Within the Christian community, there is a responsibility placed upon men to be the spiritual leaders of the home and the congregation. This responsibility is cited as coming from the Bible, according to an article on Crossway by Andreas J Kostenberger and Margaret Elizabeth Kostenberger.
“The way in which we live our lives is in and through our divinely created gender identities,” Mr. and Mrs. Kostenberger said.
This expectation placed upon men to fulfill a certain role in a household and certain demographic seems to be challenged in the modern age. Masculinity, femininity, and gender norms are all being called into question as groups desire to redefine the meaning of these very terms.
Andy Dunn published an article on Medium.com, and in it he cited gender equality writer and thinker, Michael Kaufman. Kaufman believes that all men share one thing in common, and that is a fear of other men, according to Dunn. Dunn suggests that the solution to overcoming these fears, fears of conflict, not measuring up, being socially inferior, different, and many others, is to be vulnerable.
“Maybe being vulnerable is not weak,” Dunn said. “Maybe vulnerability- and being able to show it, share it, reckon with it, and emerge the better for it- is what makes us strong.”
But being vulnerable for men is not always as easy as simply opening up. In an article for Psychology Today, Gregg Henriques, Ph. D. discusses a phenomenon seen in males known as normative male alexithymia. This is the clinical term for the fact that “traditional masculine role socialization has channeled many men into ways of being such that their masculine identity conflicts with the emotions they feel and what they feel they are ‘allowed’ to express,” according to Henriques.
This phenomenon leads to men feeling that they will be thought of as less than a “real man,” or even shamed for it, if they open up about emotions or speak from a place of vulnerability.
This video story explores that very idea of masculinity and vulnerability within the Christian male demographic. The video features a series of three interviews with four Christian men, each sharing own experiences with expressing their own faith and emotions with both the religious world and the larger, secular one.
