Do you feel one group is more emotional? And is the belief that women are more emotional spread by men?
I think the main difference is in how men and women express their emotions, and to whom.
Go onā¦
Well, I really do believe men are often encouraged to suppress emotions of sadness, loneliness, and vulnerability, and women are more likely to receive support from both genders for expressing the same emotions.
I also believe women are judged more harshly in professional and public settings for being assertive and confrontational even when itās justified. These emotions, along with signs of aggression, are tolerated more coming from men.
I try not to make such generalizations, especially since peopleās culture and upbringing also play a large role in how they manage and display emotions, but those are the two I have observed most often.
Perfect explanation that doesnāt just blame or diminish one side or the other
Yep, men are assertive women are bitches. And youāre right, men are expected to smother emotions that arenāt āmanlyā
Women are allowed to express āweakā emotions: heartbroken, lonely, ashamed, anxious, panicked, etc. Women are also encouraged to work through their emotions and understand them. If women express emotions that can be associated with strength, they can be seen as not womanly enough: too much confidence is manly. Too brave is manly. Too proud is manly.
Men are allowed to express emotions of strength. Too much might be rude or classless, but thereās no issue with it not being manly. OTOH, too much of the emotions of āweaknessā and itās womanly.
I think men are seen as being less emotional because itās āmanlyā to suppress both āstrongā and āweakā emotions. Athletes are given some of the most leeway in how theyāre allowed to act, but a male athlete who cries after losing is often seen as weak. One who celebrates a win too strongly is seen as a bad winner. Compare that to a lawyer who isnāt really allowed to be sad after a loss or too proud of a win.
Women are expected to tone down certain āstrongā emotions, but encouraged to display and talk about most other ones. Nobody would expect a womenās team who lost the world cup final to be stoic. Crying is not only permitted, itās expected. But, if a female athlete goes too far in celebrating or taunting itās unusual at a minimum.
I suspect that men and women experience emotions similarly. But, I think male emotion is probably more destructive because men arenāt encouraged to find healthy ways to express normal emotions.
We are all expected to behave like Jeff Bezos warehouse robots anyway. Society does not want people, it wants bots that work.
We are just an (in)convenience until AI replaces us.
I think itās accurate to say that most women express emotions more frequently, which is healthier, whilst men are more likely to bottle up emotions and thus have more noticeable and chaotic outbursts.
Of course, neither of these are hard rules, but they are observable societal norms
Have there been any studies showing if that is due to biological/hormonal differences or just societal norms?
I donāt know about studies, but personal observations from living in a bunch of different societies have told me a few things:
- There are very, very few āuniversalsā in human behaviour.
- One of those very, very few āuniversalsā is, in fact, gender divides and coding.
- The specifics of the gender coding, however, vary wildly from culture to culture such that behaviour thatās viewed as super-masculine in one culture can be viewed as feminine-coded in another.
- This amuses me to no end.
Many men seem to forget that anger is an emotion.
More emotional? No. Men and women both are creatures of emotional complexity.
More violent in their emotions? Hell, yes. Men, hands-down.
Yep! A womanās bad day could cause disruption. A manās bad day could lead to people dying. Oversimplification obviously.
This also might have less to do with the conception of violence within the mind of a person having a ābad dayā and the ability of that person to carry out vilolence in a way that effects more people: ie physical strength and an interest and availability of weapons.
Much of it is, yes, ability to commit the violence. It leads to a feedback effect. Men can commit violence more easily with less harm, so they do. The act of doing it validates it so they do it again. This becomes encoded as "manlyā behaviour in society so now itās expected. When itās expected, it leads to more such violent expression and the feedback loop continues.
Itās really eye-opening, incidentally, to live in a country with different markers of masculinity that are culturally enforced. You donāt get a lot of wall punching here, for example. Shouting, sure. But not physical displays. Because physical displays of anger, etc. are frowned upon and get you shunned.
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I read an interesting book called āHow Emotions are Madeā by Lisa Barrett which talks about how emotions are created by the brain - theyāre not things you have; theyāre things you make and theyāre influenced by culture, your past experiences, and what your body is experiencing right now.
There was a few key takeaways (this is generated by GPT bc it does a better job at summarising).
Core Argument: Barrett argues that emotions are not hardwired, universal reactions to the world. Instead, they are constructed by our brains, much like perceptions or thoughts.
Key Concepts:
- The Classical View vs. The Theory of Constructed Emotion
- Classical View: Emotions like anger, fear, sadness, etc., are innate, universal, and triggered automatically by specific stimuli.
