Thank you Elicia,
It sure isn't Mary wearing a crown of thorns, with broken leg and pierced bleeding hands, feet and rib cage: pinioned to a cross.
Pity that level of egalitarianism is missing, isn't it?
And if one looks carefully, it isn't Jesus who is the closest to heaven, Mother Mary is most often depicted far above him.
However, the sacrificial male is not just part of the Christian Dogmas, it is in novels and movies and most digital sources.
And as you point out, this is not new.
It is in Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities as the self-sacrificing Sidney Carton climbs the scaffold to face the guillotine:
"“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."
It's reenforced by Bruce Willis' character Harry Stamper in Armageddon, who sacrifices himself to save the world, his daughter and his son-in-law.
"You go take care of my little girl now. That's your job. Always thought of you as a son. Always. But, I'd be damn proud to have you marry Grace."
Or Boromir in Lord of the Rings.
"I ask only for the strength to defend my people."
Even Spock in Star Trek 2.
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
Or Denzil Washington's self-sacrificing Creasy in Man on Fire who wears of course the word legacy on his track suit.
"I'm going home, too. "
Or T-800 in Terminator 2:
"I know now why you cry, but it is something I can never do."
It is as you write, men were and still are expected to maintain the stiff upper lip and somehow sacrifice themselves gladly without a tear to stain trail its way down a masculine cheek.
My father, who served on the North Atlantic on a Canadian Destroyer Escort during World War Two, was out of uniform on a Montreal street. He had been ordered to take his winter uniform into a dry cleaners.
Two older women beckoned him over on a snow-covered morning street.
They motioned him down to their level and then pinned a white feather on his lapel, the universal sign of a coward.
Oh the assumptions. Oh the entitlement. Oh the sheer arrogance in their belief that my father, indeed all men, should heed the call and protect women and children first, and sacrifice their lives or limbs or psychological health.
Only a coward would not do so!
BUT, recently, when the Buffalo Bill's Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field, many of our gladiators broke down in tears, some knelt down and prayed.
Does this signal a sea change?
That warriors can shed tears, then so too can boys and men.
And there's nothing toxic about that.