Speaker 1: I just told myself I should never cry.
Speaker 2: I had my nose shattered in a fight.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of mixed signals in the world.
Speaker 4: I was told that being a man was being strong.
Speaker 2: We don’t talk about our feelings or not. It’s a very macho culture.
Speaker 1: I’ve never saw my dad cry except for once in my life. But it freaked me out. I remember thinking that there was something wrong, like I felt like a machine had like shut down.
Speaker 5: You bury emotion as much as you can until you physically can’t hold anymore then you go somewhere privately and have yourself a little cry.
Speaker 2: I never cried actually. I only cried twice in the past seven years.
Speaker 3: I was always very much belittled for any sort of display of emotion.
Speaker 2: You know, back home, if somebody looks at you the wrong or bumps in you the wrong way, you have to do something about it because it’s testing your manhood.
Speaker 1: Don’t back down from fights. Don’t be afraid to pick fights.
Speaker 2: There is a lot violence where I’m from. I’ve had my nose broken three times.
Speaker 5: When you feel threatened, that’s when you bow up. That’s when you try to get that swagger on that’s just so bro-y and unrealistic.
Speaker 1: If I could instill fear in others, then they would see me as a man.
Speaker 4: When I think of masculinity, I think more of a gentleman and carrying yourself with strength and weight — not necessarily violence and aggression.
Speaker 5: Masculinity shouldn’t require us to dominate everything.
Speaker 2: Thankfully, I’ve had the opportunity to travel and have been in different places, and I’ve seen that a man could be any number of things. There’s not one concrete definition.
Speaker 5: When I think of what I want to be as a man, I want to be a good man, I want to be kind, I want to look out for people.
Speaker 3: There’s a million types of men in the world and there’s no right way to be a guy.
Speaker 1: It doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, who you love. If you’re confident, most people see you as masculine.
Speaker 4: It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to hug. Hug a man.
