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Abstract
to even try to understand your own emotions?</p><p id="144f"><b>The problem with the tired old trope of men as less emotional is that it only works if we ignore all the emotions we associate with maleness, such as anger, competitiveness, lust, rage, ambition, jealousy, and pride. And only if we pretend men aren’t affected by such feelings as insecurity, shame, sadness, fear, grief, pain, anxiety, and guilt.</b></p><p id="a656">What I observed in my professional career was that men do experience those emotions just as much as women do, but they are less aware of them, less willing to examine them, less able to discuss them.</p><p id="5b18"><b>Even feelings every human being should be proud to own, like love, are uncomfortable territory for the hyper-male to verbalize. Does that mean they lack such feelings? No. <i>So why are they so scared to talk about them?</i></b></p><p id="6246" type="7">In what sense is it rational not to try to understand how others feel?</p><h2 id="4850">Big boys don’t cry.</h2><p id="f56e"><b>To most of us, emotionality means tears.</b> Maybe this is where we got the notion of the unemotional man. Women cry, and children cry, but men are tough. They don’t react to feelings.</p><p id="5921">Well, they might react, but not by weeping. They might shout and clench their fists. They might pitch tantrums — punching walls, slamming doors, and breaking things. They might do any of a dozen crazy things, from driving way too fast to picking fights in bars, but as long as they aren’t crying at the same time, their friends won’t call them out for “getting all emotional.”</p><p id="e644">But tears are a <b>healthy</b> response to strong emotion. Tears show vulnerability, invite support, build unity with others, and regulate our neurochemical balance. Tears function as a safety valve, removing stress hormones like cortisol. When those chemicals build up, it sets us up for major health problems, including diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. It also builds up pressure that can lead to desperate behavior.</p><p id="c708"><b><i>Maybe, if we taught our boys to cry, we wouldn’t see so many of our men arrested, addicted, committed, or dead by suicide.</i></b></p><p id="2497" type="7">Tears function as a safety valve, removing stress hormones like cortisol.</p><h2 id="a13e">But what about their hormones? PMS!?!</h2><p id="56ba"><b>Here’s the scoop: we all have hormones.</b> Every body and every brain has the same hormones, just not in the same proportion. And everybody’s hormones have an impact, not just on their moods but on their mental clarity.</p><p id="3e2c">Women’s estrogen levels fluctuate in predictable 28-day cycles. That’s why we see shelf after shelf of books, plus articles in every magazine that’s written for a female readership, about not only PMS and PMDD but also the emotional effects of pregnancy and perimenopause. Estrogen may be the single most-examined substance in the human body. (Or, at least, in the <i>female</i> human body, though many of the neural pathways in men’s brains are also estrogen-dependent.)</p><p id="4017">But even though males are still in the majority among physicians, testosterone has not been given anywhere near as much attention except regarding its
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impact on sexual and athletic performance.</p><p id="4887">Men’s testosterone levels surge <b>unpredictably</b>. Like every time they see a pretty woman. Or their team wins a big game. Or they get cut off in traffic. So where is all the research on the impact of those hormone surges on men’s moods and mental clarity? Or, more to the point, why doesn’t <i>that</i> research get more air time in the popular press?</p><p id="81c9"><b>Testosterone-juiced behavior has been described in many ways. Rational was never one of them.</b> But do we teach our sons to watch out for <i>their</i> hormones? Of course not. Instead, we show them how to justify their actions — to <i>rationalize </i>their irrational behavior and, if called out by a woman, accuse her of oversensitivity.</p><p id="bb86" type="7">Testosterone-juiced behavior has been described in many ways. Rational was never one of them.</p><h2 id="b8af">Conclusions</h2><p id="277a">A<b>re men more rational than women? </b>In a word, no. Just the opposite. Neither are they less emotional, just less aware of their emotionality.</p><p id="1b09">Our culture shows girl children lots of ways to handle feelings. It tells boy children just to stuff them. So the women have the tools, the tears, the talking skills. The men just have to wing it. In the dark.</p><p id="6fc1">It isn’t fair to anyone. Not fair to men who have grown up deprived of vital skills and knowledge. Not fair to women who are forced to deal with men who can become irrational at any moment, in response to feelings they have been conditioned to ignore.</p><p id="b67f">It doesn’t have to be that way. We can do a better job preparing all our children to live as emotion-having beings in the company of other emotion-having beings.</p><p id="4b69"><b>But until that happens, we should stop letting men get away with pretending they are somehow blessed with greater rationality than women. Because nothing could be further from the truth.</b></p><p id="cc07">.</p><p id="171c"><b><i>More from Edward Robson, PhD, MFA:</i></b></p><div id="2913" class="link-block">
<a href="https://readmedium.com/the-friend-zone-is-a-lie-f7b904035d3a">
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<h2>The Friend Zone is a Lie</h2>
<div><h3>There’s a reason you keep getting stuck there.</h3></div>
<div><p>medium.com</p></div>
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<a href="https://readmedium.com/you-have-the-power-to-cause-pain-ba63dcb1a55e">
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<h2>You Have the Power to Cause Pain</h2>
<div><h3>The surest way to guarantee you will is to imagine that you can’t.</h3></div>
<div><p>medium.com</p></div>
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