You have 0 items in your cart
This week I stumbled across a series of photographs by Maud Fernhout tackling the issues that men face expressing emotion and the shame women feel for their laughter – being beautifully shot and accompanied by the words of each subject, it successfully presents the issue in a way that cannot be ignored and deserve to be discussed.
“Boys don’t cry” is one of the most damaging and most common phrases we say to men daily. It’s seen as an inconceivable weakness in men, which is incredibly baffling to me for a couple of reasons. For one crying is one of the purest reactions to human emotion; it is the result of an imbalance of emotion, so crying is the way your body physically releases these to restore the equilibrium. And secondly I have grown up with a father who is not afraid to cry – I know now how rare and incredibly important this has been for both me and my sister.
Have you ever tried to stop yourself from crying? It’s physically so painful. There have only been a handful of times that I can remember stopping myself from crying, one of them being when I said goodbye to my sister at the airport before she went travelling. She was already crying and I didn’t want to make it worse, so I held my breath and swallowed my emotions, it gave me a headache. I cannot imagine having to do that on a regular basis.
“And it is especially beautiful knowing that it is even possible to experience so much beauty or love or happiness that your body literally can’t hold on to all of it. So keep feeling and cry often and as much as needed.” – Art-Felt
“That’s not very lady like” – well, what is? If the definition of ‘lady like’ is censoring yourself to conform to someone else’s standards, then I have no interest in it at all. I want to be as true to myself as possible. I want to walk, sit, stand, speak and laugh as authentically as possible. So why do we insist on putting so many guidelines on women. We merit girls on being cute and coy; we tell them not to show too much, but in doing so we also deprive them of pure emotion.
Laughing is the result of being caught off guard, so how are we meant to censor ourselves in these moments of pure joy without diminishing the feeling itself? Editing ourselves detracts from the moment and clouds our lives with false reactions.
Ask any woman if she likes her laugh and the majority will tell you that they don’t. They won’t like the way their nose wrinkles, or the shape their mouth makes and maybe they don’t like the sound; how incredibly sad that society has taught them not to love this part of themselves.
“I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it’s the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It’s probably the most important thing in a person.” – Audrey Hepburn
I think the one thing Maud wants people to take away from her work is the idea that people should irrevocably be themselves. Live in the moment, cry and laugh whenever you want, and don’t apologise to anyone. After all we’re only human.
View the rest of the photos from Maud’s project here.
