"You don't smoke, you don't drink, you don't love football, you don't womanizer, neither do you go for gyms, what then makes you a man?". I heard myself saying inwardly "because my hormones say so". We live in a society where everything is stereotyped. We're not expected to cry or show any sign of weakness because we are men, it's been tagged as a thing for women. Women of old were denied their right to education because society believed they all end up as housewives. Where did the idea of stereotyping begin? Were we created to be common as genders?, If yes, then what makes us unique?.
I have seen a child suppressed the feeling to cry because he was told "men don't cry", he grows up with this idea and chooses to act strong by locking up feelings in his chest, just to prove a point that has occupied his brain. Stereotyping has not only made us weak but has denied us the ability to express our true selves. In other to fit some society standard, a guy forcefully fit himself into a stereotype. Gradually, he lost touch with his true passion and this becomes a torment to him.
What makes a man stronger, and a woman weaker?, Feelings? or the things they do differently?. Is it the ability to withstand pressure or the muscles?. Anatomically, it's their hormones, If hormones are what makes us different, why then show I prove further that I'm a man by doing what society believes all men should do. Stereotyping limits the tendency for us to explore beyond a limit, it becomes a shackle that holds us bound in a circle of the ordinary and makes us easy to predict.
Yes, am a man, my hormones and morphology already define that, don't stereotype me. Everybody grew up with passions for different things, stereotyping will only suppress the real him and turn him into a monster he had feared all his life.