud, Bhajji was made to go from the tournament but the real talk was “how could Sreesanth cry, how could he be such a sissy!”
Sreesanth, both men and women felt, was not man enough to tackle an insult. He should have raved and ranted, hit back or done anything else except succumbing to tears. Crying? That is not done if you are a man.
But it is not just about crying, it is about a whole lot of other emotions men are told to suppress, and under traditional instruction they have largely managed to do so. How else could a Bill Clinton survive the global assault on his under-the-table oral activities that led him into the impeachment zone? Billy boy did the best thing one could do — he just refused to react and when he did apologise for his erroneous libido, he did so with a straight face. He was called macho — not with Monica Lewinsky but for holding on to himself in his biggest hour of crisis.
Coming back to our worried man in office who feels that to be sensitive is to be a woman, he has been asking for tips to get over feeling bad.
So how many of us would be telling this person that it is okay to be sensitive, to feel bad or good because it is only human to do so?
Not many because we largely believe what Amitabh Bachchan said on big screen some decades ago — “Mard ko dard nahin hota.”
However, things are changing somewhat for now. “I miss you so much, it hurts,” is one very-male catchline! Also, men have started wearing pink, making babies as gays, sporting jewellery and have also been keeping the house. But then, it is a small segment called the metrosexual man who is lauded for being like a woman. For whatever it is worth, he is already out of fashion!
Published on December 21, 2008 in Sunday Pioneer, http://www.dailypioneer.com/144869/About-not-being-man-enough.html
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