The Highly Sensitive Man

In this chapter, I want to begin by dealing with the question of how men are really doing in Western societies and to bring in some opinions and studies from the United States, Europe, and beyond. Because this is a book about highly sensitive men, I think it’s important that we clearly outline the social context in which men are currently living. This chapter is therefore, in the first instance, a plea for greater diversity in masculinity—a diversity I believe we need and that could represent a possible solution to our so-called “crisis of masculinity.” I’m also convinced that highly sensitive men have a key role to play in this long-overdue emancipation of men from classic stereotypes of masculinity, precisely because they challenge and therefore expand our image of the “typical strong man.”

Is Masculinity in Crisis?

Though it was founded in 1901, it took the renowned British Psychological Society until 2014 to dedicate a whole issue of its journal, The Psychologist, to the psychological health of men.5 This followed a series of discussions among politicians and in the media about an apparent “crisis of masculinity” that was raging in the country.6 But this recent interest in the male psyche and in male identity isn’t just a European phenomenon. In the United States, too, the term toxic masculinity, describing a particularly unhealthy form of male identity, has increasingly been doing the rounds.7 Indeed, one of the most influential psychologists of our time, Philip Zimbardo—who gained international notoriety for his 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment—devoted his last book to the male identity crisis.8 Toxic masculinity has also been addressed by British author Jack Urwin in his book Man Up: Surviving Modern Masculinity,9 and in Germany, the magazine Der Spiegel published a column dedicated to the topic, titled “It’s a Boy.” The author, Margarete Stokowski, wrote, “There’s an English term, ‘toxic masculinity,’ used to describe a form of masculinity based on dominance and violence that rejects emotions. It’s a problem that boys and men are constantly told that ‘real guys’ don’t cry, are highly, almost animalistically sexual, and crush anything that stands in their way. It’s a problem for both men and women. This is the form of masculinity that we need to address. Just because it’s widespread doesn’t mean that it’s natural.”10

So it seems everyone is talking about a “crisis in masculinity.” It is a crisis marked by men’s insecurity about their role in society, their identity, their values, their sexuality, their careers, and their relationships.11 At the same time, academics are telling us that “we know far less about the psychological and physical health of men than of women.”12 Why is this?

Michael Addis, a professor of psychology and a leading researcher into male identity and psychological health, has highlighted a deficit in our knowledge about men suffering from depression and argues that this has cultural, social, and historical roots. If we look at whether gender affects how people experience depression, how they express it, and how it’s treated, it quickly becomes clear that gender has for a long time referred to women and not to men. According to Addis, this is because, socially and historically, men have been seen as the dominant group and thus representative of normal psychological health. Women have thus been understood as the nondominant group, which deviated from the norm, and they have been examined and understood from this perspective. One of the countless problems of this approach is that the experiences and specific challenges of the “dominant group,” in this case men, have remained hidden.13

As we have discussed, though, this is finally beginning to change, with men’s psychological health beginning to become part of our public discourse. What in the past was taken for granted is now being questioned. And perhaps it is precisely this questioning and the identification, analysis, and redefining that this entails, that is being understood as a crisis in masculinity and as a challenge to the “stronger sex.”

How Are Men Doing?

While it is true that a higher percentage of women than men will be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder or a depressive episode, the suicide rate among men is much higher. In the United States, the suicide rate is notably higher in men than in women. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, men account for 77 percent of the forty-five thousand people who kill themselves every year in the United States. In fact, men commit suicide more than women everywhere in the world.14 Men are more likely to suffer from addiction,15 and when men discuss depressive symptoms with their doctor, they are less likely than women to be diagnosed with depression and consequently don’t receive adequate therapeutic and pharmacological treatment.16

Young men are currently less academically successful at secondary school than young women. The number of men applying to university is now lower than the number of women applying,17 and a far higher number of men drop out.18 Men are also far more likely to be arrested. Ninety-three percent of people in prison are men.19 These are startling numbers.

