Are Women Really More Emotional Than Men? New Research Finally Has An Answer
cottonbro studio | Canva Roughly once a week, I write an article about feminism, women’s health, or trauma-induced dissociation. In every article, I include statistics and scientific studies from reliable sources. And then, without fail, multiple men comment something along the lines of, “Well, that’s not my personal experience, so it can’t be true.”
No links to credible sources. No referenced studies. No proof.
Just these dudes and their feelings, and based on the number of times men have called me a man-hating feminist or an idiot, those feelings usually come across as pretty hysterical.
Women, however, are used to having their qualifications questioned, so they often enter the conversation with solid, logical data. At the very least, they’re typically pretty calm.
When I zoom out to our culture at large, I notice a similar pattern: I see guys brawling over sports and punching holes in walls over video games. I see boys carrying out 98% of school shootings, and men perpetrating over 99% of crimes. I see a president (the same man who once claimed that women are too “crazy” and “unstable” to lead) lashing out at journalists, politicians, other countries, and anyone who crosses him.
We’re conditioned to believe that women are the more emotional gender due to our hormones, but men, it seems, are the ones thinking with their rage and their genitalia rather than their brains.
Research shows women are not more emotional than men
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A 2021 study in Scientific Reports evaluated a group of 142 men and women over a 75-day span, including women on oral contraceptives and women who experience their periods naturally. Researchers found that men had roughly the same amount of emotional fluctuations as women.
The difference lies in how genders are conditioned to express these emotions or not
Women are encouraged to talk about their feelings. Cry when they’re upset. Reach out when they need help. In fact, the only emotion we’re not allowed to express is anger. Research shows that women who express anger (even when it’s a justified response to clear injustice) face social backlash and professional penalties.
Men, on the other hand, are only allowed to express anger and aggression. Anything else causes other men to question their masculinity. They’re called “weak,” “feminine,” or “gay,” which shames them into silence.
On the surface, this silence may seem like a lack of emotion. But decades of psychological research teach us that unexpressed emotions don’t go away.
They get stronger and stronger until they explode out of us, one way or another. Because women often express and process their emotions, either in therapy or within interpersonal relationships, studies show that women are more adept at emotional intelligence and less behaviorally reactive than men.
While women tend to ruminate and turn their emotions inward, men tend to lash out and take their feelings out on other people. Men are also much more likely to cope with suppressed emotions using substance abuse, reckless risk-taking, aggressive driving, violent assaults, murder, and suicide.
That doesn’t mean women can’t be violent or abusive. Of course, mean people of all genders exist. But because men are overall more violent, not to mention larger, stronger, and more privileged, a reactive man is capable of doing a lot more damage than a reactive woman.
So why are women’s emotions viewed as the liability?
It all boils down to control. For millennia, women’s emotions have been the justification for our religious, social, medical, and professional oppression.
Eve ate the apple, so God blamed women for sin. Midwives took healing into their own hands, so judges burned them at the stake. Alice Paul peacefully picketed for the right to vote, so officers threw her in jail. Rosemary Kennedy got too difficult, so doctors lobotomized her. Kamala Harris had two degrees and decades of experience, so pundits criticized her laugh.
Women still aren’t considered equal, but despite countless cards stacked against them, a few have managed to claw their way to the tops of Fortune 500 companies, cultural institutions, and governments.
And guess what we’ve found? Women in leadership roles are more effective and less reactive. They outperform men across almost all metrics, including creativity, problem-solving, communication, and relationship-building, all of which create more profitable businesses and more effective governments.
Women’s emotions don’t make us unfit to lead. They make us harder to control, because our emotions help us build connections, overcome our trauma, and inform us when someone has crossed a line.
But sure, Frank; keep ranting and raving about “your personal experience as a logical man” while I cite PubMed studies.
Maria Cassano is a writer, editor, and journalist whose work has appeared in HuffPost, NBC, Bustle, CNN, The Daily Beast, Food & Wine, and USA Today, among others.
