10.01.06

Real men sometimes cry

Posted in Domestic/Relationships at 12:03 pm by Sarah

What a week: first Darren Clarke, then Bertie Ahern. It’s all been a bit overwhelming, because I can’t cope with men crying. It just goes against every ounce of my conditioning, no matter what my liberal credentials dictate.
As my mother says: “We aren’t an emotional type of people.” What she means is, Irish people don’t do emotions in public. The bottom lip might tremble on occasion, but we could teach the British a thing or too about a stiff upper lip. The brave face is all.

Now it might be changing. It was bad enough when the likes of Mary Harney broke down over her sick mother, but when the lads start emoting you know the world’s gone mad.

Like most people, I reacted differently to Darren than I did to Bertie. With Darren you just wanted to be at the K Club so you could take your turn to hold him. Nobody would have passed any remarks if he’d pulled out of the Ryder Cup. Instead, he took a deep breath and played some of the best golf of his career with a charm and dignity that impressed the most casual observer. Only when he had played his winning putt did the affection from the crowd finally overwhelm him.

The supreme effort it had taken to hold himself together for the week finally failed him. His tears were spontaneous and thoroughly justified. He wasn’t looking for pity, he didn’t even pity himself. It made you fall in love with him.

Still, I was somewhat relieved I wasn’t in the presence of my male friends who watched the 16th-green incident live. They confessed afterwards to weeping like girls. It got to everyone.

The reaction to Bertie was quite different. My sister was watching it from the treadmill in her gym and nearly fell off between horror and laughing. I got that cringey stomach-in-a-knot feeling and the involuntary grin had to be suppressed by tightly pursing my lips together while I silently screamed “No! No!” In contrast to Clarke, Bertie’s emotion was an embarrassment.

This isn’t about whether or not men should cry in public. It’s more about what kind of a man is crying and why. Real men can cry, but what’s a real man? A real man is tough. Not tough in the shaved head, tattooed, emotionally stunted way. Tough in that he can look disaster in the eye, take up his burden and keep going.

Being a man says you behave with nobility and honour. You admit your mistakes and apologise. You tell the truth, especially to yourself. Mostly, however, it is refusing to accept victim as a badge, even when life has dealt you a cruel blow.

In a world where the victim is king, Clarke refused the title and played like a hero. When he finally broke down, even the tears were heroic because in refusing to wallow in self-pity he proved himself to be the ultimate man. Not only did he not let his team down, he was one of their star players.

The only one who saw Ahern as a victim was the taoiseach himself. His lack of control was due to extreme self-pity. What was so tragic that he had earned the right to cry? Yes, his marriage broke down, but that’s not why his lower lip quivered. The mere mention of his daughters set him off, but he wasn’t crying for them. The person who brought his daughters into the public domain was himself, nobody else. True, having to discuss one’s personal finances in public was humiliating. But that’s not why he “filled up” either.

What we saw on RTE’s Six One last Tuesday was not a man overwhelmed with grief, pain or sadness. We saw a politician refusing to admit that he’d done anything wrong. We saw a man blaming his friends, albeit indirectly, for refusing to take back money when he’d offered it.

Here was someone taking no responsibility himself, admitting no error, thinking it unfair he had to answer questions in the first place. We saw someone who thought himself a victim of a witch hunt, not just another poor sap who got caught up in one of the tribunals.

So he hadn’t done any favours for the dozen friends who gave him a dig-out? Well, he’s not the first politician to use the “no favours asked or received” formula, and for it to be true.

Clarke sat through a long press conference being asked question after question about his dead wife instead of his golf, and never protested. Ahern couldn’t stick a very gentle, if on-target, Bryan Dobson asking him to explain “loans”. If the taoiseach can’t see that taking money and not paying it back leaves him open to question, then he is no man. I wonder how he’d get on with the Revenue Commissioners. Swallowing hard with those guys won’t work if they come looking for gift tax plus 13 years’ interest and penalties.

I don’t believe the taoiseach is corrupt, but he’s weak and that’s nearly as bad. Struggling to control his emotions doesn’t make him weak. Painting himself as a victim when he isn’t does.
Crying in public has worked for some men, mainly sportsmen. For politicians it remains a tricky business. Tiger Woods wept after winning the British Open in July not long after his father died. It worked wonders for his image, because he’s normally seen as cold.

The revelation that he actually has emotions endeared him to some sceptics. It added to his personality — in a good way.

Footballers are forgiven for sobbing when All-Irelands or Champions League finals have been lost, especially if it’s on penalties or after extra time. On the political front, Bill Clinton can allow the tears to well up as often as he wants and the public will continue to adore him.

Conversely, Bob Dole tried it in 1996, when he ran against Clinton, and it failed miserably. As Tom Lutz, author of a book on crying, said: “Bob Dole didn’t cry in public for the first 35 years in his public life, and he all of a sudden learned how to cry for his last election campaign.” It didn’t work and Clinton won.

Male politicians may think emoting in public will evoke sympathy, but it carries a risk. If we believe you have earned the right to blub, then crying makes you more of a man. If we think you’re indulging yourself, then you’re less of a man.

Of course, if you’re a female politician and you cry in public over anything, then that just makes you more of a woman, which is bad. Hillary Clinton is disliked because people think she’s too tough. If she cried, they’d despise her for being weak. Maybe the general rule is this: you can cry so long as you don’t have an important job. Ahern does. So, really, he should keep it together. Go on, Bertie, be a man.

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