Is this man enough?!
I was eight, traveling from Srinagar to Shopian at 3:21 a.m. My father was driving us to his father’s funeral. Exhausted, I fell asleep. I remember the fatigue of a journey that felt a million nights long, the moon a constant, silent companion. I remember being carried into my grandfather’s house in my father’s arms. Those arms, which should have been held with love and comforted instead were a source of comfort and assurance portraying an unwavering proof of a man doing his job as a protector, provider, and caregiver. But in that moment, I felt a different truth. My father’s arms held me, but who was holding him?
That night planted a seed of understanding about a world that grants men the ‘right to live’, yet labels them with brutal tags; a green flag if they serve a purpose, a red flag if they fail. Their value is measured by a ruthless metric, their worth often deemed minimal. This is the unspoken gender contract, one that thrives on immense responsibility and profound emotional deprivation.
We live within a silent dystopia. Globally, the statistics on male suicide are a screaming testament to this pain, a shocking mortality rate that represents a cry for help that has gone unheard. Men are living a paradox; their lives are expected to have purpose, yet they are shadowed by the constant uncertainty of not being enough. This uncertainty follows them into the depths of the night, into rooms crowded with familiar faces. It trails them through the mundane rhythms of daily life, on days when they must simply “keep going.” What stops them from speaking of the worries that bury them? The anxieties that force them to inhale and embody standards set by a society they are a part of. It is a society that accepts them only when they are functional. Their vulnerability is an unacceptable impairment. To show pain is to be stripped of the very gender role they are tasked to fulfil. To be a man, it seems, is to be silently strong until you can’t be strong anymore.
Society is shrinking under the weight of its own disparities, and the reasons why men often feel they are living a cursed life has never been louder. The answers are simple, but the courage to confront them is lost. Instead, men are expected to keep up with so be called a “societal role,” a repetitive, soul-crushing script. They are conditioned to provide, to perform, and to suffer in a silence sealed by traditional masculinity. There is a psychological abuse of the soul, taught from a young age, ‘do not show that it hurts’. When trauma occurs, a damaging script plays out, the brain, shaped by society, registers that the man must be the survivor, the stoic figure, while the victimhood is often gendered as female. But the silent male victims need to be heard. Men are accepted only when they are successful doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs etc, if they are unable to fit into these portfolios or working class, they are simply labeled failures.
This constant pressure creates a tragic paradox, men do not open up about their pain. They swallow their suffering and let the lows consume them to such an extent that their emotional impairment becomes a cage, making them helpless witnesses to their own decline. Their emotions are tied to their gender in a way that belittles their struggle. Generations of practicing this rigid masculinity have taught men to hide their feelings as if they were a child hiding a stolen candy, a secret shame. Showing emotion is seen as a fundamental weakness, a betrayal of the very label they are forced to wear. We are living in times that are turning towards equity, but a drastic line of inequality remains. Men are still expected to be pillars of unwavering strength, often burdened with the expectation to “do more.” This comparison between genders was never meant to justify anyone’s suffering. Rather, it highlights how society uses comparison to assign value.
A man needs to be seen for more than his utility. Men should be seen as humans. Humans who have emotions, who feel things deeply, who experience loss as profoundly as anyone. They are beings who need time to open up, especially when a lifetime has been spent suppressing their feelings. This suppression serves no purpose; it only hurts them and breaks them down as individuals. It is time to see the man behind the mask. There is a growing perception that our legal system possesses a stark imbalance. It was designed to vigorously protect those historically stripped of their rights, yet in its execution, it often seems to hold a biased scale against men. This is not merely a legal failure; it is a societal one. While born from a necessary correction to a male-dominated past, the pendulum has swung not toward balance, but toward a new form of disparity that serves no one. This is the dystopian reality we have built. A world where 1 in 6 men is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, where men are more exposed to the traumas that cause PTSD, and where this silent anguish, stifled by stigma, manifests in the most devastating way possible men accounting for nearly 75% of all global suicides. This is not a competition of suffering, but a clarion call for compassion. It is time to see men not as monolithic pillars of strength, but as human beings who feel, who hurt, and who need support. Humanity preaches itself to be above all , yet our distorted roadmap denies the full humanity of men, leading only to crisis. To end this crisis, we must dismantle the very mask we forced them to wear and offer the same compassion we so readily preach.
Tamana Ajaz is a student of psychology at Amity University
