Is it unprofessional to cry?
How do you react when a man cries, in public?
I have been thinking about vulnerability a lot lately. Crying in front of people is an ultimate act of vulnerability. And a LOADED one in our culture!
I was listening to the radio and I heard this story about men weeping. The author who was being interviewed talked about how historically it was socially acceptable (actually admirable) for men to weep. And how we have lost something in our culture.
Men don’t cry. Especially not in any PUBLIC setting.
For all of us, male and female, crying in the workplace (which runs on man’s rules) is pretty much verboten. Have you ever cried in the workplace? What was the reaction?
I have cried in the workplace a few times.
(For the record, I was not hysterically sobbing or freaking out, but I was angry/crying and visibly upset and speaking to my boss or a co-worker about the situation in a closed room.)
The reaction to my crying in each circumstance was the same – “Hey Mary. Calm down. Stop being so EMOTIONAL!”
Subtext: Mary, stop being so inappropriate. With your unruly tears. They make me uncomfortable.
I gotta say: That is such HORSESHIT!
Why do we see crying as bad (feminine, weak) but other displays of (more manly) emotion as acceptable?
When someone expresses emotion in the workplace with anger, a slightly raised voice, a profanity (gasp!) and perhaps a thump on a table with a fist, no one bats an eye. Being angry is okay.
But CRYING? No way!
THERE’S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL! Why? Does baseball not have human emotions like disappointment, fear, embarrassment and sorrow? Why do we think this is a cute thing to say? It’s not.
This is all crap. We are buying into a patriarchal culture which gives certain emotions female traits and other emotions male traits. And guess which emotions are less desirable? The “girly” ones.
What makes an emotion girly?
My emotions are not girly. They are mine. They have no gender. I have all the same emotions a man has. I just might be more willing (and culturally encouraged) to have mine openly. And I should not ever have to apologize for having them.
Why have we been taught to feel shame for having tearful emotions?
Have you ever seen someone tell an personal and emotional story, well up with tears during the story, and then apologize for their mini-“break” in poised professionalism? I’ve seen this happen too many times. We should not apologize for our connection to authentic feelings. It’s got to stop. If you are telling an real and emotional story and you well up with tears, that’s okay. Take a breath and move on. That is all.
Maybe you don’t believe there is a double standard? How about this? What do you think when a woman swears in public? What if she says “fuck”? Is that shocking?
Men can say fuck (maybe) in many places (including many portions of the work place) but women have significant less cultural permission to do so. How rude! How unladylike. How unprofessional!
Listen, if both sexes can participate in the act of *fucking, than both sexes can say fuck. Got it?
I’m on a rant here but the point is – OMG – Please have your fucking emotions! ALL of them. Stop hiding or pretending to be a robot. Your emotions should include sadness and perhaps tears.
For the record, tears can also represent anger and frustration. Tears are a natural outcome of powerlessness. Why can’t we be okay with that?
We need to be willing to show people that emotions are okay. We need to stop telling people that tears are shameful or unprofessional. We need to stop feeding the patriarchal and plastic culture which wants us to package ourselves in artificial bubbles of false humanity.
How do we make change happen?
If you hear someone say that he was “crying like a girl” – say something. Just as we need to create a conscious culture to combat years of catcalls and other inappropriate aggression towards women, we also need to stop defining emotions by gender. It is sexist and diminishes women (and men).
Some might say, “But you cant just act like a crazy person because you are having an emotion!” I agree. Emotions are not weapons. Emotions should never be wielded in order to win a battle or to hurt people deliberately.
When is an emotion inappropriate in “public”? Here’s my rule of thumb.
Stop and re-evaluate your emotional expression under these conditions:
1) If you are deliberately shaming or bullying someone with emotion to get what you want.
2) If you are using emotion to get attention and be a victim.
3) If you are using emotion to deflect from the truth and create a smokescreen.
You will notice I did not list “if you are making someone uncomfortable”. Someone else’s reaction to your real, non-victimy, non-manipulative emotions is irrelevant to this conversation.
How does this relate to STORYTELLING?
Because emotion is the heart of good story. How can we be powerful storytellers if we cannot connect to and share our emotions?
This conversation makes a GREAT storytelling prompt: Tell a story about a time you cried.
Here’s my story of a time I cried.
When I moved from Georgia to the Bay Area, I drove my van and my dog across the country alone.
I was single and alone and feeling the acute angst of the big leap I had taken with my new job and new life. But as I had been taught, as a stoic Midwestern girl, I was putting a brave face on it. I kept reminding myself what a great adventure this was and being very positive about all the great things I was gaining.
As an experiement, I asked all my friends and family to recommend a song for me to listen to while I was on the road. I took all their suggestions and I made a giant playlist for the journey.
As I drove (and drove and drove and drove) I listened to the playlist and thought deep thoughts about my new life and what I wanted to become.
Then this song came on: The Middle by Jimmy Eat World.
Hey
Don’t write yourself off yet
It’s only in your head you feel left out or looked down on
Just try your best
Try everything you can
And don’t you worry what they tell themselves when you’re awayIt just takes some time
Little girl, you’re in the middle of the ride
Everything, everything will be just fine
Everything, everything will be all right
This song gave me permission to let down my guard and stop being the tough lady who can barrel through anything. The song allowed me to access how scared and vulnerable and uncertain I was about my new life. It said that I was on a journey and I needed to know there was more to come than how I felt right then.
My emotion was compounded by the fact that my older brother had recommended the song for me. We were very close as kids but are not close as adults and the fact that he had “sent” me THIS song made me feel that even though we did not have a close connection anymore, that on some level he still saw himself as my big brother, the brother I had so deeply admired and always wanted to impress. He was saying – I see you. You are going to be okay.
So I cried. And cried and cried. I listened to that song at least 10 times in a row and cried the whole time.
It was cathartic. It was inspiring. It was wistful. It was raw emotion. It was beautiful.
Thanks Matt.
What do you think?????
