5. And just how was anyone to prevent me from crying?
Thanks to some early, well-publicized attempts to create a Men's Liberation movement, it seems that nearly everyone "knows" that what sexist social forces do to men is make us so we can't cry...and that Men's Lib is all about recapturing the ability to cry.
In the course of my childhood experience as a male sex role nonconformist (sissy), I never found myself cheated of the ability or opportunity of crying, or, for that matter, feeling and expressing a wide range of emotions and sensitivities which weren't exactly considered appropriate for little males.
What I experienced was not a social force intervening to prevent me from feeling or expressing what I felt ó if you think about it, that would be kind of difficult to arrange ó but rather a refusal to acknowledge or respond to it.
Sure, I cried...like when my kitty cat died while we were on vacation, and I hadn't even known he was sick, and I loved him so much because I didn't have many friends...and I cried when the music teacher taught us a haunting song from eastern Europe somewhere about someone pining away for freedom
ó
"Waters ripple and flow, on their way to the sea -
Grant my freedom to me, set my spirit free
Tura flowing past, grant me liberty at last..."
ó
and I cried sometimes when I was frustrated or mired in sorry-for-myself feelings or humiliated by cruel teasing...but whereas people tended to be more cautious about how they treated girls (overdoing it to the point of shielding them unnecessarily) because of their human vulnerabilities and fragilities, the fact that I had feelings was not impressed on the world by the fact that I cried, and the tears themselves were either ignored or pointed at with amusement or actually infuriated people and made them viciously angry at me for being a crybaby. And my sadness and frustration feelings, along with other feelings such as deep awe, tenderness, joy, disgust, shock, indignation, even serenity or general senses of happy well-being...well, it was like this: it did seem that this was what it was all about, this sensitivity to feeling, and while I did not have the idea that they were trying to take this away from me, I did hate them for not sharing it and for being the way they were instead. Also, it was frustrating to sense that my receptivity to them was what made me vulnerable, hurtable, and I was tired of hurting and being hurt inside like that all the time.
An art teacher was once instructing us to characterize ourselves as some representative object, and for an example, she spoke of having seen me on my way to school, skipping along (alone) happily, and likened me to a balloon. Yet, despite the fact that my childhood was indeed shot through with good feelings, happy feelings, and so forth, the overwhelming memory of childhood and my impression of what my life was like during the time I was living it all, was one of ongoing monotonous misery.
* * *
The girl cried on, red-faced, stringy hair matted to her wet cheeks, as her best friend held her and spoke softly, comforting, and I wondered what the cause of her pain might be, but, although I knew her, I knew better than to intrude, I'd learned I was unwelcome, generally, at such times, and suddenly I was struck by the fact that no one ever came to me for comforting, to be understood, to be held, that I was never thought of as a person you could turn to... and, suddenly feeling incredibly cheated, this thought made me cry, and I ran off and cried for a long time because I knew I had it, but I couldn't use it, it didn't matter, it was useless, no one wanted it from me.
It -- the capacity for empathy, becoming one with a person and feeling their hurts and joining with them in anger (or other appropriate feeling) at their cause -- came from the same sensitivity that made me easily hurt by cruelty and contempt, and they all seemed to be trying to take it all away from me, but nothing could take that from me, I'd already long since paid an awful price for it, and now it was going to turn inward on itself, making me cry for my own sake. I could care, but no one was going to care if I cared, and I couldn't use it; I couldn't empathize unless someone shared, and no one was casting such delicate pearls in my direction. So I cried for me, until the janitor or gardener or whoever he was threatened to take me up to the front office and have them send me home if I didn't pull myself together, and I knew I couldn't explain to anyone, so I choked it off, which wasn't too difficult after he burst into my privacy like that. You get used to changing emotional state when you have to, and he was sort of concerned (in an indifferent sort of way) rather than striking at me himself, so I had time to do as he asked with no trouble.
