We used to think that women are more emotional than men, thinner, more receptive, more sensitive. Is it really?
While we look from the outside or study the ability to empathize, empathize, understand the feelings of other people, women justify cultural stereotypes. However, at the level of physiology (when measuring galvanic skin reactions), gender differences are quite small. In fact, men are no less emotional by nature, it’s just that their emotions arise in other situations and are expressed differently.
If you ask a man how he feels, he will rather talk about what he thinks, many do not even notice the difference.
Why does this difference arise? To begin with, mothers express their feelings for girls and boys in different ways, both in words and (especially) in touch: daughters are hugged and generally touched much more often, thereby conveying more emotional warmth to them. Yes, and react to emotional manifestations in boys and girls differently. According to various surveys, parents consider girls to be more emotional beings and discuss their experiences more often*.
Boys, in turn, are more pressured to never cry, but they are more tolerant of anger than daughters. The ideology of masculinity learned in childhood encourages fear not only of such frankly “unmanly” feelings as fear, anxiety or tenderness, but also of any situations where there is a risk of losing self-control. Oddly enough, well-learned male behavior patterns often want to get rid of the stereotypical masculinity that prevents them from living and building relationships. And those to whom these stereotypes do not fit at all are forced to pretend, exaggerate some and deny other feelings.
Excessive suppression of emotions in a man can even lead to alexithymia – a loss of contact with his own inner world, a complete inability to recognize and name the emotions experienced by him and other people. The other side of this problem is the difficulty of self-control, lethargy, poor emotional vocabulary. If you ask a man how he feels, he is more likely to tell you what he thinks; many boys do not even notice the difference between these questions. We should teach boys that emotional courage is really courage.
Enrich their emotional vocabulary, especially when it comes to “forbidden” emotions like fear and anxiety. Help them recognize the feelings of others and express their feelings freely. The simple phrase “I was scared, and you?” will help to reconcile the boy with his own emotions. And, becoming a man, he will feel happier, having access to all aspects of his own “I”. Including your feelings.
* N. Eisenberg, R. Fabes, T. Spinrad «Prosocial Development» in W. Damon, R. Lerner, N. Eisenberg (eds.) «Handbook of Child Psychology», Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2006, vol. 3.