- Barrettās Theory: Emotions are not universal biological responses, but rather concepts constructed by the brain using past experiences, cultural knowledge, and context.
- The Brain Predicts, Not Reacts
- The brain is a prediction machine, constantly guessing what will happen next based on past experiences.
- Emotions are predictions your brain makes to make sense of bodily sensations in context.
- Concepts and Language Shape Emotion
- We learn emotional concepts from our environment, especially through language.
- Your culture gives you the emotional categories that your brain uses to construct experiences (e.g., some cultures have words for emotions we donāt name in English).
- What people feel and how they express emotions is shaped more by gender norms and socialization than by biological sex. For example: Women are often encouraged to express vulnerability or sadness. Men are often encouraged to express anger but discouraged from showing fear or sadness.
- These differences are learned, not biologically programmed.
- Emotions are not hardwired or universal
- There is no specific brain region for each emotion.
- Physiological responses (like heart rate) vary widely even within the same emotion category.
- Interoception: The Basis of Emotion
- Emotions begin with interoceptionāyour brainās perception of internal bodily states (like hunger, fatigue, or arousal).
- Your brain interprets these signals based on context and past experience and labels them as an emotion.
Practical Takeaways:
- You can reshape your emotional experiences by:
- Learning new emotion concepts.
- Becoming more aware of your bodily sensations (interoception).
- Expanding your emotional vocabulary (āemotional granularityā).
- Emotional intelligence involves managing predictions, not just reactions.
Barrettās theory reframes emotion as a highly individual and cultural phenomenon, shaped by your brainās predictions, concepts, and social contextānot a universal biological blueprint.
ā
I went down a whole rabbit whole of āyour brain is a prediction machineā after this and it was super cool.
I think thereās a big difference between conscious perception of oneās emotions and oneās actual emotional state. How emotions are processed, expressed, and understood are very culturally influenced. But idk that you can socialize people to feel or not feel particular emotions. Like, if emotions were cultural, and men are socialized against sadness or fear, then does that mean that men donāt feel those things? Or is it that they do feel those emotions, but are either consciously unaware of them, or try to suppress them or express them in a culturally acceptable way?
For example, judges are more likely to pass harsh sentences just before lunch, when theyāre most hungry. I donāt think thatās learned behavior, and I would expect the trend to cut across culture, in many times and places.
Or is it that they do feel those emotions, but are either consciously unaware of them, or try to suppress them or express them in a culturally acceptable way?
Thatās it exactly I think. Thereās no difference between genders as to how the brain creates these emotions, but the expression of them is culturally learned. Itās been a while since I read the book so I hope Iāve got that right.
Very good points. Furthermore, if men are socialized against fear or sadness but in favour of anger and if emotions are not universal then shouldnāt there be examples of the opposite? Are there cultures where men are socialized to express vulnerability and women socialized to express anger?
I think Italy is a good example - men and women are both socialised to express their emotions more naturally than other countries.
Maybe subcultures?
Iād say, e.g. Maggie Thatcher, plus many other women Iāve worked with in positions of power in govt or civil service seem to me to have (or fake?) similar behaviors to men in the same positions.
Its very possible that the business leaders thing is just a selection effect. Those traits exist in some men and some women and those people are likely to select into those roles. But then I think these subcultures may reward and reinforce traits in the long run.
Itād be interesting to hear the experience of say women in traditionally male dominated roles like the army. Or men who work in the traditionally female dominated roles roles like nursing or childcare.
There must be some twin-studies on this type of thing.
Well this thread ended up being a mess of biological and gender essentialism and assumptions. Be careful in here folks.
Oh fuck you for having a gender maybe.
Haha, what?
Yeah thatās what i wonder every time i think about it too.
Were you insulting us or something else? We arenāt sure what you meant.
Sorry no i was being a sleep deprived chaos edgelord. Literally nonsense.
Okidoke.
I believe we have the same emotions, but men and women deal with them differently. Also physically there are difference in hormones that are present. Men donāt have periods etc.
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Putting a smile after your comment doesnāt make it less hostile. Please donāt treat members unkindly, and please donāt put me in the position that I have to ban you.
Being āemotionalā is just being immature about how you handle your emotions, which all genders are equally capable of.
Though currently, traditional masculinity teaches ineffective ways of dealing with emotion, that make men appear āless emotionalā while not actually helping them.
Any man who respects himself should learn how to properly manage their emotions, by starting with accepting instead of denying them.
It should be expected of any good person to fight to break through the cage their assigned gender has built around them, or any other societal cages they find themselves within.
