Men who cry

Sachin Tendulkar, the nation’s most potent symbol of strength, breaking down and weeping at Sai Baba’s funeral may have been an ‘ awww’ moment for the media, but it got me revisiting a subject I’ve been fascinated by for some time now: the business of men crying.

We’re all familiar with the instances of male ocular outbursts, which in recent popular culture seem to have become the monopoly of cricketers.

When Kapil Dev broke down and cried on Karan Thapar’s  TV program some years ago, it  not only made headlines but gave us a different take on the Haryanvi hunk and also for many people established  his innocence in the match-fixing allegation (“he was so upset, he cried,” his fans said.) Sreeshant blubbering away like a baby may not have had the same salutary effect on the public but caught the popular imagination anyway.

And though cricketers seem to have taken the lead in this respect, they don’t seem to be the only sports stars given to such expression.

History has recorded that Michael Jordan wept when he won the NBA in 1996. Metrosexual icon David Beckham squeezed out a few wet ones when he was divested of his captaincy during the 2006 World Cup. And an emotional Tiger Woods has cried not only when he won the British Open after his father’s death but more recently while he made his public apology for his adulterous affairs and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down threatening a gush of waterworks.

In my opinion the reason why sport stars cry more publicly than, say, politicians or CEOs do is because they can get away with it. With crying being regarded as a female trait in most cultures, perhaps it is only the manliest and confidently masculine of men who can afford to cry, without risking ridicule or a dent in their public personas.

I was happy to see this view of mine upheld by Professor Tom Lutz, the author of Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears. Gender stereotypes is why male politicians, at least in the US, can allow themselves the occasional tear, whereas women cannot.

A man is seen as strong and unemotional, so crying hints at depth. A woman politician has to portray herself as tough to succeed. So when a woman cries, it reinforces stereotypes and tells us that her toughness was just a front and she has revealed herself to be weak underneath.

“This is why Bill Clinton can cry more than Hillary can,” says Lutz.

But acceptance of male crying is still in its nascent stage. In her poignant memoir of her broken marriage, Heartburn, Nora Ephron wrote: “Beware of men who cry, men who cry are sensitive, but the only feelings they are in touch with are their own.”

There’s an absolute compendium of information on male crying on the net for anyone who cares to look.  But the most interesting one, according to me, is on the site “The Art of manliness” which lists the ten occasions when it’s OK for men to cry. These include: when your team wins at a sport, at the birth of your child, when your car gets totaled, at the death of a loved one or a pet and at the altar.

But the jury’s still out on this one.

What’s your opinion on when it’s OK for a man to cry?

Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer (malavikasangghvi@hotmail.com)