A Young Man’s Lament: Love Hurts!
I admit surprise at this one.
By PAMELA PAUL
THE GIST: Contrary to popular belief, relationship woes bother men more than they bother women.
THE SOURCE: “Nonmarital Romantic Relationships and Mental Health in Early Adulthood: Does the Association Differ for Women and Men?” The Journal of Health and Social Behavior, June 2010.
ACCORDING to the pop-cultural standard, a woman may be a lioness in the workplace and an indomitable social force, but when it comes to love, she’s a delicate flower, dependent on regular spritzings of romance. Social scientists’ assumptions have long backed this up: Women need their love lives happy and healthy; men, stoical and stalwart, are the more resilient.
But in the last decade, scientists of love, taking into account differences in how men and women express emotional distress — women by becoming anxious or depressed, men by abusing alcohol or drugs — have shown that marital discord has an equally unkind effect on both sexes. A new study asks if the same might be true in relationships among unmarried young adults.
The answer turns out to be no. And, in an unexpected plot twist, the study, which surveyed 1,611 men and women age 18 to 23 in the Miami area, found that thorny relationships take a far greater toll on men.
According to the report by Robin W. Simon, a sociology professor at Wake Forest University, and Anne E. Barrett, a sociologist at Florida State University, “It appears that young men benefit more than women from support, and that they are more harmed than women by strain in ongoing romantic relationships.”
For women, whether they’re in a relationship at all — no matter how awful — is what counts.
“It’s a little bit pathetic,” Ms. Simon allowed. “Even though there’s been so much social change in this area, women’s self-worth is still so much tied up with having a boyfriend. It’s unfortunate.”
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I’m not surprised at all. I once watched this fascinating documentary on boys and the culture of masculinity in America. Some scientist did a study on the emotional strengths/weaknesses of baby boys versus baby girls. They placed a baby in an infant seat and had the mother of the baby sit in front of him or her and entertain the baby with funny faces, smiles, coos, etc. Then, the mother turned her chair around so that her back was to the infant. The scientists discovered that, on average, female infants were more capable of self-soothing and that it took much, much longer for them to become emotionally distraught. Boy babies, on the other hand, were almost immediately distressed.
Other studies have supported the hypothesis that, contrary to popular opinion, boys are much more emotionally fragile than girls are. Given this biological proclivity to emotional fragility, it all the more heartbreaking that little boys learn that “real men” are tough and they don’t cry or show any emotion except for anger. We stunt our boys emotionally in this country, by causing them to suppress their natural emotional responses to things and by making them feel ashamed for having real feelings. We tell them to “man up.” And then we wonder why men are so emotionally unavailable, or why they are more prone to violent behavior. It’s because they are literally socialized from early childhood to ignore their own emotional responses and to feel ashamed about them. Crying and expressing the full range of human emotion, it turns out, is actually a sign of emotional strength, not emotional weakness. Scientists have also posited that this is why women live longer on average. We have had better training to express our emotions, which in turn, affects our physical health. Interesting stuff.
So, in any event, I am not surprised that men are more affected by relationship turmoil. They have been raised with fewer tools to handle the stress and emotional upheaval.