Men Cry Differently

Mwamuna sama lila (a man doesn’t cry). We all have heard this in life. Right??

There is a particular kind of loneliness that many men carry, one that hides in plain sight. It shows up at the office, at the dinner table, in the group chat full of jokes. It is the loneliness of a man who has learned, from boyhood, that his pain is his own private business — something to be managed quietly, out of view, like a debt he is ashamed of. A lot of men simply do not know how to ask for help. Not because they are incapable of feeling, but because somewhere along the way, they were taught that feeling out loud is a luxury they cannot afford. So they learn instead to act okay, even while drowning inside.

Two Languages of Grief

Women and men often grieve in different dialects. When a woman is hurting, she is more likely to say so — to a friend, a sister, a counsellor. Her tears are permitted, even expected, and this permission is a lifeline. It connects her pain to other people who can help carry it.

Men, by contrast, tend to cry in silence. In the car after a hard phone call. In the shower, where water disguises tears. At a desk late at night, staring at a screen long after the work is done. Anywhere no one will notice. Sometimes no tears fall at all — just a heavy, private silence, the kind that drowns a man slowly while he continues to show up, provide, and perform. The strongest man you know may be breaking right now, and you would never guess it, because he has become fluent in the language of “I’m good.”

The Weight of Expectation

Why do men hide? Much of it comes down to what society asks of them. A man is expected to provide and to lead. He is the one others look to when things fall apart. And who wants to see their leader crying? A father who breaks down worries he will frighten his children. A husband who admits he is struggling fears his wife will see him as less of a man. An employee who confesses burnout fears being passed over. So he smiles. He cracks jokes all day, pays the bills, keeps the machine running — and then spends the night staring at the ceiling while everyone else sleeps.

There is also the burden of time itself. While others are thinking about today or tomorrow, many men are quietly calculating next month and next year: school fees, rent, the aging parents, the what-ifs. This constant forward-planning is an act of love — a way of protecting the people who depend on him — but it is also a weight that never comes off. Some men carry it for so long that surviving becomes their default routine. They forget what peace even feels like. They no longer recognize their own exhaustion as pain, because it has simply become the temperature of their lives.

When Pain Finds Other Exits

Here is the tragedy: pain that is denied a voice does not disappear. It finds other exits. Some men channel it into anger, snapping at the people they love most. Some bury themselves in work, mistaking exhaustion for purpose. Some reach for the bottle, medicating a wound they cannot name. And some simply disappear emotionally — present in body, absent in spirit, a ghost at their own dinner table.

This is where the statistics stop being abstract and become devastating. Across nearly every country in the world, men die by suicide at significantly higher rates than women — in many nations, three to four times higher — even though women report depression and attempt suicide more often. Researchers call this the “gender paradox of suicide,” and its explanations map almost perfectly onto everything described above. Men are far less likely to seek professional help or confide in anyone before a crisis, so their distress goes undetected until it is too late. Men tend to use more lethal means, turning a moment of despair into a permanent decision. And men are more likely to mask depression with alcohol, which deepens hopelessness and weakens restraint. A woman in crisis often leaves a trail of signals — conversations, tears, calls for help. A man in crisis often leaves nothing but a shocked community saying, “But he seemed fine.”

The same suppressed pain that turns inward as suicide can also turn outward as violence. Globally, roughly nine out of ten homicides are committed by men, and most of the victims are men too. This is not because men are born more cruel; it is partly because anger is the one emotion many men were ever allowed to express. A boy who is mocked for crying but tolerated for fighting learns a dangerous lesson: sadness is weakness, but rage is strength. Fast-forward twenty years, and the man who never learned to say “I am hurting” instead says it with his fists, or worse. Add to this the way masculine culture ties respect to dominance — where an insult in a bar or a dispute over money becomes a test of manhood that cannot be walked away from — and the pattern becomes tragically legible. Suicide and violence are, in many ways, two faces of the same coin: unspoken pain seeking an exit.

What Men Actually Need

It would be easy to conclude that men need to “open up,” and leave it there. But most men are not asking for sympathy. In fact, sympathy can feel disempowering — like being pitied, like confirmation that he has failed at the one job he was given. What many men want is something quieter and more dignified: peace. Understanding. One moment where they do not have to act strong. A friend who asks “how are you, really?” and waits for the true answer. A culture that lets a leader be human without stripping him of his authority.

Change begins in small places. It begins with fathers telling their sons that tears are not treason. It begins with friends who check on the man who “seems fine,” because seeming fine is precisely how men hide. It begins with workplaces, churches, and communities treating a man’s mental health with the same seriousness as his salary. And it begins with men themselves recognizing that carrying weight silently is not strength — it is slow erosion — and that asking for help is not surrender but strategy. No general fights a war alone.

