Man Up! may seem like a harmless way to tell a man to step up his responsibilities, to be strong, or to show less emotion, but the phrase itself implies doing any of these things is gender specific. It implies that one can be more or less of a man based on behaviour.
Man Up may mean resilience in the face of adversity!
Dangers of the phrase
MGRS
PTSD
The culture of 'Man Up' or 'shouldn't be bothered by this/that' has been with man through the decades, thereby generating so much controversy about 'an ideal man' or 'not ideal man' which is not healthy for men. Therefore, we need to balance between the traditional and modern man in order to find ways to allow man to exhibit his strengths. The real 'Man Up' means 'showing' integrity to strengths and weaknesses!
Every society have rules and regulations guiding those roles designated as 'Masculine' and 'Feminine' but masculine roles are more rigid and obnoxious such as reliability, self-sufficiency, not showing weakness or not being emotional, except in anger! such roles are therefore entrenched into our sensibilities and seen to be nature-bequeathed.
WHAT IS MGRS?
The highest injustice to men is the 'demand' on them the image of a STURDY, COMPOSED, UNEMOTIONAL and TOUGH man expected to defile natural responses to STRESS!
WHAT A BELIEVE that their natural response to stress is a sign of weakness, even though stress is a reality to all homo-sapiens!
SO, WHY expect men to suppress all natural reactions, even in Anger?
MGRS is associated with some physical and psychological harmful effects such as ANXIETIES, DEPRESSIONS, SUBSTANCE ABUSES, OUTBURST OF WRATH, thereby leading to PTSD!
UNFORTUNATELY, Masculine Gender Role Stress usually prevents men from seeking the services of professionals counsellors whenever need arises because MEN ARE EXPECTED TO BE EMOTIONALLY STRONG and to MAINTAIN COMPOSURE under all circumstances, hence, expressing anxiety before other men is unimaginable to certain men. Such men would rather resort to ranges of maladaptive reactions such as aggression, power and control instead of seeking help from professionals on how to mitigate these disorderliness!