…sociologist says society is one-sided about human emotions

DOMESTIC violence has long been a recurring scourge to the Guyanese society and all over the world. And the cases being reported are expanding to include couples of younger ages, even as young as teens. Just recently, there was a case of a 17-year-old girl who lost her life at the hands of her 20-year-old boyfriend, and there are many other cases of similar nature.

A young Guyanese Sociologist, Deondra Wishart, by way of her Facebook platform, has started the conversation to tackle what she believes is the root cause of this problem.
On her platform, the young woman uploads videos every Tuesday, on what she calls, ‘Mental Health Tuesdays’. On Tuesday, she spoke extensively on the importance of mental health in males to enable them to better function in society.

Wishart said that society is one-sided about human emotions, and has preconditioned men to close up about their feelings, and that is where the problem starts, as she believes emotions don’t differ by gender; that it operates on a human level.

“Human beings are made up of feelings; we all feel, so it’s kind of double standard that you tell females to express themselves and let people know how they are feeling and if they are hurt, but males are told to suck it up and be a man. Society treats them like they need to be macho; they need to be strong and do their work, and make money and take care of their families, but they are humans too,” the young woman said.

She pointed to the fact that from a very young age, boy children are taught not to cry and not to act a certain way, otherwise they will be called a girl; that they’re also shown less love because they are preconditioned to be tough and strong. So when they grow old, even though they feel the same emotion as any human being, they lack the know-how to express it.

“Our men need love too; they need us to listen to them. We need to let them know that we care; that we understand, and that we are there with them. We can’t have our men walking around, broken inside, trying to hold it together to provide for us. It is not right; we need to fix it, because these are the things that are causing problems in our society. And as a sociologist, I know that every part of society is connected. And with the little bit of social psychology that I did, we need to always ensure that our minds are right. So, if a man’s mind is not right, and he is being told from a baby men don’t cry and men don’t show feelings, what do you think is going to happen to his psyche? Because they can’t express themselves openly, they have sudden outbursts, and they lash out, and that is a problem in our society. Because when they lash out, domestic violence is on the increase in Guyana, suicide increases, murder suicide, you name it, we see it,” Wishart expressed.

To this end, she said that she believes a space needs to be created in homes, schools and communities where males can be free to express themselves. She noted, too, that there are countless programmes tailored to women and their empowerment and wellbeing, but not much for males.

“We need to be able to condition our sons from early that it is okay to cry; it wouldn’t make you less of a man if you cry. Mental health is very important. And I think in order for us to help in fixing this problem, we need to fix both persons in the problem. The man and the woman. There are a lot of programmes that focus on females, but what about the men? You can’t fix one half of the whole, and expect the other half to just fix itself. We need to always remember to fix both sides of the coin. So if we are going to talking about healing women and empowering women, we have to do the same for men. But first we need to start the conversation about them. We need to start working to break that cycle. Start the conversation and allow men to feel and express their emotions. Men need love and attention too,” Wishart said.