River O. B

RIVER O.B

I think we are pressured into calling ourselves men. I would call myself a man and I’ve always toldmyself that I do all these manly things. Until I starteduniversity, I didn’t realise how weird that conceptis, because now that I’ve stopped playing contactrugby, I’ve started doing cheerleading and I’man actor as well. I’m not a stereotypical man. Whatit means to be a man is a very broad question. It’sdifficult to answer succinctly.

Danielle Goodland

I definitely think that cheerleading wasn’t accessibleto me when I was younger. I didn’t evenknow we had cheerleading in the UK. And men doingcheer? Out of the question. On the other hand,I did a lot of acting from a very young age and I’vealways been a drama queen, so I didn’t miss out onthat. It is possible that because I wanted to do it, Ifound the time to do it; whereas I won’t ever knowwhether I wanted to be a cheerleader when I wasyounger. I only became aware of cheer through afriend and then went to a social and thought, “Sodit, I’ll have a go.” Lucky really.

Danielle Goodland

I know that toxic masculinity exists, but I don’tknow what it is exactly, which is maybe why wedon’t really know how to conquer it at the moment.In the university rugby team, there is so much testosteroneknocking around the changing roomsand on socials that it could easily put people off,or make them feel small or insignificant. For sure,I’ve felt pressure to be a man. The rugby culture isall to do with getting drunk and talking about girls.We don’t chat about normal things. It’s kind of ashallow spectrum of communication and relationships.But it would be so weird to not have thatrelationship with the rugby team in my life.

Danielle Goodland

As a man, one of my biggest worries is if I havea child. I hope that I get the chance to down theline but then, deep-down, I do think of the whole custody thing and that often men don’t generally get custody if a marriage fails, but hopefully it never gets that far for me.

It also worries me that often men don’t speak out. I don’t talk about having had really bad depression in my mid-late teens, to even the closest of my friends. I didn’t want to burden them, but I’d hate to think that if one of my friends felt like that they hadn’t been able to speak to me about it. I would feel I had let them down as a friend, and yet I still don’t ask them, it just isn’t the ‘done’ thing. I think most people now know the “78% of suicides are men” fact. I think that if people don’t open up about it, we tend to follow suit and be quiet about how we are feeling too. I hardly ever speak about my feelings because I don’t want to bore or worry people, or have them think that I’m not as strong, but that is such a bad mindset to have. I still can’t believe the biggest killer in men under 45 is suicide.

Danielle Goodland

I just hope that everyone can learn to live and love each other for whoever they are. It’s wrong to misgender people, I have done it before and I felt awful. We all need to have in the backs of our minds that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions when we meet a new person with regards to what they would like to be called. I think that hate will decrease and peoples’ minds will be broadened. Some motivational speaker said, “In some ways, I wish with all the bad stuff going on that I didn’t live here, but where would I be?” We live in a world full of opportunities, with growing technology and the ability to spread communication to every corner of the world. We will do so much more than ever thought possible and it would be a waste to give up on everything now. We are incredible people and incredible humans. But we all need help with everything; relationships, communication, support, that’s what being human is. We are all the same, lucky to be doing everything we get to do. Being a man, woman or whoever you want to be, you are very lucky.