Still, it was just postponing, in a way, for the cause of my tears that day wasn't going to go away, and I guess I've cried over being cut off, over not being able to care and show it more often than for any other single reason. Until only very recently, it was still a major problem.
I knew, of course, that crying was considered sissified, but I also knew that if you're going to have feelings, sometimes you're going to feel like crying, which was obviously harmless and nobody else's business, and who was going to stop me? Boys can't cry, huh? And just how do they think they can do anything about it? I'd like to see them try!
* * *
Then there's the other kind of crying. When it's been too long. When you're out of it. When it's time to quit trying to go on any further. When you know, down deep inside, that you're drained dead empty of all the somedays and all the tomorrows and suddenly your days blur together and become a life.
And it's like being lost way out in the wilderness and you know for certain you're going to die there and never see anyone ever again. It's like finding out that your home town got hit by an atomic bomb while you were in summer camp and every person you ever knew is dead. It's like getting hit in the head and you can't remember anything, not even your name. It's like a nightmare where your family can't see you or hear your voice and you look in the mirror and there's no reflection.
It happens when you know that no one understands and no one ever will. It happens when you know it isn't going to ever, ever get any better. It happens when you look up at the sky and finally see the Pyrex dome. It happens when you think that when you die you want to be buried separate from everyone else, no marker, no records, so no one will ever know you were here. And you feel so cold and empty.
And you cry and cry and your body shakes and it's never going to stop and everyone's politely ignoring you, you're a boy, and you need to be hugged and held and loved and understood, but it isn't going to happen because of the reason you're crying in the first place, which makes it worst of all, you're so totally lost and alone and it hurts and it hurts and it hurts, dammit!
Until finally you just run out of cry. And you feel numb. Calm. Serene, even. And you decide to take some pills to help you sleep, everything will be okay. I think sixteen of these red capsules will do...
* * *
The Women's Liberation movement of recent years has set forth an itemized female indictment of this sexist system of things, patriarchy, describing with righteous anger the atrocities that women and girls have to endure so that males can have the privileges of dominance. We ó men ó are the accused at this trial.
In response, many men have protested that we have it bad in this world, too, that men need liberating as victims of patriarchy...which has generally annoyed those women who were hoping to communicate with us and caused much contemptuous amusement among those who perceive men as the Enemy. "We're talking economic destitution, battery and rape, bodily mutilation, ritual murder, legal nonexistence, and oppression, and you're comparing that to men's not being allowed to cry???"
And yet, as ridiculous as it sounds, what patriarchy does to males in order to make them men is indeed serious, tragic, and comparable to women's experiences with patriarchy on the same scale.
Women are confined, oppressed, owned (and mistreated) by men in ways too numerous to mention here. And yet, apparently because caring for other people is considered a servile role in the patriarchal system of things, women are also encouraged to feel and acknowledge their feelings (with the major exception of anger and related feelings of assertiveness). And emotions are the most important of the senses. Without them, a person is much worse off than being blind or deaf. It comes closer to dead.
Men are deadened, turned into zombies, allowed only anger and the pursuit of power over other people (in an environment where they are guaranteed never to attain the power to own themselves). Despite the fact that this is undeniably a system that puts men in a position of oppressive and coercive domination over women, it strikes me that the women are alive and hurting while the men are dead and feel no pain.
Yes, I would compare. In fact, I grew up envious.
* * *
The sisterhood of women's liberation came unto you with fists clenched in fury, eyes flashing in unfeminine radical rage. They had a lot to cry about, but they knew they couldn't get anywhere until they loosed the anger forbidden to them in the cause of freeing the girls.
A brotherhood, in order to succeed, will come forth with tears in our eyes, crying in unmasculine empathy over the hurts of an entire gender. We have got a lot to be angry about, yes, but we will never be able to overcome the specter of humiliation and public embarrassment unless we are ready to release our forbidden sorrow to cry for the fate of the boys.
Radical men's lib will be a real heart-breaker.
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