Conclusion

Men cry differently. They cry in silence, in work, in anger, in absence. They cry in ceilings stared at through sleepless nights and in jokes told a little too loudly. The numbers — the suicides, the violence — are simply that hidden crying made visible, too late. If we want fewer men dying quietly and fewer men exploding loudly, we must build a world where a man’s pain is allowed to speak before it is forced to scream. Because behind every man who “seems fine” may be someone fighting the hardest battle of his life — and all he needs is one safe moment to put the weight down.

The cliff has not moved

Something extraordinary and deeply unsettling happened in 2005 in the Turkish village of Gevas. One sheep walked off a cliff, and then 1,499 others followed. The shepherds had stepped away for breakfast. In their brief absence, a single animal moved toward danger, and the rest instinctively followed. By the time the movement became visible, it was already too late. More than 450 sheep died, while those behind survived only because the growing pile of bodies broke their fall.

At first glance, it sounds like the kind of story so absurd that it belongs in folklore. Yet biologists and animal behaviourists were not surprised. Sheep are wired to follow the movement of those nearest to them rather than independently assess the terrain ahead. In most circumstances, this instinct is highly effective. It keeps the flock together and protects individuals from external threats. The tragedy is that the very behaviour that had ensured survival for generations became fatal in the wrong environment.

It is tempting to laugh at the sheep.

But many organisations operate in exactly the same way.

The Gevas incident is not merely a story about animal behaviour. It is a powerful lesson about leadership, management, organisational culture, and the risks of collective decision-making when critical thinking disappears.

Most organisational decisions are not made in isolation. Employees watch managers. Managers watch executives. Executives watch competitors, consultants, donors, industry trends, and peer organisations. Learning from others is often sensible and efficient. The danger emerges when organisations stop asking whether the direction is right and focus only on whether everyone else is moving in the same direction.

How many organisations adopt new management frameworks because they are fashionable rather than effective? How many strategic plans are copied from competitors? How many initiatives are launched because they are popular in boardrooms rather than because they solve a genuine organisational problem?

When conformity replaces critical thinking, organisations begin to mistake consensus for wisdom. The sheep did not evaluate the cliff. They evaluated the movement of the flock. Many organisations do the same.

The most important detail in the Gevas story is not that the sheep followed one another. It is that the shepherds were absent.

Leadership is often misunderstood as authority. In reality, leadership is the continuous process of observing, guiding, correcting, and anticipating risk. When leadership becomes distracted, disengaged, or complacent, organisations create a vacuum.

Vacuums rarely remain empty for long. In the absence of active leadership, the loudest voice often becomes the dominant voice. The most confident opinion becomes the accepted opinion. Assumptions go unchallenged. Weak decisions gain momentum simply because nobody intervenes early enough.

Many organisational failures do not begin with bad intentions. As the saying goes, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." More often, however, they begin with absent attention. The challenge for leaders is not simply to set direction. It is to remain sufficiently engaged to recognise when the organisation is drifting toward danger.

 

One consequence of disengaged leadership is the emergence of groupthink, one of the greatest threats to organisational performance. In many organisations, people quickly learn that challenging prevailing opinions carries risk. They remain silent in meetings. They suppress concerns. They nod in agreement despite privately recognising flaws in a proposal. Over time, this creates an illusion of consensus.

Healthy organisations understand that disagreement is not a threat to unity; it is often a prerequisite for sound decision-making.

As one of my former lecturers used to say, if two people agree on everything, only one of them is doing the thinking.

Strong leaders deliberately create environments where dissent is welcomed, assumptions are tested, and uncomfortable questions are encouraged. They understand that constructive disagreement improves decisions long before problems become crises.

The first sheep paid the highest price. In organisations, the equivalent individuals are often whistle-blowers, innovators, risk officers, auditors, and employees who raise concerns before others recognise a problem.

These people rarely receive immediate praise. Instead, they are frequently viewed as difficult, disruptive, or pessimistic. Yet organisational history repeatedly demonstrates that many major failures were preceded by warnings that leaders chose to ignore.

The organisations that thrive are not those that eliminate criticism. They are those that listen to it. An employee who identifies a risk early is not undermining the organisation. They are helping to protect it. Effective leaders recognise this distinction.

The sheep's instinct to stay together was not a flaw. It was a strength operating in the wrong environment. The same principle applies to organisations. Processes, cultures, and management practices that deliver success under one set of conditions may become liabilities when circumstances change. A culture built on loyalty can become resistant to accountability. A culture built on stability can become hostile to innovation. A culture built on efficiency can become incapable of adaptation.

The challenge of leadership is not simply preserving organisational strengths. It is recognising when those strengths are becoming obstacles to future success. Effective leaders continually ask a difficult question: what worked yesterday, but may not work tomorrow?

Organisations often become vulnerable when they rely too heavily on systems, routines, and established ways of thinking. Systems are valuable because they create consistency and efficiency. Yet no system can anticipate every change in its environment. There are moments when circumstances shift faster than procedures can adapt. In those moments, success depends on individuals who are willing to question assumptions, recognise emerging risks, and act before the rest of the organisation catches up. The ability to think independently is not a threat to organisational cohesion. It is one of the conditions that makes long-term resilience possible.

