Most Americans say they’re cool with men or women crying in public

The great majority of Americans are okay with you crying in public — regardless of whether you’re a man or a woman.

That’s the surprising (at least to me) result of a new YouGov survey of 1,000 US adults, conducted in June:

YouGov

There were some gendered expectations. More Americans said they’re not okay with men crying (5 percent for private and 16 percent for public) than women (3 percent for private and 8 percent for public).

There were also gendered differences in how frequently people admitted to crying. Half of women said they had cried in the past week, while just 20 percent of men did. These differences remained when looking at the past year, too: 65 percent of men said they cried at some point in the previous year, compared with 88 percent of women.

YouGov

Now, these are merely admissions, so it’s hard to know whether this really means that men cry less than women. It could be that men are less likely to own up to it, because of social stigmas against men appearing sensitive. Still, some research has found that women do cry more than men — possibly due to biological or hormonal reasons, but also likely due to social expectations.

Still, maybe the stigma around men crying isn’t as strong as some people — myself included! — think. At least based on YouGov’s survey, most Americans are cool with it.

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