Take It Like A Man: We Need To Stop Teaching Sons That!

Teaching our sons to “take it like a man” may do more harm than good.

“Take it like a man” — an old saying that emphasizes how men are the stronger sex. It’s supposed to be a statement to encourage strength and resilience in humankind as a whole. But, the translation seems to have gotten lost somewhere because men began to underreport assaults, abuse, mental health problems, and many other things when they are the victims (Harned, 2001; Carmo, Grams, and Magalhães, 2017). Besides that, here are other reasons why we should stop teaching our sons to take it like a man:

1. Abuse can happen to anyone!

Abuse isn’t gendered; it’s all about control. But because sons are taught to “take it like a man,” men underreport the psychological and emotional abuse as a victim because there’s no physical proof and people believe women more (Heckert & Gondolf, 2000; Harned, 2001; Carmo et. al, 2011), especially in the Philippines where people still think it’s impossible for men to be raped and abused (Madrid, Dans, Lopez, Fry, Duka-Pante, and Muyot, 2020).

Because there’s a persisting idea that only men can be rapists, many men only report it when they’re much older and when the rapist is long gone (Roche, 2017). Men can be raped, too; it’s not usually called rape but aggravated sodomy — sexually assaulted orally or anally (Donnelly & Kenyon, 1996; Robertson, 2010).

2. This makes them stay in toxic relationships.

We’re quick to encourage women to leave the man in an abusive and toxic relationship but, we hesitate to offer that to men. Because they have to take it like a man, men are more prone to staying in toxic relationships because they are taught to “stay strong” (Carr and VanDeusen, 2002; Carmo et, al, 2011). It also reinforces their need to sacrifice everything for the girl because that is what society says they should do.

3. Being masculine shouldn’t mean bottling up all the pain and stress.

When women complain about men being “emotionally constipated,” it’s because teaching them to take on problems “like a man” conditions them to bury their emotions. “Men don’t cry”, “stop your bxtching” — many of these statements imply that crying and complaining are only meant for women which isn’t true. Men aren’t robots; they’re human beings (Berke, Reidy, Miller, Zeichner, 2017).

4. It belittles women, too, reinforcing the double standard.

Teaching sons to “take it like a man” also affects daughters by creating a double standard that boys are stronger than girls when the experiences are exclusive. Although our daughters may go through different things, it doesn’t make the experience any less than those of our sons.

5. It’s additional pressure for them to deal with.

Let’s be honest: men take on a lot of weight, too. They always need to make more than the woman, they need to handle all the mechanical stuff (i.e. fixing the car), and they always need to choose a college course that’s extremely lucrative even if they’re more talented in the arts — all these things are implied when they are taught to “take it like a man.” If we’re already having a hard time, what more a little boy who’s still figuring out his left foot from his right?

6. It teaches them not to question things when they should!

People ask questions because they want to understand things — both men and women. But telling them to “take it like a man” implies that boys should just do things with no questions asked. The problem is, authority isn’t a good measuring stick or indicator of who’s right or wrong especially because knowledge and times change.

7. It desensitizes them to the feelings and emotions of others.

When we teach our sons — especially young ones — to “take it like a man,” we always add the segment that being a man means also being there for others. Unfortunately, the old explanation of the proverb is sometimes used to justify being harsh and blunt to a fault, which may teach our sons to be insensitive to the feelings of others.

What it means to be “a man”

The definition of a man has changed over the years, transitioning and normalizing men to be more expressive of their emotions. While we do want our sons to be resilient during hard times, we don’t want them to use that as a reason to bully others or make others feel bad. Nor do we want them to internalize the pain if we lash out at them. We want our sons to be human and the most important part of being a person is allowing them to experience emotions that come with life’s events.

References

Berke, D. S., Reidy, D. E., Miller, J. D., & Zeichner, A. (2017). Take it like a man: Gender-threatened men’s experience of gender role discrepancy, emotion activation, and pain tolerance. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 18(1), 62.

Carmo, R., Grams, A., & Magalhães, T. (2011). Men as victims of intimate partner violence. Journal of forensic and legal medicine, 18(8), 355-359.

Carr, J. L., & VanDeusen, K. M. (2002). The relationship between family of origin violence and dating violence in college men. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 17(6), 630-646.

Donnelly, D. A., & Kenyon, S. (1996). “Honey, We Don’t Do Men” Gender Stereotypes and the Provision of Services to Sexually Assaulted Males. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 11(3), 441-448.

Harned, M. S. (2001). Abused women or abused men? An examination of the context and outcomes of dating violence. Violence and victims, 16(3), 269.

Heckert, D. A., & Gondolf, E. W. (2000). Assessing assault self-reports by batterer program participants and their partners. Journal of Family Violence, 15, 181-197.

Madrid, B. J., Lopez, G. D., Dans, L. F., Fry, D. A., Duka-Pante, F. G. H., & Muyot, A. T. (2020). Safe schools for teens: preventing sexual abuse of urban poor teens, proof-of-concept study-Improving teachers’ and students’ knowledge, skills and attitudes. Heliyon, 6(6), e04080.

Robertson, S. (2010). Shifting the scene of the crime: Sodomy and the American history of sexual violence. Journal of the History of Sexuality, 19(2), 223-242.

Roche, S. (2017). Child protection and maltreatment in the Philippines: A systematic review of the literature. Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies, 4(1), 104-128.

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