International Men's Day: 'From Amitabh Bachchan’s reel and real-life portrayal to Virat Kohli’s volatile

When one talks of mental health, one often thinks about depression, anxiety and other common issues. What one, usually, forgets to realise is that mental health is much more than that-- and it isn't specific to any one gender. Bringing people's attention to the emotional turmoil that Indian men go through, why they behave the way they do, their views on romantic relationships, gender roles, and what it means to be a man especially in the post #MeToo period, culture journalist Prachi Gangwani has written a new book 'Dear Men' which examines these issues and much more. ``In startling, often revelatory interviews 'Dear Men' shows how Indian men across ages navigate romantic relationships in a country that is still teetering on the cusp of modern and traditional,' reads the book's blurb. Published by Bloomsbury India, 'Dear Men' by Prachi Gangwani released on November 18, 2021. On the occasion of International Men's Day today, here's an exclusive excerpt from the book on understanding toxic masculinity and why we need to stop it. ‘BOYS DON’T CRY’ IS MORE THAN A TRENDY PUNCHLINEWhen I asked men what they thought was the biggest challenge patriarchy posed to them, almost all of them brought up the diktat that ‘boys don’t cry’. Some spoke of it in superficial terms, as if regurgitating what they’d seen trending on the Internet. Others shared stories of how they had been shamed and bullied for being ‘sensitive’. Yet others countered this with their definition of masculinity that meant to be ‘stoic’. But ‘boys don’t cry’ isn’t just a punchline for ads and campaigns. When I asked Ayush (a clinical psychologist based in New Delhi) about this, he said, ‘Toxic masculinity begins with this idea that boys don’t cry.’ He goes on to tell me about alexithymia. ‘These days, we talk a lot about this idea. But it’s actually true. Telling young boys not to cry, not to be weak, actually makes them unable to feel and express their emotions.’ Coined by Ronald F. Levant of Nova Southeastern University, Normative Male Alexithymia (NMA) refers to a man’s inability to put emotions into words. According to the proponents of NMA, this stunting of emotional expression is a result of gender-stereotypical upbringing and socialization. Research shows that male toddlers are more emotionally sensitive and expressive than female toddlers. However, by adolescence, boys become less expressive than girls. This is attributed to parenting styles which expose girl children to a wider range of emotions and experiences while discouraging boys from showing so-called ‘weaker’ emotions. NMA is a spectrum rather than a list of symptoms or signs. This means that some men are less capable of expressing emotions than others. Where a man lies along the spectrum is directly related to the severity of his rigid and gender-compliant upbringing. So the harsher the consequences for a young boy showing vulnerability, the less emotionally expressive he will be as a man. The more we deny young boys expressing their emotions, the less emotionally expressive they become. When it comes to nature versus nurture, nurture often has more power than we think.

WHERE DO EMOTIONS GO? As a student of psychology, I learnt that emotions are like little children asking for attention and care. They start with a whisper, a small gesture. When that doesn’t work, they begin to get louder. Some children cry. Others throw tantrums. If children are reprimanded even after that, they may go quiet but their need for attention doesn’t disappear. They simply take that need elsewhere. Emotions work the same way. When reprimanded, they may become silent for a while, but they linger under the surface. Indian men are like pressure cookers. With a tight lid and high flame, their emotions simmer inside until they explode. Chandra tells me he sees this explosion in his male clients. ‘If you keep piling up your emotions, after a point, there will be a blast which will destroy your work, friendships, relationships, everything. Mental health is not just something you suffer in silence. It affects your bio-psycho-social needs.’

Bio-psycho-social: biological, psychological, social. These three pillars uphold the structure of life. Each one impacts the other two. When we neglect any one of these three elements of well-being, the other two begin to weaken.

‘You become an angry man. Because young boys are told — aadmi hai toh ladna aana chahiye [men must be fighters] — this “man up” concept actually messes up manhood. This starts becoming a problem in your twenties or thirties when you want to settle down, have a partner or a serious relationship…that’s when you realize you don’t even know what it means to be in love.’

This ‘angry young man’ is a male archetype that has been normalized at the very least, and celebrated at worst, in its many forms. From Amitabh Bachchan’s reel and real-life portrayal to Virat Kohli’s volatile temper, we almost expect men to be short-fused and unable to control their anger. In many cases, when a man is indeed angry most people walk on eggshells around him so as to not provoke him. One doesn’t want to be the reason why a short-tempered man has lost his cool. Parents, partners, siblings and even friends, tend to deal with this by avoiding provocation, and ignoring anger bursts, waiting for them to pass. Rarely do we pause and wonder if it’s a problem that requires psychological intervention. This is a sign of how we have normalized and accepted that men are angry, when in fact, as Chandra points out, the anger is a result of years of conditioning young boys to not show any emotion.

So, where do emotions go when we tell young boys not to cry? They get bottled up. Sometimes the lid is so tightly fastened that you can’t open it no matter how hard you try. At other times, so much is stuffed inside the bottle that it explodes and destroys everything in its wake. ‘Emotions don’t go anywhere,’ says Chandra. ‘Eventually, you reach a point of frustration and resentment, and when that happens, you pick fights with everyone around you. Or you develop maladaptive behaviours like drug addiction. In some cases, it leads to anxiety or depression. It takes a hit on your immune system. And even obesity can be caused by unresolved emotions. If you notice, some people eat very little but are not able to lose weight. That happens when you mindlessly eat high calorie foods because of stress, which can be caused by unresolved emotions.’

One word that came up often in my conversations about masculinity was ‘stoic’. Men from all walks of life, and at different stages of life — between college and fatherhood — would gravitate to this idea of being ‘stoic’ while speaking about different facets of masculinity. Most men seem to regard the emotional equanimity of a stoic as an ideal to strive for, oblivious to how it impacts them or those around them. ‘To be a man means to not be easily swayed. Not get easily bothered by things and do what you need to do. That’s what men do. It’s just the practical thing to do. You can’t sit around and mope. You have to deal with things without letting them affect you,’ twenty-sevenyear- old Rachit tells me. I can’t wrap my head around this idea of carrying on with your daily life without letting anything bother you. I ask him where he got this idea that men don’t get swayed easily. Earlier in the conversation, he had used the word ‘stoic’ along with a slew of other such ‘masculine’ adjectives — aggressive, focused, strong. It’s important to note here that when speaking of stoicism, men often mean it in the colloquial sense of being emotionally detached and unaffected, rather than methodical examination of problems or questions, with the purpose of arriving at an answer in the process. ‘So do men not feel sad?’ I ask Rachit, flummoxed and curious. ‘It’s not that men don’t feel sad,’ he clarifies. ‘We feel sad when it is appropriate. When something has happened, there is an appropriate response to it.’ It’s July 2020. Three months into the first wave of COVID-19. In April, Rachit was supposed to move to Singapore to join a burgeoning tech startup. When the lockdown was announced in India, he lost that opportunity. When we spoke, he was unemployed and considering starting his own firm. I ask him how that’s been going for him. ‘It’s been fine, actually. I’m just bored out of my mind and I’m drinking a lot. But it’s fine.’ ‘What’s a lot?’ I ask. ‘Like two to three drinks every night,’ he pauses, and then, ‘I can’t sleep without it.’