Even in wealthy industrialized nations, men die on average around five to ten years earlier than women. Although the causes are potentially manifold, medical opinion increasingly points to lifestyle, behavior, and environment, rather than biological difference, as being the most likely reasons behind this disparity between the sexes. Indeed, Dr. Thomas Perls, a professor at Boston University’s School of Medicine, has been researching life expectancy for many years, and he believes that around 70 percent of this difference in life expectancy is due to lifestyle, behavior, and environment, with the remaining 30 percent being attributed to genetic or biological factors.20 The conviction that lifestyle and behavior, rather than biological difference, are the reasons behind men dying earlier than women is also backed up by Dr. Marc Luy’s “cloister study.” His research shows that life expectancy among monks and nuns, who live in a nearly identical environment with a very similar lifestyle, is almost exactly the same. What’s more, the monks who took part in the study lived on average around four years longer than men in the general population. Luy believes that the reasons for this difference are rooted in the monastic lifestyle, which is based on a daily routine that is consciously organized and highly regulated, a healthier lifestyle, and lower levels of stress.21

If behavior and lifestyle do indeed have such a decisive impact on men’s psychological and physical health compared with simple biology, then this raises the question, What is influencing men’s behavior and the sometimes self-destructive lifestyle that results from it? The answer, to a very great degree, appears to lie in the socialization of men and the “masculine” values and norms that men consequently internalize and then express in their behavior.

When Is a Man a Man?

If we take a moment to ask ourselves what makes a man “manly,” that is to say, what the social expectations for men are, we will likely come up with different answers. I would assume, however, that many of us would name several classic, traditional masculine attributes: physical strength, stamina, emotional control, stoicism, independence, heterosexuality, drive, bravery, dominance, risk-taking, competitiveness, professional success, and sexual performance. In other words, we would probably describe, more or less, the typical image of the “strong man.” I suspect that words such as sensitive, emotional, delicate, or compassionate would come up less often.

Of course, we have been talking about the “new man” for decades, embodied by the likes of “metrosexuals” and style-conscious figures like David Beckham. There is no question that society’s ideas around male identity have changed over the past decades, and there are plenty of indicators to back this up. For instance, fathers now spend on average eight hours a week on childcare; this is three times as much as was reported in 1965. And they spend on average ten hours on household chores, up from four hours in 1965.22 And yet our image of “new men” is still heavily influenced by those classic, traditional attributes: professional success, stamina, status, performance, self-control, and heterosexuality. This is backed up by numerous psychological studies over the last forty years that tell us that, despite huge social change, the stereotypical image of the “strong man” is still firmly with us at all ages, in all ethnic groups, and among all socio-economic backgrounds. In the face of problems, men tend not to seek out emotional or professional help from other people. They use, more often than women, alcohol or drugs to numb unpleasant feelings and, in crises, tend to try to deal with things on their own, instead of searching out closeness or help from others.23 A new metrosexual masculinity that focuses simply on external appearance and the existence of paternity leave in many countries (ninety-two countries, but not the United States) have done very little to change this.

The socialization of men, so essential to their identity, lifestyle, and behavior, seems to be a decisive part of the problem. When we talk about socialization, we mean the process of integrating and adapting to the society and culture that surrounds us, through, for instance, the family, school, friends, the church, or the media. Early on in his life, a boy will begin to take on those gender-specific behaviors, attitudes, values, norms, and ideologies that the society in which he is growing up deems to be masculine and acceptable. The unfortunately still popular blue onesie is just the beginning of this process and is a public symbol of a socialization that often takes far more subtle forms.

We know, however, that the internalization of particularly restrictive socially masculine norms can have negative consequences on how a man feels.24 This happens when he begins to feel that the way he is does not fit with the way he thinks he should be. We call this “gender role strain” and “gender role conflict.” Both concepts are used to measure and describe the emotional stress and conflict that men feel when they suffer emotionally from internalizing restrictive and unachievable masculine norms.25 Jim O’Neil, the psychology professor and pioneer who first described gender role conflict, described the concept as follows: “Gender role conflict (GRC) is defined as a psychological state in which socialized gender roles have negative consequences for the person or others.”26 Psychologist Michael Addis also uses this concept in his work, showing that it is precisely those men who have strongly internalized traditional masculine norms and values—such as self-sufficiency, strength, and independence—who have a higher risk of suffering from depressive episodes and are less likely to seek professional help to deal with them.27 It seems that old but still active adages such as “boys don’t cry” and men need to “keep a stiff upper lip” can actually be detrimental to men’s physical and mental health. Certainly, all men could benefit from loosening the restraints put on them by traditional masculine norms and values, but unfortunately, the fear of not being manly enough holds them firmly in place.

The Fear of Not Being Manly Enough

O’Neil believes that men’s fear of not appearing to be masculine enough—or even worse, feminine—is often the main source of the hard and rigid armor that men put on, or allow society to put on them. He argues that this fear of the feminine is connected to strong, negative feelings that are related to stereotypes about feminine values, beliefs, and behaviors and that these stereotypes are formed during our childhoods by parents, peers, and social norms. Men’s conscious and subconscious fear of the feminine has been a consistent theme in academic literature for years.28

I often observe this in my work with male clients—men who quickly feel ashamed when they believe that they haven’t behaved in a way that, in their opinion, fits with the behavior of a “real man.” The process often begins in childhood. Shame is an intense emotion and a powerful tool of socialization. When we feel ashamed, we often connect this with a fear of being shut out, of no longer belonging to a group. Among prehistoric societies, this was a matter of life or death.