Men are what happens when you indulge tantrums. Women mature earlier, so thereās this really early period when boys are behind. The boys get mollycoddled, the girls are shamed and belittled, the boys get used to having thumbs on the scale in their favor, and to being defensive. The girls are conditioned to modify their behavior for the benefit of others. I think this is a very key building block for the larger prejudices in society later in life.
Men are what happens when you indulge tantrums.
We disagree, instead we understand that itās what happens when you emotionally suppress somebody, when you teach them that genuine regular and healthy emotional expression is bad and thus they learn that they must suppress it all until they explode.
Women mature earlier
This is an often given idea but itās not inherent to women and itās kind of messed up that this is often seen as a good thing since it can be through very dire circumstances which they are forced to, and/or itās just society conditioning them to, itās not necessarily an inherent biological truth or anything like that.
The boys get mollycoddled, the girls get shamed and belittled.
Whilst we agree that there are a lot of ways children assigned different genders at birth are treated we wouldnāt say looking after childrenās emotional needs is bad and there is a fine line between āmollycoddlingā and actually looking after children as they need to be. It just feels dangerous to us as seems to be being suggested here that itās okay to not look after childrenās emotional needs as that is what causes dysfunctional and unhealthy teenagers and adults more often than not. We do completely disagree with shaming and belittling children at all, to be clear.
Yes, the way we treat and train different people of different actual or assumed genders is extremely messed up, but we must be careful in our analysis of what is actually going on rather than looking to some, if not all, outdated or not well understood stereotypes or ideas about people, biology, sex, gender and society.
[Sincere] We hope this clears up our thoughts and viewpoints and we hope you are well š.
This is a very messed up view.
How so? Itās just mentioning their observations about common societal expectations, how society often treats people, and what behavior is accepted or not, all based off of someoneās perceived gender, and then how that ends up affecting people. Iām curious what your issues with the comment are.
*Edit: or did you mean that the phenomenons that the comment describes are the messed up views? Maybe I misunderstood your comment.
That is a very ambiguous criticism ā view of poster or view of society?
Women mature earlier
is this actually true, or are women and girls expected to be mature earlier? and therefore forced to be?
iirc the onset of puberty happens earlier but the rest is 100% societal expectation
We are humans, so the āmen/women are more emotionalā view can go to hell. And since mysogynism does exist, this view can spread by any uneducated fool of any gender, and often is
Both sexs sre overly emotional
Itās just that they are fundamentally different emotions that they allow to control them
Itās just that
they are fundamentallysociety encourages/discourages different emotionsthat they allowto control themYou may have been the boy made fun of for crying, who only got respect by reacting aggressively. Or youāve been the angry girl who repeatedly got told, āyouāre so cute when youāre mad,ā but whose bullies went silent once tears started to fall. Either way, the same emotions happen for all of us. Itās just that as we grow up, boys are socially conditioned to respond with anger while girls are socially conditioned to respond with sadness, and weāre each expected to suppress the opposite emotion.
This dichotomy is not fundamental to the sexes in the slightest.
The only thing fundamentally different about menās and womenās emotions are how weāve been conditioned to present them.
The idea that men have fundamentally different emotions is part of what fuels the male loneliness epidemic. Men are not any less in need of emotional support then women are, women are just socially conditioned from a young age that it is okay to give and receive it.
If you are a man, when was the last time you felt like you could talk about your feelings without being judged for it?
If a man wants to grieve, but is only taught that it is okay to show anger, then that is all that we will see no matter deeply in grief he may be. How one presents their emotions is not always how they feel, much like in autistic people.
Both are emotional in different ways.
I think the difference is actually between how each sex biologically regulates emotion.
Weāre essentially the same, the only difference being a tweak of brain chemistry and hormones.
Most of those differences affect mostly how and when we feel emotions.
So while there certainly are differences, we both feel the same feelings. Itās just when we feel them, and the frequency in which we feel them, that differs.
For example: Men biologically produce more testosterone. So its much more likely theyāll have quick tempers, constant arousal, and aggresive competition as a result. While these emotions are difficult to regulate, which is very commonly seen in young males, the persistent exposure to testosterone does eventually lead to better control over the emotions it amplifies. (Assuming these males are aging in a healthy environment).
Women, unquestionably, can have these same exact emotions. However, due to the lower levels of testosterone, the frequency in which these emotions are experienced are far less than men. Which means over time, these emotions are less likely to be easily regulated, simply because the chemicals that produce them arenāt as persistently experienced.
