Colon 1

Kathreen Colon

Mrs. Cramer

College Comp pd. 3

14 April 2022

Men and Women Are Emotionally Equal

Men and women are emotionally equal to each other. Although they show it in different

ways, studies show that men and women are equally emotional but, society tells us men are weak

if they show emotions. Society teaches us that men should not show emotions like women do. In

a study, male and female teens gave self-reports and had several physiological measures taken

while they viewed animated clips depicting people being hurt. But no differences between the

sexes were detected in blood pressure, heart rate, or pupil dilation—all measures of emotional

responsiveness. (Cummins).

First, the stereotype that women are more emotional than men has been around since

forever. “In the 19th century, the idea was that women were emotional and unstable and likely to

develop behavioral problems, and men couldn’t because they didn’t have a uterus.” (Escalante).

“Once gender roles for behaviors are internalized by youth, social learning/ socialization

theorists propose that gender-role consistent behaviors may be expressed or not expressed

depending on the particular situation or environment.” (Chaplin). Society has taught men and

women from a young age that women are allowed to show emotions because they aren’t men.

With this, men and women are equally emotional because people feel the same emotions in life,

it’s just a stereotype that has been going on since forever.

 Colon 2

However, people think they are emotionally different because of the way they show their

emotions. “Countless studies have been conducted to address this question, with conflicting

results. For example, one study followed the social development of over 500 teenaged boys and

girls for 6 years. The measures they looked at included empathic concern and the ability to see

emotional situations from another person's perspective. Girls outpaced boys on both measures.”

(Cummins). “They also reported that women tend to experience their positive emotions as

significantly more positive and their negative emotions as significantly more negative than do

men. Taken together, these findings demonstrate subtle differences in the relationships between

specific emotions” (Lively). This study shows us how women’s results came back higher in

emotions than men.

Next, the difference between men and women’s emotions is their brain. For girls, speech

and emotions are closely wired together, which is one reason why girls tend to more easily

express their feelings. A boy who is upset, can be very frustrated if he’s asked to talk about his

feelings. It’s because his speech centers are further away from the emotional center in his brain.

Men are emotionally distant because they are taught by people that “real men” don’t show

emotion. “Lively and Heise (2004) did not explicitly explore gender differences in the shortest

paths between specific emotions; however, they did present evidence illustrating significant

differences in women's and men's experiences of emotion when examining the correlations

between the original 19 individual emotion states investigated within the GSS. They reported 29

significant gender differences in correlations, which is approximately four times more than

would be expected by chance.” (Lively).

On the other hand, both men and women are emotionally equal they just show it in different

ways. They feel the same emotions on the inside, but women tend to show more on the outside.
 Colon 3

“Although women may be more expressive of most emotions, at least in Western cultures, men

show equal or greater levels of physiological arousal” (Chaplin). “Adult men (n = 17) and

women (n = 17) viewed images that typically arouse strong positive or negative emotional

reactions.” “The results showed quite clearly that men and women did not differ overall in their

intensity of moment-to-moment emotional reactions to the images. But the neural circuitry

recruited during emotion processing differed between the sexes.” (Cummins).

In conclusion, men and women are emotionally equal, they feel the same emotions just

express it differently. Society made us think that we aren’t emotionally equal, and it isn’t right

for men to show emotions. However, we can change the way society thinks about how men and

women should be with their emotions.

 Colon 4

Works Cited

Chaplin, Tara M. "Gender and Emotion Expression: A Developmental Contextual Perspective."

National Library of Medicine, 16 June 2015. National Library of Medicine,

https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073914544408. Accessed 11 Apr. 2022.

Cummins, Denise Dellarosa. "Are Males and Females Equally Emotional?" Are Males and

Females Equally Emotional?, 24 June 2014. Psychology Today,

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/good-thinking/201406/are-males-and-females-

equally-emotional. Accessed 23 Mar. 2022.

Escalante, Alison. "Men Are Just as Emotional as Women, Study Suggests." Men Are Just As

Emotional As Women, Study Suggests, 12 Nov. 2021. Forbes,

www.forbes.com/sites/alisonescalante/2021/11/12/men-are-just-as-emotional-as-women-

says-new-research/?sh=6442e4c32e96. Accessed 25 Mar. 2022.

Lively, Kathryn. "Emotional segues and the management of emotion by women and men." Social

Forces, vol. 87, no. 2, Dec. 2008, p. 911+. Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints,

link.gale.com/apps/doc/A192851603/OVIC?u=pl1949&sid=bookmark-

OVIC&xid=daf1824a. Accessed 23 Mar. 2022.