Mental health article. Literature & Language Essay

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The article Depression Among Men: It’s Time to Erase the Stigma by Michael Pittaro talks about the rising rates of male suicide resulting from depression. As a given, men are raised to remain detached from emotional pain, grief, and other apparent vulnerabilities. These are believed to be feminine traits and boys are trained to suppress their feelings because exposing them is believed to be unmanly. Men in all parts of the world are expected to reveal their strengths and forbidden to showcase their emotions publicly. As a result of these perspectives, men who acknowledge suffering from mental illnesses like depression are criticized and stigmatized. The main reason behind the criticism is because men are expected to be emotionally invulnerable, hardy, and tougher. Hidden depressive thoughts are harmful when men are alone, and worse because they intentionally isolate themselves from others. The article is effective because Pittaro uses experiential evidence and relates his argument with happenings in society. The persuasive style further cements the effectiveness in the prose as he presents issues from an expert point of view.
Starting with his own experience as a father raising two teen boys, he notes that he aims to raise them to be “emotionally strong, healthy, independent men.” However, unlike the stereotypical perspectives prevalent in society, he intended to raise his boy to communicate openly and express their feelings. These statements show his disregard for egoistic stereotypes that regard men expressing their emotions weak. The rising cases of depression resulted from these dangerous viewpoints regarding the emotional expression of males (Pittaro).
Pittaro says that we must embrace and accept “those perceived emotional vulnerabilities as not weakne...