My male friends love to cry at any given opportunity. They cry during weepy films, they cry at funerals, they cry in sympathy and the list goes on and on. One such 'cry baby' is my cousin. He cried his eyes out when his woman left him for pastures new. His mum called him all sorts of names, including sissy, stupid, 'emori' (porridge) and a whole lot more. "Fancy crying over a woman" were her very words. He could have been crying because his ego had been sorely bruised or he genuinely had his heart breaking, it really did not matter. As far as I am concerned, his crying was an expression of the sadness he felt in his heart. It had nothing to do with his being a man and, therefore, crying for everyone to see was not a no! no! and not "unmacho". It seems society frowns on men who cry, and even women cry foul when they see a man cry. When the Good Lord gave tear ducts to us, I don't think he made a provision that men should not cry with them! It is society that frowns on men crying. So much so that the Akans even have a saying: "barima nsu" ("men don't cry"): I have been to funerals where the son is crying bohoohoo! and heard comments like "look at that sissy of a man, crying like a woman when he should be comforting the women." 'Good Lord!’ I muttered to myself, 'the man's mother died; for crying out loud, he is naturally expressing an emotion'. My doctor cries but he does not make it a habit of crying for everyone to see. Typical male! Most men hide and cry or don't cry at all for fear of recriminations from society. It is a cowardly act on men's part. Crying is an emotion. Unless men, are telling me they don't have any emotions; that will be a different matter. I come from a family whose members cry when sad and when happy. Yes! Sometimes you can be so overwhelmed with happiness that your eyes mist over. My family is big on emotions. Both men and women don't withhold tears, with the notion that crying is not being macho. They cry when moved. It does not make sissies of the men. Crying is a natural expression of an emotion, be it sadness, grief, or happiness and men should be allowed to express it without fear of losing their balls. Crying is therapeutic! You exorcise whatever is eating away at you and you do feel better after. We all know it is never good to bottle anything in. It could be toxic and explosive when barriers weaken. The esoteric believe crying cleanses your soul and washes away some of your sins. There are, however, people who are never moved to tears and they are wrongly labelled hard or cold. They may not be hard, they just don't have tears to cry or hate crying. It could also be due to societal pressures. There are people who are cold too and no matter what you do to them, they will never show any emotion. But not everybody is also moved to tears naturally and that is fine. It is not a big deal. The big deal is when a man has to bottle his emotion inside or go hide to express it because people will frown on it. Why the hypocrisy? Crying is such a big issue and I sometimes wonder why we waste so much energy on it. There are even "crying contractors" at funerals to make it more solemn and weepy to signify extreme sadness. Onions are used on the eyes of members of the family who can't cry. We fail to realise that some people in a state of shock cannot cry. And yet more others cry so much they have no more tears. I hear people make comments at funerals like "eh wasu ne papa paa" (meaning "the bereaved really cried their eyes out for their father"). Crying is natural. Some people cry, some don't. It is not "unmacho" for men to cry. They are also expressing an emotion like everyone else. Let us look at it as such and not make a menagerie out of it. For the men who seriously think it is not macho and make such an effort not to cry, GET REAL! Why the stress? Cry! Or for that matter weep. I could not help noticing that even in the exercise of shedding tears, there is a gender' difference. Women cry! Men weep! Source: Akosua Secret/The Mirror