“WRT boys’ emotional states. To avoid stereotyping and misandry, we’d have to assert that boys and girls have not only the same number of emotional states, they have exactly the same ones and in the same proportions. Anybody got anything empirical on that?”
I can see what you’re trying to do, except it fails miserably. Mad, Sad, Happy are what they tend to feel? Fear, jealousy, impatience, excitement, curiosity, anxiety, love, compassion, affectionate, all states that even young boys have. Tom’s description limited them to feeling a lesser variety of emotions and paints the female gender in such a way that it really sounds like they’re far more varied in their emotions, have far more of them.
I’m sorry but on the average, I find it a total crock of %*#). I distinctly remember a very wide range of emotions of both sexes throughout my childhood, and see it in other boys and men today. Continuing this whole women have far more emotional states bullshit simply reinforces the macho bullshit of boys don’t cry, it’s extremely easy to understand the link. Boys are expected to bury their emotions, if we continue beating out that both genders are very different in their emotional response to the point of thinking men have a very limited ranged of emotions compared to women it simply keeps that silly idea going on.
There’s a reason people get happy, sad, or mad….it’s OTHER emotional states feeding into it. What makes you sad? Pain, fear, jealousy, envy, What makes you mad? pain, fear, jealousy, What makes you happy? Fulfillment, love, affection, care, excitement, accomplishing goals, and other positive interactions. It’s about time people started opening their mind and getting in touch with their emotions and actually trying to UNDERSTAND THEM.
Tl:Dr, continuing to teach generalizations that are incorrect contributes to stifling the emotional development of our boys and men. This site is filled with stories of men who are directly harmed by this restricted thinking of male emotions. It’s really an easy concept to understand.
Photo credit: Flickr / Creative Donkey
Hard to say about asking directions It may be a trope used in this area of discussion, as opening doors is in discussions of chivalry or related issues. To the extent the situation has arisn for me, I usually figure make a couple of more turns will be succesful and less time consuming than finding somebody to ask. This has been reinforced by my experiences where I did ask, and find that folks in the counry don’t have the same words as normal people. A swamp is a “crick”, and Maple Ave was changed to first street ten years ago,… Read more »
The Ugly Girl As Kirsten points out, there is overlap at the extremes. As I point out, this doesn’t refer to the folks in between the extremes. Nextly, brutality or its lack is not the same as freedom to emote. Last, back in the day, BA ’66, when I studied psychology, the steam-boiler interpretation of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory was only for undergrads. It was easy to understand. Keep the safety valve screwed down and something was going to blow. Not necessarily true, and usually those who were repressing–nasty, awful repressing–something or other had some other outlet that acted as a… Read more »
ht tp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/11/981112075159.htm RE:Suicide – It seems men see no hope and choose methods which are far more likely to succeed, whereas women do it more as a cry for help. “But before they ever get to the point of considering suicide, Murphy says, women are much more likely to seek help with their problems. The classic example is asking for directions when driving. Many men refuse to do that, perhaps seeing it as an admission of weakness. They believe they are supposed to be competent in all areas. Because they are not, they are at risk. Women, on the other… Read more »
Richard, You asked, “My point is where is the empirical work demonstrating that, absent nasty social conditioning, men and would display emotion in the same way?” Studies of different cultures show that the way men and women express emotion are a direct result of their social conditioning. The way men and women express their emotions in Western cultures are conditioned. Brutality, or its lack, is as socially conditioned as “boys don’t cry”. I agree the differences among the genders are more significant than the differences between them; but the reality is we are all judged by the yardstick of “socially… Read more »
assman.
My point is where is the empirical work demonstrating that, absent nasty social conditioning, men and women would display emotion in the same way?
A sub-question is where is the empirical work demonstrating the validity of the planted axiom that it would serve men better to emote like women do, rather than it would serve women better to emote as men do.
Kirsten. True, as regards tails of the normal distribution. Point is all those folks in between.
In regards to the question of empirical evidence that social conditioning constructs the way men and women display emotion; you may want to look into anthropological studies of the way men and women “naturally” behave. Four tribes, with very different cultures, come to mind: The Arapesh: both men and women are equally socialized to be non-violent, emotional, and nurturing. There is no noticeable difference between the genders in emotional expression, and men are equally considered naturally nurturing when it comes to raising infants. Tchambuli Tribe: the women are unemotional, business-like, and are considered the “family providers”. The men gossip, put… Read more »
It is time for the “girls and boys are the same” gang to get a clue. Boys and grils have always been, still are, and will always be different. It doesn’t matter how much the feminization of America continues. Yeas we all feel the same emotions. We, as men, just dont typically FEEL the need to spend the next 3 hours talking about it. Maybe its that males process their emotions in a different manner more than that they have different emotions. Regardless, what the author is saying is that men are different and need to be treated that way.
It is time for the “boys as a class are different from girls as a class” gang to get a clue. ALL individuals have always been, still, are, and always will be different. The average difference between gender-defined classes for most characteristics is dwarfed by the variation within each gender.
Danny. They aren’t free. If men/boys don’t emote like women/girls, Something Is Dreadfully Wrong and must be addressed.
The implication must be that they are, by nature, endowed with identical emotional states and each in identical intensity. Otherwise, there would be nothing that is Dreadfully Wrong, and where would the viewers-with-alarm be?
