avatarColleen Sheehy Orme

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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"> <div> <div> <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> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*9tcAn5ESD5gxfeUb)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="0d10" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/you-have-the-power-to-cause-pain-ba63dcb1a55e"> <div> <div> <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> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*56yO74vt1MVnhj5I0uIECg.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

What Would Happen if Women Boycott Men on Holidays for One Year?

Would they finally understand how ignored and hurt we feel?

Photo by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi: On Pexels

My friend is talking to her sister.

She’s disappointed by the man in her life not making an effort to make her feel special. It’s not like she’s demanding this on a daily basis. She doesn’t want to feel ignored, disregarded, and unimportant on significantly important days.

“Every woman should boycott men on holidays for one year,” says her sister. “Maybe then they would understand how women feel.”

I think it’s a fabulous idea.

It reminds me of something that happened in my own life.

When my marriage was struggling I had finally had enough of crying on every holiday. We are talking extremes. My now ex-husband wouldn’t apathetically ignore the day, he would ruin it. My birthday, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, and Christmas were a personal challenge to him.

How quickly could he put me in my place and remind me I was asking too much?

I was demanding. I was needy. I was overreacting. Who needs to celebrate with presents and hoopla? Certainly, I was a high-maintenance woman.

When I was first married the doorbell rang.

“What are you doing here?” I ask my sister.

“Everyone deserves at least a cake on their birthday,” she says.

My sister had driven an hour to make sure I felt celebrated and loved. My husband shamelessly didn’t care. He still didn’t get it. He said he was a busy man. He didn’t have time to think of these things.

You would think he was the only man in America who had to work.

I’m pretty sure other ‘busy men’ find time for their wives.

There are too many stories to tell.

The Christmas there were no presents for me. My young children were hurt and said they were sad there was nothing for Mommy under the tree. The Mother’s Day I was stressed because I couldn’t find him anywhere and we missed most of his own Mother’s celebration. He didn’t get it. He said he had gone out to get me something at the last minute. Literally, ruining the day for the entire family. My birthday when all I asked for was to take the kids to two movies back to back. And he refused to go to the second one and we had to go home. Our anniversary when he got mad at me and left me in the restaurant at the hotel. The Mother’s Day he refused to miss watching football with his buddies and got drunk and ruined the dinner I had invited my family over for.

The holidays all blend together.

Each one was typically ruined in various ways.

My husband would either refuse to participate, say he forgot to buy me something or put a limit on what was an acceptable amount of time to celebrate me and the day.

I had a few good years after I told him I was thinking of leaving him. He temporarily treated me well. He even told me I deserved to be treated better. And that he should have done so all of these years.

But I honestly couldn’t take anymore.

It felt lonely being married to him and the holidays were a clarifying reminder of this. I didn’t need my husband on an average day. As long as I didn’t get in his way and was independent everything was fine. I wasn’t constantly reminded of how insignificant I was to him.

Or how unloved I felt.

As our marriage continued to struggle, he reverted back to his ways.

“We didn’t make a big deal of holidays in my family,” he would say.

“That’s fine,” I would say. “But in my house we did. It was an excuse to let someone know how special and loved they were. On your birthday we don’t have to do anything. I respect the way you grew up. But on my birthday, you should respect how I grew up.”

Needless to say, I made a huge fuss over my husband on every holiday.

But as I previously mentioned, I had finally had enough.

My husband had a big birthday coming up.

I just didn’t have it in me anymore. I didn’t have the energy to expend on him. I was weary of making him feel incredibly important while I felt incredibly unimportant. I didn’t do it intentionally. I was depleted. I was worn down.

I was tired of living with a taker.

I bought him a single gift from the boys and me.

That’s it. Nothing else. No party. No trip. No multiple gifts. No extravagant gift. No organized extended family dinner. It was the way he said his family did things.

To say my husband was shocked would be an understatement.

He was used to me giving and him taking.

And I would just cry when he selfishly hurt me.

I had never retaliated. It wasn’t in my nature and I wouldn’t have wanted to ruin a special day for him. That seemed petty and small and immature. I don’t believe holidays are a time to make a point.

My emotional fatigue had resulted in a natural consequence.

I made a lovely family dinner for the five of us and I had gotten him a nice gift. I just hadn’t gone my usual overboard. I hadn’t done what drove him crazy when I wanted to be on the receiving end of it.

His disappointment was embarrassing.

His body language and his attitude indicated complete outrage.

A surprising reaction from a guy who had no problem doing next to nothing or absolutely nothing for the woman he claimed to love. Not once, not twice, over and over again. My disappointment never phased him.

My tears went unnoticed.

I think my friend’s sister has brought up an interesting experiment.

Not one of retaliation but of logical consequences.

Treating someone as they have treated us.

Maybe that will garner some attention.

Note: I made the following video about the price of Motherhood in divorce TikTok Mother’s Day Video

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Love
Relationships
This Happened To Me
Feminism
Marriage
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