Over the years, your support has made Women’s Web the leading resource for women in India. Now, it is our turn to ask, how can we make this even more useful for you? Please take our short 5 minute questionnaire – your feedback is important to us!
Boys don't cry? That is such a wrong message to give to our sons. Crying is, in general, a sign of asking for help.
Expressions like ‘boys don’t cry’ send dangerous messages to our sons. Crying is, in general, a sign of asking for help. When parents teach their sons not to cry, they are more or less teaching them not to ask for help.
All this time, the most common discrimination a girl has to face is with the attitude towards crying. With the well-popularized thought that men don’t cry, or that men don’t feel pain, or ‘mard ko dard nahi hota’ , the crying is synonymous with women. Expressions like ‘cried like a woman’ abound, although there is no biological proof that men tend to cry less than women in similar situations. While women do suffer from mood swings and hormonal outbursts, it is a wrong reason to justify a gender bias that is started at a very young age.
Boys are often chided for crying for very normal reasons like pain, despair or longing. This sort of gender bias creates an acute emotional shift, where a boy learns to live in an emotionally controlled environment where crying is something that the weak does and is therefore not an option in distress, while at the same time delving into an illusion that girls, since they supposedly cry a lot, are weak.
Crying is, in general, a sign of asking for help. When parents teach their sons not to cry, they are more or less teaching them not to ask for help. This can create a lot of pent-up emotional frustration inside a child in his growing years, and may affect his temperament and judgment in later life. He can grow with a superior outlook towards girls by thinking of them as weak.
One must understand that asking for help can never be a sign of weakness. Preparing a boy for manhood by depriving him of emotions can only weaken him. He learns to be judgmental of those who are emotional, misdirects his emotions and remains mistrustful of people. A lot of violent tendencies in men are result of an emotionally pent up childhood.
This video by Vogue India captures the way boys are taught in lots of ways not to cry, but also asks a pertinent question. What if they are taught to not make others cry? Parenthood is a difficult job, and one must think of consequences in later years before feeding all these stereotypical words to an impressionable child.
Crazy thinker, impulsive writer, schizophrenic psychopath.....what!! Ruchi, why would you write that now, huh? read more...
Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
He said that he needed sometime to himself. I waited for him as any other woman would have done, and I gave him his space, I didn't want to be the clingy one.
Trigger Warning: This deals with mental trauma and depression, and may be triggering for survivors.
I am someone who believes in honesty and trust, I trust people easily and I think most of the times this habit of mine turns into bane.
This is a story of how a matrimonial website service turned into a nightmare for me, already traumatized by the two relationships I’ve had. It’s a story for every woman who lives her life on the principles of honesty and trust.
This can have a drastic effect on other victims of domestic violence. It will also encourage the abuser that they can now threaten their victim that he/she may end up like Amber Heard on the internet.
The lives of actors, be they from Hollywood or Bollywood, trouble my peace. Though they are worshipped by their fans, the real-life of many is quite troubled. It is scary to see what money and fame can do to a person. These are the people who have made me realize that fame and money are not that important.
I usually try to avoid reading about actors and their lives but there is no escape when the internet gets flooded with news and you come across it again and again as it happened with Aryan Khan’s arrest, Will Smith slapping Chris Rock, or now Amber Heard v/s Johnny Depp case.
We clearly see the pattern of uncivilized society in the above-mentioned cases where the mass verdict is passed even before the jury or judge passes the sentence. Usually, there is no middle ground for these people who are just there to make a topic trending on the internet. One is black and the other is white, there are no shades of grey for these modern-day witch hunters.