That is, an older male in a frustrating situation is less likely to get angry simply because theyāve been getting angry their whole life and know how to better bury their anger because of it. While older females may not have experienced anger / testosterone as much, so in frustrating situations donāt have the experience needed to know how to regulate their temper better.
Imo, this is why we have the term āKarenā with no male equivalent.
For biological women, they produce more estrogen (and some other cool shit) which is why they tend to have more friends (itās the social hormone), express sadness easier, and also nest-build / want to have children.
Likewise they become experts at these emotions as they age, but get tortured as young teens who have to feel these extreme things for the first time.
Men, likewise feel these emotions, but since itās far less frequent, also have issues controlling them. Thatās why men have less friends, fear crying in front of people, and take so long to know if they want kids.
They feel the same emotions, but far less frequently so they have no idea how to regulate them. Men treat their sadness like anger, bury it, then want their GF to also be their psychiatrist since they have no clue what to do with those feelings they bury.
Imo, thatās why the trope of the insecure male seeking lover / therapist exists as well.
Thatās all to say, we feel the same things. Just in different amounts at different times. Depending on when you look, either sex could be viewed as "more emotional. "
Please read testosterone rex and delusions of gender both by Cordelia Fine to see that biological essentialism, especially about sex hormones, is often bunk.
I appreciate the suggestion. Iām familiar with these books. Imo, they both jump to conclusions about the large grey areas between what is and isnāt bunk when it comes to sex hormones rather than admit we scientifically have no solid answers about those questions and are still looking.
I encourage you to have a good talk with any trans person that has transitioned. Their very valid and common experiences taking these hormones to transition heavily suggest otherwise.
As all it takes is those hormones, and your physical biology will change with them. (Men will grow breasts, and Women facial hair.) Which means unquestionably, that these hormones are tied to our biological sex, and likely the behaviour associated with it, seeing as our bodies have the flexibility to easily become the other gender with them.
I enourage you to have a good talk with any trans person who has transitioned.
We are trans and have transitioned on hormones (estrogen etc) and still hold the same views as what happened for us was not the hormones that made us less angry etc but more acceptance and understanding from both others and ourselves. We can still be very angry about certain things and express that in many ways but it is much less likely now because we learned the tools in order to deal with those things from partners, therapists etc in healthy ways, not because of hormones. We felt like we were allowed to cry etc.
Edit: You seem to be using very terfy/biologically essentialist talking points in other ways in saying that trans men are women and trans women are men and that those are the only sexes/genders that exist. Please do not do this as it is incorrect and comes across as transphobic and anti-science.
I am in no way a biological essentialist and am using simpler terms people are more familiar with to make my point.
I find it rather insulting that you would come to this conclusion after I readily explained how little our biology determines our identity, and how it can quite literally be changed through hormones, specifically:
End of my last comment:
ā¦ all it takes is those hormones, and your physical biology will change with themā¦ our bodies have the flexibility to easily become the other genderā¦
How could that possibly come across as Terfy?
We are literally agreeing with each other about the trans experience too:
ā¦ what happened for us was not the hormones that made us less angry etc but more acceptance and understanding from both others and ourselves. We can still be very angryā¦ but it is much less likely nowā¦
That is, you admit there has been a change in the frequency of your anger after transitioning, correct?
To be very clear: Iām not at all doubting the roles that acceptance, understanding, a good partner, therapists, and more have in regulating our emotions, or the extreme effort you have put into doing the same for yourself.
Iām simply saying: it is possible these hormones also contribute to our emotional state, specifically amplifying the emotions you already have as a person - rather than not affecting our emotional state at all as concluded by the books you mention.
Books, specifically, that actual Terfs OFTEN misquote to jump to a black and white conclusion about gender and hormones.
https://trans-express.lgbt/post/185913420710/on-how-terfs-misrepresent-science-and-feminism
Bookmark this article and refer to it the next time a TERF stars usingā¦ Cordelia Fineā¦ to invalidate trans people.
Which is, admittedly, what I felt you were doing in your first comment. Specifically, in how you implied thereās no grey area left in science thatās still determining the influences our hormones have over our emotions.
Which, as of 2024, is starting to look unquestionably real:
https://www.broadwayclinic.com/article/how-are-mind-hormones-linked-to-emotional-shifts
Hormonal fluctuations significantly influence mood, particularly with reproductive hormones at various life stages. Recognizing these patterns can be the first step toward managing mood more effectively.
Which is exactly what Iāve previously stated.
I have several people in my life that have likewise transitioned. I even know of someone that was born intersex, and transitioned to female in their late 20ās.