But when the internalization of traditional masculine values and ideals has reached such a pitch that it has clear and grave psychological and physical consequences, when it even leads to men dying earlier because they seek out medical help too late or are unaware that they’re even ill, when they won’t ask for help or confide in anyone else, then it is surely high time that we question and broaden our definitions of these traditional masculine values.

I believe that the highly sensitive man has a key role to play in this, because his inborn high sensitivity and the emotionality and subtlety of feeling that comes with it automatically challenge traditional masculine norms, values, and behaviors, such as hardness, toughness, stamina, competitiveness, and self-control. And he does this without necessarily being conscious of it. He does it just by being himself. This is the vital role that the highly sensitive man can play in society—challenging taboos around vulnerability, sensitivity, empathy, and, in particular, emotionality. And all men can profit, be they young or old, heterosexual or homosexual, highly sensitive or not highly sensitive. If a more authentic, holistic, and multifaceted form of masculinity could emerge because of this, a form that would allow all men in society to be sensitive and emotional without having to feel shame, anxiety, or a sense of inferiority, then we all win.

What We Define as Masculine is Not Set in Stone

Society’s view of how a man should be and what attributes are desirable and attractive in him is something that is more flexible than we think. In her book A History of Male Psychological Illness in Britain: 1945–1980, historian Allison Haggett, Ph.D., describes the development of men’s psychological problems in the United Kingdom since the Second World War.29 When I talked to her, she explained to me that she finds the current, very narrow definition of masculinity in the Western world to be “problematic and restrictive,” referencing numerous psychological and medical studies on men’s health.

Haggett also describes how our understanding of typical masculinity has changed radically throughout history and says that, from a historical perspective, it is much harder to define than we might suppose. In her book, she argues that masculine attributes are first and foremost socially constructed and not biologically determined. They are, therefore, prone to change and have often done so in the past. She describes how, during the Georgian era (1714–1830), just before the start of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain, the picture of a desirable man was completely different from the image we have today. At that time, masculinity was equated with wisdom and virtuousness. Not only was it socially acceptable for a man to express himself emotionally, it was positively desirable. The Georgian man was not afraid of being scorned for showing emotion. According to Haggett, this led to a culture of introspection among men, in which it was socially acceptable to be self-reflective and contemplative.

The central nervous system was also seen as being particularly important in understanding the human body at that time, and it was believed that a particularly nervous or sensitive disposition was a clear indication of a noble or educated background and refinement, not a sign of a lack of masculinity. The finer and more sensitive a man’s nervous system was, the better. What we might now call “weak nerves” used to be something that was valued.

Our understanding of masculinity was, however, profoundly changed by the new focus on productivity and efficiency during the Industrial Revolution and the twentieth century’s two world wars. Since then, open displays of emotion by men, with the exception of anger, have been stigmatized and are commonly seen as something negative and embarrassing.30

In order for men to assert themselves socially and professionally, it became increasingly important in the Western world for them to develop characteristics such as dominance, independence, and high performance. But as we have seen in this chapter, men have paid a high price for this. The rest of society has paid, too: their partners, their families, their children, their siblings, their parents, and their friends. It has affected all of us.

It goes without saying that when I talk about men as a whole, I am generalizing and simplifying enormously. But let us allow ourselves to do just that for a moment so that we can create a picture of the symbiotic interdependence between the sexes. When the position of women in our society changes—which has particularly been the case since the feminist women’s movement from the 1960s onward—then that has an effect on men and vice versa. A man who finds it difficult to recognize his own emotional needs and feelings, and who cannot express these fully to other people, will find relationships with other people difficult and won’t be able to become an emotionally satisfying or emotionally available partner. A man who primarily defines his own self-worth through his professional success or has learned to only express emotional intimacy through his sexuality is just as problematic. Both of these personality aspects will have negative outcomes on his partners, his family, his relationships, his health, and his whole community. It is therefore in the interest of both men and women that men are better able to free themselves from the traditional values of masculinity. This will allow men to open up emotionally, to be seen as multifaceted, to be vulnerable, and to show their emotions without being scared of being shamed for being a “wimp” or a “sissy.” Men and women both profit when they are able to live fully as complete equals—free, autonomous, self-confident, multilayered, and multifaceted, with space for personal growth.

