ABSTRACT
What it means to be a young man is constructed within, as well as influenced and constrained by, various historical social contexts. In particular, culture as a historical social force, shapes young men’s emotional experiences, determining what emotions they can express, perhaps even what they can consciously emotionally experience (Mesquita, Boiger & Leersnyder, 2016; Montes, 2013). In some cultures, the expression of love, or happiness or even sadness—sometimes referred to as “tender feelings”—are customarily associated with femininity, queerness or childishness while the expression of emotions such as anger, pride and independence is linked to men and masculinity (Montes, 2013). To be considered masculine, culture convinces young men to distance themselves from femininity, queerness and childish things, and according to Charlebois (2009), “engage in embodied masculine actions” (para. 25). Masculine actions call forth images of men doing, and not feeling, things—a show of physical strength, technical expertise, emotional stoicism. The cultural expectation for young men to be strong, in control and emotionally distant is in fact an essential element of hegemonic traditionalist heterosexual masculinity (Connell, 1993; Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005). In this world of expectations young men are expected to be in control of their emotions—or risk losing respect and facing humiliation. However, to be sure, this hegemonic traditionalist heterosexual model of masculinity is criticized in critical studies of men and masculinities for the manner in which it privileges the brain over the heart, prefers thinking men over feeling men, and how it reinforces the emotions-mind dichotomy.