Conversations with them have been enlightening, as most agree that hormones are at least a PART of the reason they too felt better about their emotional states after transitioning. To quote one in particular, āAnger juice (T) is no longer the only fuel this body takes.ā
(Assuming these males are aging in a healthy environment).
Thatās a pretty big assumption, isnāt it? Maybe in a Star Trek utopia, what youāre saying would be accurate, but in the present day I think most men are growing up in an unhealthy environment.
Imo, this is why we have the term āKarenā with no male equivalent.
The term āKarenā is a product of modern day socioeconomic conditions, itās not an innate biological quality. The term was coined to refer specifically to middle-class white women treating service workers badly. This is a learned behavior that comes from privilege and a general lack of empathy, or seeing the target as human, which exists in more subtle ways even when they havenāt lost control of their temper. I donāt think ābeing a Karenā necessarily means losing oneās temper, itās more about acting in an entitled way.
For your overall point that exposure to an emotion makes it easier to control, I donāt think it holds up. Statistically, men are much more likely to commit acts of violence, whereas your theory would seem to suggest that older women are more likely to. I think itās just as likely that a high degree of exposure to a particular emotion will be buried or suppressed in an unhealthy way, leading to outbursts.
Thatās a pretty big assumption, isnāt it?
No bigger than the one youāre making to the contrary:
I think most men are growing up in an unhealthy environment.
Weāll have to agree to disagree. Unless you want to quantify what a healthy environment is, or provide meaningful research that suggests youāre right here, Iām unwilling to do either for you. Iām not going to believe youāre right just because you say you are, and you clearly feel the same.
The term āKarenā is a product of modern day socioeconomic conditionsā¦
Agreed.
However, I disagree about it not involving anger. Yes, absolutley they act in an entitled way. But that entitlement is very often expressed through clearly angry or upset behaviors. Specifically: frustration / violence / āI wanna speak to your managerā verbal harassment.
In all seriousness, could you provide an anecdote, even a made up one, where someone gets called a āKarenā yet their behaviour doesnāt involve frustration / anger / verbal harassment?
I honestly cannot imagine one in which that person would be called a Karen, and not simply entitled. (However, I admit I very much could be wrong here.)
For your overall point that exposure to an emotion makes it easier to control, I donāt think it holds up. Statistically, men are much more likely to commit acts of violenceā¦
You do realize if Iām wrong about that, it would be ALL men who commit acts of violence right?
What, in your opinion, is the difference that seperates violent and non-violent men if not the development of the capacity to emotionally regulate themselves better over time?
It has to be something, so if not that what is it?
The higher frequency of violence in men is actually more proof Iām right. Because that violence could be a result of those who havenāt learned to well manage the amplified feelings their testosterone generates. As men, they have T, but getting used to what that does to you after puberty isnāt easy. Those that adapt, cause no violence, those that struggle with it, do. Overall, the average rate of violence increases among men, but is not seen in all of them. Which is whatās observed in most studies as youāve said.
I think itās just as likely that a high degree of exposure to a particular emotion will be buried or suppressed in an unhealthy way, leading to outbursts.
This is very much a big part of the point Iām making too.
When first experiencing emotions that are intensely enhanced by sex hormones, people get easily overwhelmed. They donāt know how to stop those feelings from happening, so some end up burying them.
Doing so, PREVENTS those emotions from actually being felt or experienced. So the longer those go bottled up, the more explosive it becomes because the emotion has now compounded in its intensity, and the person who bottled it still has little to no experience or knowledge in which to handle it.
To be clear, running from or bottling emotions is not the same as experiencing them. And itās certainly not the same as experiencing them frequently.
Those that FREQUENTLY experience the same intense emotions, eventually, have no need to bottle them. They understand what it feels like to be intensely sad, angry, etc and will not be afraid of that experience or lack the tools to well manage it. They learn, over time, to work with those feelings rather than against them.
Basically, the intensity of an emotion matters, but so does the frequency in which it is felt.
For example: If you are frequently, once a month, feeling amplified saddness due to your own hormones (NOT Depression, thatās entirely different) you probably have a damn good way of regulating that feeling so you can continue to function when you feel it.
In this example, there was likely a time that sadness was bottled, but because it was unavoidably happening once a month, over time, the use of bottling it becomes pointless. You quite literally get used to it, and learn to live with it. Bottling it is just a step on that journey.
For an emotion like sadness, that journey is much slower for men because they arenāt exposed to it as frequently as someone with sadness as a period symptom once a month.
This form of emotional adaptation is also looking pretty scientifically solid these days:
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2023-25436-001
ā¦ the emotions are often misunderstood as entailing inflexibility and invariance. [There is] convergent empirical and theoretical work indicating that emotion adaptations calibrate to particularities of the situation, the self, and the socioecological environment.
