An Enquiry into the Duties of the Male Gender — Pt. 5

Emotion

“What the heart has understood / Can verify in the body’s peace” - Meeting Point, Louis Macneice

Contrary to popular belief, men are, in fact, emotional beings. Much of what has been discussed in the previous essays describes this. And yet so many men either suppress any outpouring of emotion or outright deny it exists. This is puzzling. Despite every man who has ever lived having emotions — deep, powerful emotions — there is an insistence by many that to acknowledge this is a failure of masculinity. To be emotional means you are a ‘girl’, a ‘baby’ or both. A ‘real man’ then, by this definition, is a piece of stone, unmoved by any heartbreak, injustice or loss. Where once this was always a paternal insistence from authority figures (it certainly was from my father) that you just have to ‘man up’ or ‘tough it out’ if you are injured in the heart, head or body, today there is a whole movement of men who insist this is the only way to comport yourself as a man.

Since the pandemic there has been an explosion of interest in the philosophy of stoicism amongst the manosphere online. Rather than manifesting as men who consider the complexities of natural philosophy, spending time studying themselves and their emotions to pursue a life…