Thoughts on the "Women are too Emotional" Argument

Traditionalists have long argued that women are too emotional to be allowed to vote, work, be president, and many other things that are outside the realm of staying home as a housewife. Is there any truth to that claim? Also, is being emotional necessarily a bad thing when it comes to being in positions of leadership? Those are the questions I will be trying to answer here, based on my own observation. Worth noting is that word "emotional" is pretty vague and can mean many different things. It can refer to someone getting angry too easily, but it can also refer to someone who empathizes with others, as well as someone who is gullible. It is likely that the traditionalists who make the "women are too emotional" argument mean some combination of all of these things, which is what I am assuming for the purposes of this article

Do women get angry more easily than men, and would that be a bad thing? Most would probably agree that men tend to act more openly angry than women. In that sense, one could probably even say that men are often more emotional than women. Whether or not anger is good primarily depends on how a person acts on that anger. If that anger leads to someone lashing out at people who are not causing them harm, for example, then no, it is not a good thing. On the other hand, a person is well within their rights to be angry while also not acting violent towards anybody. Since anger is a not an emotion most of us like feeling, it still would probably not be good in that case, but it would not necessarily be bad either. At the very least, it would not be particularly bad for leadership. It would only be bad for decision-making, and only if someone let their anger sway their perspective a certain way that is not logical, but it is entirely possible for both men and women to let that happen to them.

It is true that women tend to cry more and tend to be more open about being depressed. Plus, they tend to be less direct in their aggressiveness than men. However, it is unlikely that those are inherent. The reality is that men in our society are often encouraged to stay strong, both physically and emotionally. Men who defy that are often viewed as weak/effeminate. Not to mention, there are multiple incentives in society for women to act more emotional, such as the fact that they tend to be the primary caregivers of their child or children, if they have any children. Being more emotionally soft is arguably good for nurturing a small child, so there is strong incentive for women to be that way with their children. There are men who are primary caregivers to children as well, and those men can and do behave emotionally soft when it comes to raising small children, my own dad being an example of such when it came to being a stay-at-home raising me. Plus, emotions such as having more empathy are not necessarily bad for people in positions of leadership. For example, a person who has more empathy for people is probably going to work harder on making sure their rights are protected.

As for gullibility, gullibility is arguably not a good thing for people in positions of leadership to have and is probably the main concern of the traditionalists who say that women are too emotional. That said, are women more gullible than men? No. The truth is that our society tends to encourage men to be manipulative in getting what they want, particularly when it comes to getting what they want from women, yet women who do that same thing are often looked down upon. It is certainly a tactic promoted my many tv shows and movies that involve romance. Because certain men are used to doing this and succeeding, those men and the women who believe that to be a good tactic are more likely to have convinced themselves that women are naturally more gullible and that they are therefore unfit for positions of power and decision-making.

To sum up, certain women may be arguably more openly emotional than men, though women being more emotional is not inherent, nor would it necessarily be bad for positions of leadership, depending on what one means by "emotional". Therefore, I do not feel that the argument that women are too emotional holds water in terms of deniable them equality.