By Aggie, TIWP Student

There is nothing more heartbreaking than when a man cries. His solid exterior crumbles with quiet sobs. His head shakes in his palms. His gasps whistle through the gaps between his knuckles, which work futilely to smother the horrible sound. The mountain quakes. Everything is in despair. The man is broken. If a man cries, it must be something awful.

Why is it sadder when a man cries than a woman? His tears should not hold more weight than hers. 

He suffers because he is told not to cry. A woman suffers, and her tears drip from her chin to the ground, and it is normal. The woman is crying as usual, annoying. But just because the woman has been crying—for decades she’s been crying, for the pain of being silenced, of being abused and tormented— the woman has been crying for a while now, and the sound is giving some men a migraine, and it’s bothering them very much. Her tears are casual and inferior.

Why is it that her tears are weaker only because there are more of them? It has become normal to hear her sobbing. She desires to be safe. But a man’s single tear is the world breaking and filling an ocean of despair.