'About Men' By Gretel Ehrlich

In the short essay, “About Men” by Gretel Ehrlich she uses personal anecdotes of her experience in Wyoming to divulge into the intricacies of men’s emotions, and how they endure and elucidates the erroneous stereotypes formulated by society. She divulges into the contemporary status of Wyoming cowboys, and men in general; how they are just as ‘fragile’ as a women while cloistered geographically and emotionally.

Gretel Ehrlich begins with the establishment of the contemporary status of the cowboy figure. They are described as the “Strong silent type”, Theodore Roosevelt-like, “riding into the sunset” with his rough riders, after a long day at work as a “macho, trigger-happy” man. Ehrlich establishes this spurious concept of Wyoming cowboys

The imagery of the cowboy’s hands cultivated life and also was there when it was taken, intentionally or natural happenstance. The juxtaposition of these occurrences and the role attributed to them leave a stark impression on these cowboys leaving them socially and emotionally inert. The cowboys are described as unable to “express the complexity of what they feel.” Out of lack of experience or even fear that vulnerability will leave their manhood in question. Anyone can be open but not everyone can be vulnerable, and this phrase stands true with cowboys and men in general. Ehrlich demonstrates how something as simple as one “I love you” will render a puissant impression. The deprivation of diction to express their feelings following the fragility of their emotions culminates in cowboys or men, in general, becoming unable to “bring their tenderness into the house.” The irony of how such ‘rugged’ men could struggle tremendously with their emotions reveals itself through the elucidation by Gretel

Ehrlich’s assertions and experiences are consummated in one sentence,” No one is as fragile as a women but no one is as fragile as a man.” The lack of a semi-colon or comma refutes the claim that the sentence is attempting to assert that women are below men or that one side garners more attention than the other. Verily, the phrase illustrates men and women as equal in their emotional turmoil, just not in the way in which they cope and undergo the expression of their emotions. Gretel Ehrlich professes that for the women that take advantage of their emotional fragility, there are men that “try to hide theirs”. Out of the petrifying fear that their emotional state and vulnerability will cause them further convolution. While society may see some men as the “strong silent type”, really they merely have no one to talk to or are willing to listen and affirm. Ehrlich accentuates the unwavering conflict of emotional burden without the mode to relieve the tribulation. It is not astonishing that one would crack under the overwhelming emotional load and look for an escape, with men making up substantially more suicide deaths than women. Ehrlich prefaces that this is not a message to demean women but rather to shed light on the societal stereotypes built up around men, confining them and molding them into preposterous cowboys, that are