People often claim that women are more emotional than men. Do you agree or disagree? Please specify what kinds of emotions you are referring to.
Your answer should be 2 pages, double spaced. Please respond to opinions of Student A and B.
Please don't forget to respond to opinions of Student A and B. Also, the responds should not be included in your 2 pages and double spaced opinion. Thanks
Student A's opinion
- Are women more emotional than men? I feel like both men and women are emotional. The difference is what emotions are we talking about. In general women communicate more what emotions they are feeling. We as woman have the language needed to specifically describe what we are feeling in any giving time. We tend to attempt to be understood by our peers.
I think women are curious about others perceptions of our emotions, even though we feel many emotions deeply we also don't communicate all of them as they are happening. The reason for this is fear of being seen as "too emotional" that is a cultural issue, men also feel deep emotions about many things, but they don't all communicate them because of lack of appropriate language or fear of being judged I feel like that is cultural as well. Its more acceptable for women to be emotional and men to be strong and quiet. Men do express their true emotions once they feel that they are in a comfortable environment. Women will express themselves in any situation.
I've always watched the way parents treat children differently depending on their gender, when a little girl is crying or upset the parent will stop and try to talk to her and help her navigate her emotions. When the parent sees a little boy crying most parents will at first try to help the boy learn to express his feelings and at the end something like "big boys don't cry" will be said and the boy will resume his playing. That is key to in how men and women learn to express what their thoughts are. Like the video states baby's all express themselves the same way, they learn how to change their expressions depending on the environment around them and what's acceptable. If little girls always get the stage to express their feelings when they cry, and boys just get a quick "its ok, go play" how would the man be able to express his emotions if he never really has.
I feel like unless a man has been raised in an environment where expressing emotions was encouraged the first real opportunity he will have to work through communicating emotion will be the first love relationship. At this point men and women must learn to navigate how they both communicate and they must build a space where they both feel comfortable to verbalize emotions. If it's a healthy relationship the women will have to really encourage the man to open up. I feel like that's the fundamental difference between men and women.
In conclusion, I feel like women are more communicative with their emotions, men don't elaborate on why they feel what they're feeling.
Student B's opinion
- Myself and many other women have experienced being ostracized for our emotions throughout our entire lives. We have all been told we are overly emotional at some point in our lives whether being told you are too dramatic, overly sensitive, a crybaby etc. In our society even as children, a young boy crying will be told by many "stop crying" or "stop acting like a little girl." This already classifies women as appearing more sensitive than men. Although for many years people have interpreted women as being more emotional than men, I do not agree with this theory. I simply believe men and women have a different response to emotion because they are a product of the environment they were brought up in.
When interpreting an emotion such as rage, the response of men verse women is fairly different from one another. A woman's emotion with rage may begin with yelling and many times finishes with crying. When men are angry, they typically will not cry but will only yell or will possibly walk away from the argument. I feel that the reason why men will show you less emotion than a woman will is mainly because in our culture, males are not taught that it's acceptable to show as much emotion as women.
As infants, our parents and other adult figures react differently to an infants cry. You may pick up a young boy and calm him down telling him not to cry but with a little girl I feel most people respond with more "fluff." A little girl will most likely be more coddled and hugged and told everything will be alright rather than to be rushed to "toughen up" and get over it. I feel that being treated this as a young child then follows as being part of your personal nature.
Once in a blue moon you may come across a man who appears to be more sensitive and emotional. Truthfully I feel that comes with a rare upbringing, where your parents raised a male child the same way they would raise a female making it okay to cry and to not always have to cut off your emotions.
I don't feel parents are necessarily right or wrong for teaching their little boy or girl that it's okay to cry when upset or scream when angry or to hold back these emotions. But I do think parents are a major influence on the reaction a child will have to a particular incident when they continue to grow into adulthood. Many aspects of someone's personality I feel are developed by the influence of their parents and environment, which are both crucial to a person's emotional development.