Weāll have to agree to disagree.
Iām not going to āagree to disagreeā on this any more than Iād āagree to disagreeā on any other well-known facts. Hereās the APA:
The APA defines traditional masculinity as āa particular constellation of standards that have held sway over large segments of the population, including: anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence.ā The guidelines, which were highlighted in the January issue of the APAās Monitor on Psychology magazine, say the pressure boys and men feel to conform to certain aspects of traditional masculinity can lead to poor health outcomes, including higher rates of suicide, substance abuse, violence and early death.
In all seriousness, could you provide an anecdote, even a made up one, where someone gets called a āKarenā yet their behaviour doesnāt involve frustration / anger / verbal harassment?
Youāve moved the goalposts. You were claiming that women are more prone to outbursts of anger specifically, because of being less used to testosterone. Now youāre adding āfrustrationā and āverbal abuse,ā which arenāt inherently linked to testosterone. Letās stick to anger, shall we?
With that in mind, here is one of the prime examples that I remember being used for an example of a āKaren.ā Sheās not expressing anger, she is expressing distress (played up on the phone), but itās primarily about exercising her privilege against a minority, weaponizing the police to win an argument. Thatās 100% Karen behavior.
You do realize if Iām wrong about that, it would be ALL men who commit acts of violence right?
Thatās completely idiotic, no. Your claim is that exposure to testosterone makes men less prone to angry outbursts generally speaking compared to women. For that to be wrong would not require every single man to be prone to angry outbursts, let alone acts of violence. It would only require them to be more prone to those things relative to women, which they are, objectively.
The higher frequency of violence in men is actually more proof Iām right.
How fascinating. It seems that no matter what evidence actually exists out in the world, youāre able to twist it around to support your conclusions. There should be a word for ideas like yours that are so obviously true, may I suggest the word, āunfalsifiable?ā
To be clear, running from or bottling emotions is not the same as experiencing them. And itās certainly not the same as experiencing them frequently.
Youāve played a very interesting trick of language in this section. Your argument rests on the fact that testosterone makes men more prone to feelings of anger, that is, to make them āexperienceā anger, but then you say that those who bottle up anger or react to it in unhealthy ways are not actually āexperiencingā anger. This would imply that you think that testoterone doesnāt merely cause the physiological symptoms that make people more prone to anger, but also inherently, biologically, causes men to respond to those symptoms in psychologically healthy ways. This of course contradicts your whole argument that itās necessary to learn through practice how to handle those emotions.
If āexperiencingā anger means not only experiencing the symptoms, but also handling them in a healthy way and not bottling them up, then testosterone doesnāt make people āexperienceā anger (only because youāve redefined the word āexperienceā in a nonsensical way). If āexperiencingā anger means feeling the symptoms of anger, regardless of whether itās handled in a healthy or unhealthy way, then what youāre saying in this section is all nonsense. You can choose whatever definition you prefer, but you canāt switch back and forth.
This form of emotional adaptation is also scientifically proven:
The paper you linked is very tangentially related to your point. Yes, people adapt emotionally to their environments. That has very little with your bizzare claim that men are less prone to angry outbursts or acts of violence than women because of biology.
The APA defines traditional masculinity as āa particular constellation of standards that have held sway over large segments of the population.
That is a definition from an academic journal you are clearly taking out of context. It is not an actual study, experiment, or metric.
Nothing in your link confirms the AMOUNT of men being raised in poor conditions.
It is simply about ālarge segmentsā of men being exposed to negative portrayals of masculinity.
Specifically this exposure is defined as whatās seen in social media, films, television, ads, podcasts etc.
It is NOT, in any way:
- Specifying this exposure as being a major part of menās families.
- Specifiying this exposure as being a major part of menās upbringing.
- Specifiying that men are only affected negatively by this exposure.
These are all ASUMPTIONS you are making.
This article quotes ZERO studies reaching these conclusions.
You are treating the amount of ātraditional masculinityā exposure in social media, as if it is a ready part of the majority of young menās upbringing thatās already affecting them negatively.
As a logical comparison, if this article was defining ātraditional masculinityā as something like a billboard with Joe Rogan advertising McDonaldās, you are coming to the conclusion that the majority of young mens families are shoving Big Macs into their mouth.
Thatās not what this article is saying at all.
