Men Do Have Emotions

http://www.bustle.com/articles/30575-are-women-more-emotional-than-men-5-studies-examining-common-gender-stereotypes

I found another great article about gender stereotypes.  Hmmmm, which part to choose to write about today?  Let's look at what the article says about the stereotype that women are the ones who are emotional.  I pasted that part of the article below, or you can check out the entire article using the link above.

I find this study extremely interesting.  First of all, who would voluntarily administer themselves electric shocks?!?  Seriously!!!  And second, I find it very interesting that men had stronger emotional reactions than the women and yet reported having less of a reaction.  That is very interesting indeed.  I think a lot of times women think that men don't care.  This study implies they care a great deal, but they just won't tell you about it.  It could be as the article states, that perhaps men are unaware of their emotional reactions.  It could also be, as it states, that men are aware of their emotions but keep their outward reaction contained.  Some thoughts that come to my mind about this are that perhaps men are quite aware of their emotional reactions, but they have learned to keep them internalized to such a degree that it has essentially festered.  So maybe it seems like a big internal reaction because it can't be expressed externally.  It's kind of like a pot with the lid on it.  Eventually pressure rises on the inside because the heat cannot escape.  So there's a build up until either some steam escapes or the heat is turned down.  Perhaps men have a more physical reaction than women, but they feel less of a need to vent that reaction.  Perhaps they have a higher tolerance for retaining the internalized emotions.

Do you have any thoughts about any of this?  Anything you want to add?

A sad new study released last week finds that most men would rather experience electrical shocks than be alone with their thoughts. (Yes, really.) Here’s how the study worked: First, men and women were asked to sit in a room alone and think about nothing — aka meditate — a task which prompted most of them to have negative thoughts. Then, they were given the same instructions, but with the added option of administering a small electrical shock to themselves, presumably as a distraction. Only a quarter of women chose to self-administer a shock, but a whole two-thirds of men did. (One man shocked himself 190 times.)

In other words, most men would apparently rather experience physical pain than be alone with their own thoughts. That’s a pretty bleak assessment of the male psyche, and even the most charitable interpretation — that men are more “sensation seeking” than women — is drenched in gender normativity and stereotypes.

. . . 

STEREOTYPE: MEN ARE LESS EMOTIONAL THAN WOMEN

In one study, two groups of volunteers — half men, half women — had their physiology measured with skin conductance electrodes while being shown videos with varying emotional content. The men exhibited stronger emotional reactions than women to all categories of video, and responded twice as strongly to content described as “heart-warming” than did their female counterparts. At the same time, the men in this study reported feeling less emotion than they actually did (to the extent that electrodes can quantify emotion). In a separate survey by the same researchers, 67 percent of men said that they were more emotional than they appeared. 

There’s a lot to untangle here. The fact that men reported a weaker emotional response than they actually had would seem to imply that men are, in some way, unaware of their own emotions. On the other hand, a majority of men said that they experienced more emotion than they let on in public, which suggests at least some degree of awareness about their own emotional states. Perhaps the larger lesson here is that one of the biggest gender norms out there is wrong, and that when confronted with the expectation to appear emotionless, men react in unpredictable — and at times, contradictory — ways.