6.1: Sex, Gender, and Emotions
-
- Last updated
- Save as PDF
Girls cry and boys don’t, right? I mean, girls are just naturally more emotional than boys, right? Hold on to your hats: Males and females are not victims of biological processes dictating their emotional stability or strength based on sex category. In fact, scientific research reveals culture and environment, rather than biology, is a greater indicator for emotional experience.
Western culture often maintains the idea of a binary opposition between reason and emotion, with reason widely believed to be a masculine behavior and emotion being a feminine behavior. This stereotype has become a power social force in constructing and reinforcing the false belief that it is sex category that will determine whether a person is more reasonable or emotional. Once established, we see this pattern replicate throughout most, if not all, of society’s institutions effectively structuring the world we inhabit and appearing ‘normal’ (a process called reification ).
The stereotype of the emotional women and the rational man was created and maintained in response to the industrial revolution which produced segregation in the workplace. Prior to the industrial revolution, as discussed in earlier chapters, women were relegated to housework and family obligations as a result of reproduction needs for the culture to multiply and survive. After the industrial revolution, women largely remained in those domestic roles, as the roles had become a cultural norm. As will become more evident as we proceed, this change had made reverberations with how we date, fall in love, and structure our families. Notably, the norm of the breadwinner husband and the stay-at-home housewife that took root around this time and was born out of capitalism’s need for a reliable workforce.
Today, the rationale for the “emotional woman” helps maintain sex segregation in the work force. It has been argued women could be too emotional for some occupations like police officers, fire fighters, legislatures, or even the President of the United States. In fact, in the most recent presidential race, some (including women) argued women shouldn’t be president because her hormones “could start a war in a second.” 82 (And this is when I reflect on how many wars have actually been started by women and how many have been started by men.)
So, what are the differences in emotions between sexes? Well, none, really. But research indicates a difference in emotions between genders (most research focuses on the emotional experience between the binary feminine and masculine as gender categories). In Western culture, women and men differ more in emotional expression than in emotional experience . 83 Meaning, emotions are a human capability, not a feminine or female one. Therefore, men and women experience emotions similarly, but women and men express them differently. Why?
As part of our socialization process, we learn how to express our emotions socially appropriately. Women are taught it is more acceptable (or even encouraged) for them to show their emotions than it is for men. Furthermore, women are more encouraged to demonstrate prosocial emotions like empathy, compromise, and nurturance. And women are also more likely than men to demonstrate emotions that imply powerlessness, like fear or shame. 84 Again, these emotions are all human capabilities, but women have been more socially permitted to demonstrate these human potentials than men. However, the latter emotions are seen as a contradiction to Western construction of masculinity, and thus have been named as feminine emotions and typically more permissible for women. So engrained in fact are these gendered performances and displays of emotions that they become the very identifiers of one’s gender (e.g. cried like a girl when a boy does it and simply cried if done by a girl).
According to dominant Western culture, masculine emotions include, but are not limited to, powerful emotions like anger, pride, and competition. 85 These emotions are more in line with the Western masculine ideal because they are seen as being more these types of emotions tend to enhance or confirm one’s social or contextual power. So while women are more likely to express prosocial and emotions that imply powerlessness, and men are more likely to demonstrate powerful emotions, men and women do not experience those emotions differently based on sex, rather their expression of those emotion are heavily dictated by social norms and constructions.
Culture adheres to collective rather than individualistic belief systems and behavioral norms. Therefore, the stereotype that women are more emotional than men has maintained through cultural constructs found in every realm of culture. It is especially important to understand the stereotypes of gendered emotions because they shape how we view and value (or devalue) others and ourselves.
82
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4Zdx97A63s
83
Fischer, Agneta. Gender and Emotion: Social Psychological Perspectives.” 200. Cambridge University Press.
84
Ibid
85
Ibid