You are even avoiding the clarifying statements in this link to reach the wrong conclusion. From your link:
ā¦What the APA report seeks to address is male suffering, of which experts say there is no shortageā¦" We often talk about gender in terms of women ā¦ getting the short end of the stick. ā¦ Well, masculinity isnāt easy either," Jennifer Carlson, a sociology professor at the University of Arizonaā¦ "It isnāt easy to be a man in the United States. Demands put on men ā whether itās to be the protector, to be the provider, to respond to situations in certain ways, to prove yourself as a man ā end up being not just outwardly destructive but also inwardly destructive."
So, literally, traditional masculinity is bad, and itās destroying men. NOT traditional masculinity is being forced onto the majority of young men. It is just a big part of current media, and thatās affecting men poorly.
Also from your article:
The APA guidelines stress that psychologists must confront their own biases about masculinity, and encourages them to: Promote healthy intimate relationships among boys and men. Address issues of male privilege and power. Promote healthy father involvement. Strive to understand theĀ factors that lead to male aggression and violence.
That is certainly what Iāve been striving to look for in this thread. The encouragement this article provides in searching for such an answer is absoule proof that it has not been provided yet, especially from this article.
You have made incredible leaps of logic not at all supported by the link you provided.
Youāve moved the goalposts.
I have not, in anyway, moved the goalposts.
I used basic logic, specifically the process of elimination to point towards a clear result:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_of_elimination
Process of eliminationĀ is aĀ logicalĀ method to identify an entity of interest among several ones by excluding all other entities.
I did this, specifically, to avoid the pedantic argument it looked like you wanted to start, and now are very clearly continuing.
Sheās not expressing anger, she is expressing distressā¦
Specifically, this is pedantic.
You arenāt allowing for the individual interpretation of her behavior in this video to be anything but distress. Based entirely on your own observation that it is distress. I, and a bunch of others could very easily interpret her behaviour differently.
Which is all pedantic, because it doesnāt matter.
āDistressā is just as much of a negative-stress response as anger.
https://dictionary.apa.org/distress
ā¦ a negative stress response, often involving negative affect and physiological reactivity: a type of stress that results from being overwhelmed by demands, losses, or perceived threats.
Quite literally, you are trying to argue that distress and anger are different emotions, despite both of them coming from the same place.
You are basically saying that Pepsi isnāt cola flavored because the can it comes in doesnāt look like Coke.
Itās still cola. You are just trying to redefine what that is.
So, even if this person is feeling distress in this video, it doesnāt really prove sheās managing negative stress well. It just proves, only to you, that she isnāt āangry.ā
Which makes you appear right, but does absolutley nothing to further this conversation.
Which is why you then chose to avoid all the questions I asked as if they didnāt matter. Specifically:
Whats the difference between men who are violent and men who arenāt?
ALL men are exposed to testosterone. SOME men cause more violence.
ALL does NOT = SOME.
But you very much seem to not understand this when you insist:
It would only require [men] to be more prone to [violence] relative to women, which they are, objectively.
If they ALL have TESTOSTERONE. They would ALL be violent. They arenāt. You even acknowledge this by saying āmore proneā to violence relative to women. What you donāt acknowledge is that:
Not ALL men are violent. OBJECTIVELY. Do you agree?
Unless you want to admit to being bigoted. The answer is no.
Youāve already twisted facts to favor a world view that youāve only assumed to exist. In addition to the pedantic nature of your critique, I donāt feel this conversation is worth continuing unless I know Iām talking to someone who rationally wants to stay on topic more than get on a Soap box for attention.
Not ALL men are violent. OBJECTIVELY. Do you agree?
What an idiotic, rambling comment. You ignore basically everything I said and latched on to a couple random pedantic points, while accusing me of being pedantic.
Quite literally, you are trying to argue that distress and anger are different emotions, despite both of them coming from the same place.
You are basically saying that Pepsi isnāt cola flavored because the can it comes in doesnāt look like Coke.
Except the distinction does matter, because testesterone is connected specifically to anger and not to general ādistress.ā Women are just as likely to experience feelings of distress as men, that means that thereās a significant difference in the context of this discussion between the two.
Not ALL men are violent. OBJECTIVELY. Do you agree?
Of course. At NO point did I ever claim otherwise. What I have claimed is that, generally, statistically men are more prone to violence, which is just as objectively true as the fact that not all men are violent, despite your claims to the contrary.
they ALL have TESTOSTERONE. They would ALL be violent.
This is complete nonsense. Testosterone only makes people more prone to violence, generally, statistically, it doesnāt make every single person violent.
This is a ridiculous strawman that youāve constructed to divert the course of the conversation into utter nonsense. It has nothing to do with anything I said.