Male Emancipation

So what might male emancipation look like? I don’t believe that all men have to become more sensitive or somehow soften their appearance or their nature, nor do I think that we should be aiming to return to a Georgian ideal of masculinity that values the particular traits of the highly sensitive man. What I do believe is that we need to expand our idea of what masculinity can be and feel able to define it more freely, so that it includes every man and boy as he is, encompassing all of his unique facets, complexities, and contradictions. We need to stop reducing ourselves and being reduced by others. We need to stop seeing everything as black and white and start seeing the great spectrum of shades that exists among men. We need to stop saying “either-or” and start saying “as well as.” Masculine and sensitive, masculine and emotional. And the more that the highly sensitive man is able to deal with and thrive with his high sensitivity, to live with it with more self-confidence, more self-awareness, and more authenticity in the eyes of others, the more he can drive this social change.

If we are going to talk about a crisis of masculinity, then we have to see this crisis as an opportunity. An opportunity for change. Through the process of coming to terms with ourselves, we begin to ask questions and to define things in new ways, which, in turn, changes people’s thinking, their attitudes, and their behavior. This process can be both frightening and unsettling, but it can also be liberating and exciting. Perhaps it is exactly this process that we can see happening all around us and that will eventually allow men to lead more authentic, intimate, emotional, and sensitive lives.

The clinical psychologist Martin Seager is one of the cofounders of the Male Psychology Network of British physicians and psychologists, which organizes an annual conference on the subject of men’s mental health. Seager is convinced that the traditional rules of masculinity put an enormous amount of pressure on men to think, to feel, and to behave in a certain way. When I talked to him, he summarized for me the rules of masculinity.

1 A real man is a fighter and a winner.

2 A real man is a provider and a protector (of women and children).

3 A real man is controlled and disciplined.

Seager doesn’t believe that these social expectations will completely disappear, but he does have the impression that society is currently in the process of changing and broadening the application and the content of these rules. What does this process look like? Well, providing for others could also mean providing for them at an emotional level, instead of just a financial and physical one. These are all important and legitimate ways of being a provider. A man could look after his partner by trying to be emotionally present and available. He could share childcare, which also represents a form of masculine provision and masculine protection. If society as a whole (and men themselves) expects men to fight and to win, then we could also broaden our definition of what that means. What might a contemporary form of masculine fighting look like in the twenty-first century? How about fighting for something that matters to you or fighting for a good cause? How about fighting for your family or your relationship? And could success also mean having close and emotionally satisfying relationships with other people, leading a long psychologically and physically healthy life, and having a career that gives your life meaning? If the only definition of success is status, if professional and sexual success only relates to material wealth, then that can only lead to a situation in which most of us don’t feel successful and our attempts to become real men in our society are going to falter and eventually fail.

To redefine these rules, however, men also need the support of women who allow them to be who they are. And they need the support of other men who treat them with warmth and acceptance and in doing so enable this emancipation from the narrow rules of masculinity.

SUMMARY

This is what the emancipation of men, which, to my mind, is long overdue, could look like. And what could it feel like? How about friendly, fatherly, brotherly, benevolent, accepting, equal, communal, generous, caring, and liberating? Both to ourselves and to others. Including instead of excluding. What would happen if men started to take more notice of their emotional needs and to verbalize them? If they showed the full spectrum of their feelings, not just anger and rage but also loneliness, sadness, helplessness, joy, and excitement? If our society was completely open to boys and men being emotional and sensitive and saw these qualities as something attractive and masculine? Just imagine if men were able to steadily free themselves from the strict categories of what is typically masculine and typically feminine and be less defined by them?

What would change in your friendships, in your relationships, in the way that you parent, in the career that you choose? The aim wouldn’t be to become more feminine or to sweep aside any differences between men and women; that would be neither possible nor desirable. The aim would be to feel freer and lighter, to throw off that heavy old armor.

In order to achieve this, we need highly sensitive men who can be an example to others, showing less sensitive men that they can be sensitive, emotional, tactful, and masculine and that it’s a great way to live your life. A few years ago, I had a long conversation with Christopher Germer, a clinical psychologist and the author of The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself from Destructive Thoughts and Emotions.31 We covered many topics, including masculine identity, shame, introversion, and high sensitivity. We also spoke about how completely revolutionary it would be, and how much it would change the world, if every man started to try to deal with his feelings and could realize that everything that he felt, thought, and did was automatically manly because he was a man, whether or not society currently saw him as typically masculine. Germer hit the nail on the head when he summed up our conversation by saying, “A man is just a human being living in a male body. We sometimes forget that.”