Suzanne Harrington: Men don't cry — except my date did

I need to have a serious word with myself around my own ingrained gender conditioning

We all know toxic masculinity is (a) terrible, from its violence against women to its disproportionate male suicide stats, (b) a social construct, and (c) can be socially deconstructed by encouraging both girls AND boys to express vulnerability when they feel like it, instead of instilling gendered emotional response from babyhood.

We all know within that most pernicious myth of toxic masculinity — the strong silent type — is a human socialised not to show his feelings, to express no emotion except anger. That the only designated place where men can cry openly is the football stadium, and then only when their team loses at the end of the season — not before. Toxic masculinity is traditional masculinity, the kind drummed into boys in the olden days so that they grew up hemmed in by their own unexpressed feelings. We know how harmful this is, to the extent that the American Psychological Association made a statement last year warning of the dangers of socialising boys to suppress their feelings.