“Something Is Dreadfully Wrong and must be addressed.” Why? Can’t men be Stoic. Your hypothesis is that since men and women show emotional disparity this implies men have few and less intense emotions. It could also be that men are trained not to display emotions, to control themselves and not to show weakness. Whereas women are also trained but to a lesser extent. This is a cultural stereotype every bit as strong as the women are more emotional stereotype. You have many movies where the guy tears up and explains that he just got something in his eye. But what… Read more »
“WRT boys’ emotional states. To avoid stereotyping and misandry, we’d have to assert that boys and girls have not only the same number of emotional states, they have exactly the same ones and in the same proportions. Anybody got anything empirical on that?” Actually I think the only assertion that needs to be made is that boys and girls should be free to take on whatever emotional states they take on (barring any harmful ones of course). They don’t have to have the exact same emotional states, ranges, and proportions. They just need to be free to develop without being… Read more »
In fact it seems young boys often have more varied emotions than adult men in some cases are much more likely to vocalize emotions that are considered to be effeminate and innapropriate according to our societies gender roles, crying expressing love towards a friend of the same sex actually talking about their emotions despite an obvious tendency to be impulsive and immature in some ways young boys can seem more emotionally mature than some of us adult men. Which just goes to show how badly we all get miseducated in this society.
“in some ways young boys can seem more emotionally mature than some of us adult men. Which just goes to show how badly we all get miseducated in this society.”
I would say the opposite. First both women and men display less emotions as they get older across almost all societies and cultures. That is normal. It is a sign of maturity. People realize that their views of the world and their emotional states do not necessarily reflect reality. They become less selfish and less egotistical. This is emotional maturity.
Archy. you “believe”. Anything empirical?
In the meantime, I’d like somebody to support the uncontesed assertion that men would be better served to emote like women. Is it not possible that women would be better served to emote like men? If not, why not?
Nothing empirical, just personal observations. I can’t see how men would have less emotions as in the range (we all feel fear, jealousy, happiness, and all the others). There is the possibility that men are more likely to hide emotion, both as instinct and also passed down in culture. As for women emoting like men, opening up is helpful for dealing with stress, depression etc. I’ve seen these effects where men hide their pain on the inside and drink it away for example, women here in Australia I believe are more likely to go to the doctor and seek help… Read more »
Archy. If we were letting people emote at their own speed, as individuals, conversations like this would stop before they started, leaving innocent pixels unmolested.
Agreed, it’s sad that I feel quite restricted in expressing myself emotionally as a man because of silly stereotypes and gender roles. I am finding more confidence in expressing emotion these days but it has led others to question me as a man before… I found it quite troubling when trying to relate with children, women seem far more relaxed and at ease when dealing with kids but I felt like it was only acceptable for me to show little interest in them, not go too much on the awww that’s cute, etc. I see men and women act quite… Read more »
We are molded into our genders from the time we’re small. Ever heard the way grownups talk to male infants versus female infants? It’s a nuanced sociological process that begins at birth – the pronouncement that “It’s a boy” or “It’s a girl”. Just as you may have felt restricted in your (acceptable) emotional expressions, I’ve been characterized as strange or unusual for my non-feminine emoting style. I don’t think it’s merely emulating a same-gender parent that inculcates males and females into their respective roles. Parents also actively shape their children into gender-conforming beings (I’ve too many times heard parents… Read more »
Yep, I see this quite a bit. Even listening to friends speak of the other gender, how women are this, how men are that yet I know plenty of people that don’t fit those molds of their gender? That’s why like the Princess Free Zone facebook page a mother setup for her child that doesn’t fit the gender roles, one of the most awesome pictures was the daughter using powertools and doing the “manly” job. There’s clearly a lack of female engineers for instance, and male teachers, etc, many roles in society do seem to be suited to gender before… Read more »
Yes! It is all those things you speak of having experienced that make me so adamant in my pursuit of dismantling the gender binary. I’m tired of men having to be macho and stoic, and women being considered emotionally unstable. I’m tired of the ways gender constructs can seriously harm both males and females. My daughter is very androgynous, but even more than that, I’ve provided her with the language to counteract the deeply embedded assumptions of her peers about gender. She may not revolutionize her grade 2 classroom, but she is able to combat gender stereotypes when they arise,… Read more »
As I said, have we got anything empirical on the question of whether men and women, boys and girls, have identical emotional states, both as to category and intensity?
Until we have that, disparate displaying of emotion by men and women in all cultures and all millenia has, as a least hypothesis, the probability that there is not an identity.
Wow, blast from the past! As to gender symmetry on emotions: (going to generalize a bit) I believe both genders feel the same emotions, the levels may vary a bit though especially at different stages of life. From what I gather from women a period/around that time of month can be quite stressful and for men their sex drives do appear to be pretty quick and easier to engage so there seems to be some biological differences which can influence emotions, but still we both get mad, sad, happy, horny, jealous, etc. Another thing influencing emotions would be how we… Read more »
I am forever lamenting the gendered divide in how we talk about emotionality. Females do tend to be more emotionally expressive, but it doesn’t mean that they experience more emotions and it is not because they are inherently more emotional. We live in a culture that teaches and expects men and boys to suppress their emotional range; the only culturally acceptable emotions for men to express are anger and joy, and perhaps sadness in sanctioned contexts – like when their sports team loses or when they’re grieving. Emotionally limited expression is imposed on males, but it doesn’t mean that they… Read more »
I agree, lets take it further: Unless we have empirical evidence that people called richard have the same emotional states than everyone else then its at least possible that they don’t.
Peter. Precisely. And that means any concern that I don’t emote like somebody else because of my upbringing, that I’ ve been oppressed suppressed repressed and depressed by the awful patriarchy needs to examine the actual basic emotional capacities of one Aubrey.
And since that can’t be done…where’s the fun?