"Why am I Crying and is it Really Okay for Women to Cry?"

Image by Elsa Gore

  Last Semester was Something...

    Last semester was undeniably my most difficult one in almost every aspect one could think of. The summer before was not very rest-filled and I started the semester already feeling burnt out. To top that off, one of my courses required me to turn in work every time class met (thrice a week) and I was so overwhelmed that I stopped turning in work altogether for about two weeks. The professor posted grades for the first few weeks of school and when I opened the email at midnight, I began to cry. Of course not turning in any work meant an "F" but actually seeing the letter grade by name made me cry from the pit of my stomach. I was ashamed, scared of failure, and tired. But still, as I quivered in my bed, the question at the back of my mind was "Why am I crying?" 

    During an interview last semester, I brought up my mother and how hard it had been on both of us to not have seen each other in more than a year. My throat began to get hot and the tears burst out. One of the interviewers  handed me a box of tissues to dab my tears. When I asked, "Why am I crying?" they all replied by saying, "It's okay to cry." Despite their reassurance, it felt unprofessional or just plain wrong to cry. 

    At a heartfelt send off for a staff member moving to another university, I got up to give a farewell message and I began to cry. As I struggled to string up sentences without tears, the question at the back of my mind was "why am I crying?"

    But I always cry. I cry when I'm frustrated. I cry when I'm overwhelmed. I cry when I'm overjoyed. I cry when I'm famished. I cry when I'm homesick. I cry when I watch a movie with a sad ending. I cry when I feel misunderstood. I cry when I'm afraid. I cry when I'm in a heated argument. In fact, anybody that knows me well, knows I cry about once every week.

    If I cry so often and crying is supposedly normalized for women, why do I still feel embarrassed or helpless when I cry? With a little bit of digging here and there, I found that my shame and embarrassment come from childhood experiences and patriarchal understandings of what it means to be strong. 

    

Childhood Experiences

    As a child, I cried a lot. Or at least, that's what people around me often said. I was very independent and was usually expected to remain composed, which often demanded that I did not cry or make a fuss. But I have never really done a good job of holding my tears back no matter how hard I try. Whenever I cried, I was told I was too sensitive or too emotional. Those two words have been ever present in my memory. Whether I was crying over something I lost or over a sad movie, the reaction was always that of confusion or irritation. Gradually, I came to associate crying with weakness and being a burden to other people. It was a very painful feeling to feel misunderstood and even as a young adult, I sometimes feel triggered by sentences like, "stop crying," or by feeling misunderstood in a situation. 

Patriarchal Expectations

    I think this one was the more shocking revelation for me. Given that women are traditionally "allowed" to cry in public or be "emotional," how do patriarchal expectations leave me at a disadvantage here? The thing is, even though women are technically not shamed for public displays of emotions, patriarchal norms of what it means to be strong eventually turn women's emotions into something that makes women/ effeminate people less capable of things that require "logic" like leadership positions, for example. Obviously, someone who cries when they are frustrated can't be the class captain or the president. Of course, they will crumble when the pressure is on.  Of course, someone on their period is too emotionally unstable to speak or act "rationally." At the end of the day, norms surrounding emotions and the way that they are displayed leaves everyone at a disadvantage. Something that seems so basic ends up leading to higher suicide rates for men, unfounded assumptions about the capabilities of people who don't identify or present as men, and ruined relationships because of poor communication styles, amongst other things. 

Where do I (We) Go From Here? 

   Expressing oneself is already enough of a challenge on its own. It definitely does not make it any easier on anybody to have to deal with shame and embarrassment when expressing emotions. There is a saying that roughly goes "women think with their hearts while men think with their heads." First off, this does not even make any biological sense. Secondly, emotions are not inherently for women. Thirdly, we don't always have to see the world through binary lens that oversimplify what it means to be human. And just because it can be helpful to acknowledge one's emotions, engaging in harmful actions should never be justified as simply because of emotions. Furthermore, we can't vilify people for squealing when they see their friends or crying when they are going through a really tough time. We also can't always applaud people presenting as men for capitalizing on things women are often made fun of for doing on social media. Additionally, crying has never stopped me from being an effective leader or getting things done in the long run and it probably won't stop anybody from being the best version of themselves. Ultimately, we have to continue to reevaluate questions about gender and self expression, access and willingness to use mental healthcare resources, and how we can be better support systems for everybody regardless of sex, gender identity and expression and so on and so forth.