Irish Men Sit on Their Emotions

I read something recently that said that Irish men have trouble expressing their emotions. So what else is new? Like men in many other parts of the world, we do not usually get the opportunity to break down in tears, in public. Debates might rage over who are the most emotionally expressive men in the world but I think in so doing, people get awfully tied up in knots. We need to understand the nuts and bolts of how emotional expressivity and gender are connected, and what values we attach to, just say, a flood of tears or a fit of anger. Blaming an illusory lack of self-esteem amongst young men in Ireland, as in the article that I read, is total nonsense. And pointing to Australia as a place where good things happen in men’s health promotion, is equally doltish. Nothing much happens here in men’s health promotion, other than an orchestrated push by big pharma to get as many men as possible signed up as long-term anti-depressant customers. A seemingly never-ending cavalcade of male artists, politicians, and sports stars come out at carefully stage-managed times and events, to announce their battle with the big D and the ray of sunshine that has crept into their lives ever since they got juiced up on the big A-D. I think that in Ireland, as in Australia, we are stuck with a dilemma whereby men would rather die than cry, and we have not yet decided which way we should go… 

Update: Please refer to this online discussion about us Irish men and our emotions…