Final Major Project- The begining of the end.
I gathered a lot from these questionnaires and the responses they gave me.
The first question involving be a man boys don’t cry interested me as I got a lot of similar responses. Things like “parents would say if i was upset by something” and “good preparation for a hard life” & “hard times make strong men” these all correlate in the way that it is all things that your parents would say to you “when your upset” or disappointed which shows that it is a generational thing which has been drilled into men at a young age “good preparation”. One thing that was said by the 64yr old was “in my day” which could symbolise that it is slowing moving away from that view into a more emotionally stable world.
Another question which got a lot of similar answers was the one about a lads “typical” Saturday this was really interesting as all of the answers were the same even from the 17yr old. Watch some sport usually football have a burger chips at the ground couple of pints, home sleep, go out with your mates drinking or out on the town, talking to women, and then kebab and taxi home and crash out drunk. This I found really useful for visual starting points but also it is interesting what people associate men’s lifestyle to be in most cases this might be true as it is for me but things like drinking hard watching football eating junk and meeting mates are interesting points. A lot of these points are also bound in to the items which are associated with masculinity as well which is interesting.
The trait or values which a man should possess also gave similar feedback with it all being around the point provide strong foundations and finances for family, courage and assertiveness and loyalty and respect is common in the answers all of which most people when asked would say these values are ones which should be upheld.
The one that I was most interested in finding the result for was the ones about mental health and speaking to others about your feelings. I found that 4 of the 5 questionnaires said that they NEVER speak about their feelings and problems with other people and that is from each generation they all never speak about it which is amazing and quite interesting as it is affecting all age ranges.
There is a huge problem with Men’s mental health in the 21st century and that is why there is multiple charities and a growing awareness around the problems of men not expressing themselves. I think that this out of the things which I will or can research into is most likely what I want to focus on in my final outcome because there needs to be more awareness and I think that being one of the Men in the world that more awareness and talking points are needed.
I have started to look into why the older generation are more likely to keep things bottled up inside and not share there worry’s with others. I have found an article on the internet about ‘The silence after the war’. I found that a lot of the time during the war was hard for the soldiers to share their emotions and speak about the horror’s which faced them during their time in the war. Some of the wives of the soldiers went to The British library and museum to speak to them after they opened a museum space with some of the artefacts from the soldiers letters etcetera, and they told the war that their partners “were in the war but they never spoke about it” and this was a wide view. I found that to most “if they spoke about it made it real but not speaking contained it up”. This is very relevant to now with men still not speaking about their emotions and feelings now and is keeping with these stories. As well as this the letters which they sent back to their family as they kept in touch had to be censored as they had to keep up the image that everything was going well and there was pressure to be positive. This may of made the men keep their emotions bottled in which is why they never spoke about it on the outside as they were so good at keeping it in and keeping things to themselves and not talking about their emotions obviously rubbed off on to the sons and next generation which they have inherited and has passed on through the generations which is why possibly men still today keep emotions to themselves. Another quote which I picked up was “not expressing despair was reflected back as bravery and increasing self-esteem and status” this again echo’s the point I made about why men kept their emotions to themselves as they were rewarded for it.
https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/the-silence-after-the-war
Final Major project 2019 