Dave has kindly reminded me that grief is part of a bigger issue, male feelings in general. His Davenet on the subject from 1998 suggests that manhood = controlling emotions in our culture. He suggests that if the culture were more open to receiving male expressions of emotion, that men would be better at expressing their feelings.
I don’t know that I necessarily agree with the first point (though I’m not sure how I would define manhood otherwise), but I definitely believe the second. It’s a reinforcing loop. As men stay silent, the culture becomes accustomed to men not expressing their feelings. Eventually, expressing feelings becomes an exception, exceptions aren’t tolerated, and the cost of not expressing feelings becomes over time too high to bear.
How do we break the loop? Men have to stop being afraid of the cost. Everyone needs to stop treating expressions of male emotion like they’re antisocial behavior.
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