Woman Faces Major Criticism After Saying The 'Trend' Of Grown Men Crying At Weddings Needs To Stop
Men have emotions, too, and should feel comfortable expressing them openly.
Mikhailova via Shutterstock / Twitter Megha Lillywhite, a best-selling writer on Substack, sparked an interesting debate about toxic masculinity, homophobia, and the inability to express emotions in a recent Twitter thread.
The since-deleted tweet discussed her opinion that men shouldn’t cry when they see their bride walking down the aisle at their wedding. Instead, she believes men should only cry when they are in extreme pain or dying. She also claimed that this behavior is extremely “gay.”
Lillywhite declared that feminism has normalized the emasculation of men.
The thread continues with Lillywhite defending her words by saying that as a woman, she is too embarrassed to cry in public and she would rather go somewhere private. In her mind, this further proves that men who are crying at their wedding are “gay” and doing it for show.
Lillywhite proceeded to explain that the bride feels the same emotions as the groom, but they do not cry. She said that men crying at their weddings is a part of the “feminist ritual.”
Photo: @meghaverma_art / Twitter
She wrote, “modern women are unaware of the degree to which feminism has normalized the emasculation and disrespect of men in their lives,” giving examples of behaviors that modern women do such as interrupting men with they talk, correcting men in public, and making men the butt of their jokes to defend this claim.
To put the icing on the cake, she ended the thread by stating that she is unsurprised that men see marriage as a trap.
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Photo: @meghaverma_art / Twitter
Lillywhite concluded the thread by proclaiming a call to action. She said that since society is so “emasculated and gynocentric,” we need to understand how men and women should and should not behave in order to “recalibrate to any healthy norm.”
This paved the way for a conversation about toxic masculinity, homophobia, and the inability to express emotions in the comments.
One user commented stating that Lillywhite was “conforming to outdated gender roles.” And another user commented, “this ‘men don’t cry’ narrative is what gave us distilled toxic masculinity,” a claim that has been proven by experts in the American Psychology Association who posted a video on their YouTube channel in which a father is teaching his son that boys don’t cry, they fight, and they don’t express emotions. The little boy was wondering what he is if boys don’t do that because he was crying.
Psychologist Bruce Purnell explains in the video that men feel pain and they don’t feel that it is okay to express it. According to Purnell, this results in men having problems later in life such as having the “inability to achieve, inability to thrive, and the inability to be in a positive relationship because we are emotionless.”
Lillywhite also used the word “gay” with negative connotations and in a way that can be seen as derogatory and homophobic. One user commented that she is homophobic in the comments. Lillywhite added a link to an essay she wrote on Substack that expresses her negative views on gay men and how therapy is harming modern men in response.
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The other large takeaway from this Twitter thread is the conversation about the inability of people, in general, to be capable of expressing their emotions.
Lillywhite mentioned in the thread that as a woman she has trouble expressing her emotions publicly, so men shouldn’t do it either. Women and men alike in the comments criticized this statement.
One female user said that they don’t feel ashamed to cry in public and there should be no reason to suppress those emotions. A male user stated that it is emotionally and physically unhealthy to suppress emotions.
To conclude this conversation, one user said that they “think that’s the problem, people being embarrassed by their emotions, and not seeking help. I think that’s a problem not just for men.”
This hits the nail on the head. The overarching theme here is that people are afraid or embarrassed by their emotions because society pressures them to “tough it out,” whether it be males or females. Emotions have no gender and everyone should be encouraged to express them freely.
Tarah Hickel is a Washington-based writer and a frequent contributor to YourTango. She focuses on entertainment and news stories regarding trending topics and pop culture.