Lovers and Fighters | Section 22

They say men must act tough through it all, but what really astonished me was the fact that they are constantly obligated to keep a poker face. Sorrow, anger, fear: these are all completely normal emotions every human is born with, man or not. Thus, being told to not show feelings eventually builds up inside of you until you can no longer take it anymore. This shook me because coming from a family of three woman, I’m not really aware of how men are treated since all my life, I was told it is harder to live life as a woman.

Another thing that jumped at me was “1 in 4 boys get bullied at school, and only 30% of those boys tell their parents”. This was shocking in particular because in movies such as Mean Girls and cyberbully, the females were often targeted. It caught my attention as I figured male, in particular gays are thrown under the bus for almost anything. In addition, the bullies often tend to pick on people because they are taught how to behave dominantly in which, bullies think they are.

As for the Carlos Andres Gomez book, the part that got to me was when after figuring out what a faggot meant, Carlos went on stating he has had “classmates and friends describe gay people as pedophiles and molesters”. Incidents such as so transformed Carlos into a homophobic person to the point he refused to attend a gay club. This intertwines with the documentary because gay people are considered weak and show sissyness in the eyes of society. According to the movie, “boys have a higher suicide rate than girls” and almost every male who shared their bullying incident in the movie thought of suicide at one point.