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On January 1st,
2014, I drafted a list of New Year’s Resolutions: exercise three times a week
(did NOT succeed there), eat healthily (absolutely did NOT succeed there
either), and manage stress appropriately (…I don’t even want to talk about it).
As a corollary to my final resolution, I added, “Don’t cry.”
Let me provide
some context. During the fall semester of my sophomore year, I took a course on
the psychology of gender. One of the topics that stuck with me addressed
gendered behaviour in the workforce, specifically in regards to emotional
display. Stress and anger management reflect this disparity, as women tend to
demonstrate emotions that are perceived as vulnerabilities. Women often cry,
for example, when stressed, angry, upset, or sad; men, on the other hand, tend
to restrict such behaviour to “explicitly sad” events (e.g. funerals), events
in which crying is considered socially acceptable.
I quickly
realized that, though I could not cry at Nicholas Sparks movies or exhibit any emotional response to heart-warming Folgers
coffee commercials, I was certainly guilty of demonstrating my emotions in
situations that were not “explicitly sad”. And so, I developed a new approach
to feminine empowerment: I would mimic the emotional patterns of men, crying
only when genuinely sad. Knowing still that I failed to cry at truly sad
events, I went even further, haphazardly declaring the “don’t cry” corollary.
The year that
followed was ultimately an exercise in emotional control and self-awareness.
When operating under stressful circumstances, I learned to breathe deeply and
collect my thoughts before speaking. I learned to control the waver that
occasionally entered my voice, and I learned to approach leadership
opportunities with diplomacy; that is, my levelheadedness allowed me not only
to control my own emotions, but also to reason with others. I felt powerful and
confident, directive yet approachable.
At the same time,
however, I struggled to understand these feelings within the context of
catharsis and emotional expressiveness. What kind of a society rewards
unhealthy behaviour – namely, that which equates emotional control with actual
lack of emotion? How concerned should we be that, despite acknowledging the
existence of gendered differences in emotional display, we perceive women’s
emotional displays as weak, as “less than”? Furthermore, how concerned should
we be with the fact that these perceptions extend beyond the boardroom,
producing very real disparities in the representation of women and men in
high-level careers (headlines declaring Hillary Clinton as “too emotional” for
office come to mind)?
These questions
and many more should be asked when considering gender inequality within the
workplace, as we certainly have a long way to go. In the meantime, however, we
can move forward with dry eyes and a quest for answers.
Written by Allie
Rosenberg
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