Summary: When someone says Be a man, what do you think of? Act tough? Don’t cry? Or do you think manning up means to take responsibility for your emotions or accept mistakes and move on? The idea of “Manning Up” seems to mean something different to everyone. YouTube channel Cut created some word association videos once and one of the phrases they asked a group of men to respond to was Be A Man, and it was really quite interesting to see the variances. They edited it together so that the youngest were at the beginning of the video and the eldest at the end, starting with 5 year olds and ended at aged 50. The reason this was so interesting to me is because the younger someone was the more similar their responses were. Most of the under 30’s associated being a man with being tough and strong, especially the youngsters. It wasn’t until they were in their 30’s that they seemed to find their own voice and the closer they got to 50 the more they saw Be A Man as a cliche that shouldn't have any relevance and instead associated manliness with honesty, embracing emotions or trusting themselves and walking their own path. It reminded me of something that Piers Morgan said during mental health awareness week. It was in response to an article that said that 2 thirds of British adults have experienced mental health problems, which is true but that doesn’t mean that 34 million people are suffering with mental illness all at the same time which the headlines often exaggerate it to, so as to get your attention. But the thing is, rather than acknowledge it as click bait and start a sensible discussion, Piers Morgan made the mistake of saying “What utter nonsense, Man Up Britain” and it started a flurry of almost 2000 replies that gave quite an insight into what people think about mental health.