Once the sheep began falling, intervention was almost impossible. The opportunity to prevent disaster existed before the first movement occurred. This is perhaps the most important leadership lesson of all. Management is often associated with solving problems. Leadership is about preventing problems from becoming crises.

The best leaders spend less time reacting and more time anticipating. They monitor emerging risks, encourage difficult conversations, challenge assumptions, and build systems that detect weak signals before those signals become emergencies.

Most organisational disasters do not occur without warning. The warnings are usually present. They are simply ignored until the consequences become impossible to overlook.

The sheep of Gevas were not stupid. They were operating within a system that rewarded following, lacked active oversight, and failed to recognise danger early enough.

Many organisations face the same risk. Talented employees can still make poor collective decisions. Capable teams can still drift into failure. Strong institutions can still walk over cliffs if leadership is absent, dissent is discouraged, and risks are ignored.

The lesson is not that organisations should avoid collaboration or consensus. The lesson is that leaders must actively read the terrain ahead. Because by the time everyone agrees on the direction, it may already be too late.

The cliff rarely appears without warning.

The real question is whether anyone is watching for it.

As the Climate Changes, Zambia Must Redefine Sanitation

Every rainy season, cholera claims lives in Zambia, lives that could be saved by something as simple as a toilet. As the world marks World Toilet Day for 2025, Zambia finds itself confronting a crisis that is as familiar as it is urgent. The annual event, established by the United Nations to inspire action toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6 (clean water and sanitation for all by 2030), reminds us that sanitation is not merely an issue of comfort; it is about public health, human dignity and climate resilience.

This year’s theme, “Sanitation in a Changing World”, carries the tagline “We’ll Always Need the Toilet.” It highlights the unchanging importance of sanitation even as the world around us transforms under the pressures of climate change, ageing infrastructure and underinvestment. To meet the global sanitation goal, the world must move five times faster than it is doing today. That statistic alone should jolt us into action.

For Zambia, the message could not be timelier. Each rainy season brings with it the spectre of cholera outbreaks and other waterborne diseases, particularly in densely populated urban settlements where toilets are inadequate, waste management is poor, and drainage systems fail under heavy rains. The situation reflects not only infrastructural gaps but also deep-seated inequalities in access to basic services. The link between sanitation and health could not be clearer: without safe toilets and clean water, cholera will continue to resurface, undermining decades of public health progress.

Yet the sanitation challenge is no longer just about hygiene, it is also about climate change. Floods, unpredictable rainfall, and prolonged droughts are making it harder to maintain safe and sustainable sanitation systems. Floodwaters can contaminate wells and pit latrines, spreading disease, while droughts reduce the water available for hygiene. Climate variability is also compromising the durability and quality of sanitation infrastructure, particularly in resource-limited settings where systems are already fragile. In short, climate change is making it harder to keep toilets functional and safe.

As global leaders gather for COP30 in Belém, Brazil, Zambia and other developing nations must ensure that sanitation is not sidelined in climate negotiations. Sanitation and climate change are intimately linked in two directions. On one hand, poor sanitation contributes to climate change: the unsafe disposal of faecal matter produces greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide, adding to global emissions. On the other hand, climate variability: floods, rising temperatures and extreme weather, erodes the very sanitation systems needed to contain those emissions and protect human health.

Therefore, the outcomes of COP30 should include stronger recognition of sanitation as part of the climate–health–resilience agenda. Climate adaptation frameworks must support countries like Zambia to build resilient, low-emission, and future-ready toilets that can withstand floods, droughts and population pressures. These solutions are not just technical, they are moral imperatives that address both environmental integrity and human dignity.

Encouragingly, there are funding mechanisms that can help. The Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Adaptation Fund, and emerging loss and damage finance instruments offer opportunities to channel resources towards water and sanitation projects that are both climate-smart and community-driven. Zambia’s policymakers should seize these opportunities to develop proposals that integrate sanitation into climate action plans, ensuring that access to safe toilets becomes part of the broader narrative on resilience and sustainable development.

Globally, momentum is building. As of early November 2025, about 64 countries have submitted their nationally determined contributions (NDC) 3.0, the “2035-aligned” NDCs under the Paris Agreement, demonstrating growing ambition to address climate change. Zambia can follow suit by embedding sanitation and hygiene priorities within its own climate commitments, recognising that a clean toilet is also a climate solution.

World Toilet Day is a call to rethink how we approach one of humanity’s oldest and most basic needs. Toilets symbolise civilisation, dignity, and progress, but in a changing climate, they also represent resilience and adaptation. For Zambia, the path forward demands more than commemorations; it requires investment, innovation, and political will.

As the climate changes, we must redefine sanitation, not as a peripheral concern, but as a central pillar of sustainable development. Because, indeed, we’ll always need the toilet.