Lovers and Fighters | Section 22

The story about Carlos has the same message as the documentary that we watched in class: let’s teach our boys that being a man means being human. And as a human being you are allowed to cry, you’re allowed to love and be loved, You have the right to communicate your desires, your wants and your needs within all spheres of life without anyone reprimanding you or making you feel like crap; and if someone does, it had more to do with them than it ever will with you. In the story, Theres a passage that I adore; By buying into the illusion of power afforded by patriarchy, we as heterosexual men do far more than just oppress women and gay men – ultimately we are oppressing ourselves. A lot of guys I know feel the need to choose between being a man and being human but what they fail to realize is that the mold we as a society have crafted for them isn’t that of man, it’s an empty soulless shell that turns into a prison once you enter. Any sign of resistance shut down and silenced. That’s when boys start to devalue their desires, wants and needs. They develop a sense that being feared is more beneficial than being loved. Fear and power go hand in hand, life then turns into a competition, the winner takes it all. But if you constantly have to prove yourself, do you ever actually win? We have to start teaching our children that they loved unconditionally, we have to start telling our friends, our partners that they are loved unconditionally. You know, it’s not the lack of emotions, it’s the lack of emotional support. The documentary mentions that these boys have some much pain bottled up within them and that it’s so emotionally draining constantly having to take care of everything by themselves. Some of the boys have friends they consider outlets for those emotions and that they have a sense of relief knowing that someone is there for them. But a lot of these boys our lone soldiers in the never ending battle of ironic patriarchy. The terms masculine and feminine our quiet literally mirror images of each other, two sides of the same coin;) yet today we’ve stamped them as two different entities. This drives us to believe that there is only one way to be a man, which is completely false. So it’s time we change the narrative of man up. And remember, you’re gorgeous💋