CRYING SHAME

WE DIG INTO THE SCIENCE AND EMOTION BEHIND A GOOD CRY

4,680 That’s how many times women cry in their adult lifetime.

I’VE NEVER SEEN MY MUM CRY. Not a single tear. When I was little, this worried me greatly. “But why don’t you cry?” I would squeak, through my own snuffled sobs. “Because it doesn’t solve anything,” she once replied. Yes, my mother is the ultimate pragmatist. (She doesn’t drink, either, because “it doesn’t get you anywhere”. Well, no, I used to say as a teenager, but it’s fun.) While I’m no longer fazed by the fact I’ve never seen my stoic mother cry, I can’t claim to take after her on that front.

To quote Jude Law in The Holiday, I am a “major weeper”. I cry at the usual fare – adverts, books, someone I love getting ill, seeing a friend get married, watching films on planes (there’s actual science behind this last one) – but also for no reason at all. In my most narcissistic moments, I’ve even been moved to tears by the prospect of my own death. A good old cry offers catharsis. How many times have you curled up into a ball and bawled, then on finishing felt a little bit reborn? It is a “healing experience” that is vital for its “reprocessing of a memory or thought,” says psychologist Natalie Cawley.

Crying is perceived as a feminine emotion. We cry over men, ripped stockings (and spilt milk). Our tears are irrational, copious and tedious. Gwyneth Paltrow sobbing at the 1999 Oscars was cemented in the media-ordained canon of worst acceptance speeches ever. Meanwhile, men rarely deign to cry, and certainly not in public, because society has taught them they must “buck up”; only sissies cry.

But, thankfully, that is changing. Not only tears shed as a private act, but as part of the public discourse, from Cara Delevingne saying her sanity depends on crying every day, to Drew Barrymore red-faced and sobbing on Instagram (because “sometimes life can just get to you and take you down for a minute”) and New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern tearfully mourning the victims of the Christchurch terrorist attack earlier this year. And it’s not just women. When Andy Murray announced his retirement from tennis in January, he broke down in tears and his weepy face made front page news.

Crying has gone from being viewed as a sign of weakness to an experience that is highly encouraged. Last October, the World Economic Forum published a video revealing that Japan is recommending crying once a week to its population to relieve stress, while a “tears teacher” (former high-school teacher Hidefumi Yoshida) recently made the news for his series of lectures aimed at raising awareness of the benefits of crying.

I call Professor Ad Vingerhoets, who’s been studying crying for more than 20 years and wrote the 2013 tome Why Only Humans Weep. The man who behavioural psychologists refer to as “the tear professor” says one of the biggest misconceptions is that we cry because we’re sad. Rather, we cry because we’re angry, helpless, grieving, surprised or empathetic. Vingerhoets, who’s carried out dozens of studies all over the world, says “crying waxes and wanes in society” and that we are going through a “sentimental time in society. Never before will you have seen so many tears on television, from politicians to athletes.”

But he adds that the widely held notion that tears are always followed by relief is a myth. Instead, he explains, we feel better for what our crying represents. “It signals to others that you need them. It shows that you are not aggressive and that you have peaceful intentions. And if you cry in a positive situation (if you are moved by something, for example) then it reveals your morality. It is about altruism and self-sacrifice; the good overcoming the bad.”

My quest is to determine if women are biologically predisposed to cry more than men, or if we have been socially conditioned to do so. “There may be a specific female hormone that facilitates tears, but social learning is more important,” says Vingerhoets. “There are factors that shape our crying behaviour: our exposure to

emotional situations (women engage in more emotional material, whether that’s books, literature or friendships), our choice of profession (historically more women have worked in emotive industries like healthcare) and how powerless or helpless we may feel” – the latter being a central factor in campaigns such as #Metoo.

“As a practitioner, I don’t think men cry less than women, but in my social realm that observation would be true,” says Cawley. “Prior to puberty, there’s no difference in the frequency of males and females crying. This suggests men learn via their social context that it is less acceptable to be seen exposing their vulnerability.”

Mental health activist Matt Haig agrees: “The flipside of patriarchy is that, for all the privilege and social space men take up, we have backed ourselves into a corner emotionally. I cry quite often, but not in front of male friends. This shit is ingrained. But I can talk about crying with men now, so I suppose that’s personal progress.”

The drive to remove the shame from crying is gaining momentum. Author Holly Bourne is so passionate about destigmatising crying, she has written a YA novel about it, The Places I’ve Cried In Public. “I wanted to explore how common public crying is – every girl has lost it in public at one time or another, but we never talk about it.” In trying to make sense of a recently demised dysfunctional relationship, Amelie, Bourne’s protagonist, travels to all the places she cried during their time together. “It’s a book about consent and power dynamics,” says Bourne. But it is also an encouragement for teenage girls to acknowledge their feelings “and see that they are telling us something. This obsession with happiness and wellbeing means we fall into this trap of chasing happiness. We need to spend more time with our emotions and stop labelling our feelings – happy equals good, sadness equals bad – and just let them sit.”

So, is it bad if you don’t cry? Will my mum explode like Violet Beauregarde? Experts are divided. Vingerhoets says that some people cry more than others – and it’s as simple as that – though “criers are more empathetic and feel more connected to other people”. But when clinical psychologist Cord Benecke conducted an experiment with criers and non-criers, he found non-crying people have a tendency to withdraw and experience more aggressive feelings, such as rage, anger and disgust.

I don’t think I’ll ever agree with my mum that crying is pointless. But I might not have to. Just before I finish this piece, I ring her for a chat. I tell her what I’m writing, and that she features in it. “Oh, I do sometimes cry now,” she says. “You WHAT?” I reply. “Yes,” she says. “I cried watching Poppy [my niece] sing a solo the other day.” I’m shocked. But also quite excited. Maybe, for once, I’ll be the one to hand my mum a hanky.