This is about the response I expected.
Nothing I said was idiotic. If anything, it was oversimplified. I even provided analogies.
But like I said, your overreaction was expected. It is the common behaviour of people who prefer avoiding hard questions instead of considering answers they donāt like.
Itās hard to admit youāre possibly wrong. A ātraditionally masculineā behaviour you keep providing great examples of. Quite to the contrary of your own conclusions.
Thank you for clarifying that this conversation is exclusively about your opinion, not the clear facts outside them you keep ignoring willingly.
You can have the conversation with yourself from here.
I just got the report now, Iāve permabanned them. Sorry youāve faced such aggression, itās shit
What āhard questionsā have I avoided? I responded to everything you asked me.
Itās a clear, objective fact that men are, statistically, more prone to violence than women. That means that you are, objectively, wrong. Thereās no reason for me to āadmit that Iām wrongā when the facts and evidence are clearly on my side, lol.
By the same token, some women are very influenced by their cycles - or at least like to blame a bad attitude on such - which is often used to play up the āunpredictable/emotional narrativeā.
Downplaying or excusing bad behaviour as ājust that time of monthā also puts women in a bag light overall. For a semi-predictable event, knowing how to manage the influence of ones own biochemical factors should be part of personal responsibility, not an excuse. From the side of male partners in that equation, providing some comfort - whether it be prepping a hot water bottle, picking up stuff to help regulate cycle pain - and maybe expecting to pick up a bit of extra slack on chores a few days a month can also be part of a healthy relationship, but walking on eggshells for several days a months is not.
Itās not so much managing the influence of oneās own biochemical factors, but their consequences.
We absolutley have no control over these hormones releasing in our body, and by what amount (unless prescribed as an Rx).
All we can do is tolerate the feelings we get from them, and eventually, through exposure, understand that weāre being controlled by them.
The example you provided is valid, but I would debate the conclusion you are drawing from it.
Woman absolutley have an increase in certain sex hormones hitting them once a month, but they have no control over the amount or frequency. All they can do is bear with it, including cramps, and grow to understand their behaviour is being influenced by the chemically enhanced emotions theyāre now experiencing.
Iām not a fan of being in constant pain, so having to experience intense amounts of it in my lower abdomen once a month would certainly make me irratable at that time. Hormones or otherwise.
The ability one has to identify WHEN their emotions are being influenced by these chemicals is what gives us any power over them. Regardless of sex, our worst behaviors often happen when we havenāt realized weāre currently emotionally compromised by these chemicals.
Iāve seen a man get pissed off at a small rock he stumbled over, then kick it, break his toe, and proceed to harrass the strangers trying to help him. All because he was hungry, which can trigger the release of testosterone.
He didnāt know he was emotionally compromised. And lacked the ability to recognize it in time before breaking his toe.
Very similar anecdotes certainly exist between both sexes.
Which to me implies a universal struggle for us to understand our bodies well enough to know when weāre being emotionally influenced by them regardless of our sex.
Iāve never heard of the hungry=testosterone thing before but thatās really interesting. It kinda puts a new spin on those old āyouāre not yourself when youāre
hungryfull of triggering hormonesā commercials.Also, totally agree that itās not about ācontrollingā the chemicals as recognising and mitigating their influence over decisions (easier said than done, I know) or possibly preparing for them ahead of time to the extent thatās possible. Maybe Snickers really did have it rightā¦ at least for guys :-)
Thatās hilarious about Snickers, and very well said! :)
Thereās been a lot of very interesting studies that have been done in the last 5 years or so about how our bodies more essential functions have odd ties to our hormone levels. Imo, Itās fascinating to say the least.
For example: one of the more interesting ones Iāve looked at involved a study of young men that proved a strong correlation between low testosterone and eating disorders.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32643144/
Consistent with animal data and prior research in adolescent boys, men with lower testosterone reported significantly higher levels of dysregulated eating symptoms even after controlling for depressive symptoms, body mass index, and age.
Overall, these scientists further studies are now somewhat suggesting thereās a āsweet spotā for the amount of testosterone flowing in males that would make it easier for them to regulate good eating habits.
In turn, this implies some new opportunities to explore treating eating disorders with low dose hormones. (At least in males).
Which is a very long way for me to make the joke that scientifically, you COULD make the argument that āSnickers satisfiesā the hunger Testosterone creates. ;)
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Hi Scath, thanks for stopping by! We are a women only community, and request that men donāt comment š„°
Oh my pardons!
np at all
Who is that punches walls? Not women.
Thanks for reminding me, gotta go punch my daily walls!
