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Man Up

Man Up.
I hate this expression with all my soul.
We see men cry, and people snap
Man up!
What's that supposed to mean?
Have no emotions? Be a rock?
What does it mean to be a man? What is masculinity?
Men have emotions. Men cry. Men want to look pretty (let's not make words gender specific, pretty, handsome, it's all the same).
Men get stigma for caring about their clothes. Men get stigma for being mentally ill. Men have depression. Men have anorexia. Men have anxiety. Men get panic attacks. Men get depressive episodes. Men have mental breakdowns. Men starve themselves. Men get abused.
Men kill themselves.
Men are human.
Men have emotions.
Men suffer like women do. No man or woman should tell a man to man up.
Because that's telling them to not be human. To not feel. To not think.
And that's simply not fair.
I remember seeing a man cry for the first time. That was odd for me, and it shouldn't have been. Why did media want to keep raw emotion away from me? Why did the male figures in myself express themselves only through rage?
Why wasn't I shown reality? What was wrong with reality?
Man up.
Pft.
Just be a human.

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