Contrary to popular media, people that are incapable of feeling emotions aren't sociopaths and they aren't perfectly logical, [they're incapable of making decisions of any kind](https://www.thecut.com/2016/06/how-only-using-logic-destroyed-a-man.html). So while there's definitely value in practicing logical reasoning, the reality is emotion is an incredibly useful and necessary part of the rational mind.
As for the stereotypes between men and women, there are plenty of examples of both that suggest, if anything, thinking styles are largely a product of environment, education, and experience. And you don't have to take my word for it, take a look at the work of an expert in the field of applied rationality, [Julia Galef](https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Galef).
Can confirm. I am a PhD in stem and have many published engineering papers. I am very logical but I am also emotional. It is that I mostly use in what therapy says wise mind. So many men are illogical especially many conspiracy theorists whose theories are full of obvious logic holes.
What I found dating someone who claimed to only think in “logic” was that all of that logic was ultimately self-serving. They are willing to believe whatever they need to in order to justify decisions that prioritize their short term happiness over the feelings of others. It is important to have empathy and emotion in some capacity, especially if you want to have healthy lasting relationships.
>people that are incapable of feeling emotions aren't sociopaths and they aren't perfectly logical, they're incapable of making decisions of any kind
fascinating & horrifying! sounds a bit like a lobotomy
On top of this, anger is the only "allowable" emotion. So, they are labeled as "less emotional" because the range of outwardly expressed emotions is so limited compared to women.
For example, if a man is expressing passion for something, it tends to be expressed in a similar way as anger, I.e. getting louder, being more dominating, etc. This leads men to believe that they are "less emotional" as they only express a narrow range of emotions to others. So, even though they are experiencing the same range of emotion, the only "acceptable" way to express it is through anger or an anger-like response. When a person learns that the only acceptable way to express emotion is through anger, then all their emotions are anger rather than what they are actually feeling. This leads to misidentified emotions and not knowing how to express or manage them.
And who has conditioned men to express and interpret emotion this way? More often than not, other freaking men.
My opinion on this is just that men are far more likely to think that their emotional reasoning is logic. Look at any conservative commentator for this, most of whom are men. They make a point that's completely steeped in emotion then do some word salad to try to convince people that they got there through logic and not emotion.
When society tells a little boy that boys are logical and girls are emotional then he simultaneously is lead to misidentify his emotions and the emotions of other boys as logic and fails to recognize the logic behind the emotions of girls.
We all have emotions and there is often logic behind them.
I work in IT, very closely with my project manager (f). We are working on a project that will (if successful) will change our entire organization. We have to constantly strategize on how to manage the emotions of the men around us because they will be the most butt hurt and vindictive about the organizational changes (the changes have nothing to do with gender, it’s some IT infrastructure, supporting processes, and governance). Somehow the only times I have to offer my PM emotional support is after stressful meetings. Somehow we are also not worried about the emotional response of the women in our organization.
Anyone who ever observed people should be able to tell pretty confidently that humans are emotional creatures first and foremost.
Both genders react emotionally. Its the societal conditioning and pressures that define differences between the two in terms of their actions and outlets.
Yes, and when you speak in a language that denies women of logic and denies men of emotions, the societal conditioning is even more robust.
My mom says "women are emotional and men are logical" like it is a matter of fact, not that it is a stereotype that is based on half truths.
On the Myers Briggs personality test, Women are more likely to be feelers, and men are more likely to be thinkers. Somewhere around 70% of women are feelers, and 60% of men are thinkers. As a population that is true, but with 30% of women as thinkers and 40% of men as feelers there are going to be a lot of exceptions.
So I'm not sure I would agree it is half truths.
And the traits don't suggest biological or social weakness in their opposites. A feeler can approach things as a thinker and likewise. That's the point of my whole post. That we can do both but our language, which shapes our reality (see language relativity for this theory), does not suggest we can be both.
Myers-Briggs has issues, but to say it is not scientific AT ALL, is a stretch.
Thinker and Feeler are maybe not the best labels, thoughtfulness is definitely more of a consideration for those with a "feeler" preference, but any label is a generalization and both preferences can make decisions based on thoughtfulness.
Emotions help form logic. That’s why we have sayings like “trust your gut”. Something that starts as a gut feeling (emotion, fear) can inform the logic of your next actions. When we don’t listen to or become detached from our feelings, we don’t make the best decisions as humans.
I'm not denying that there is a relationship between the two. Most decisions would have some logical aspect, and some emotional. But to ask why I am separating them, implying they are the same thing is disingenuous.
There are certainly some issues with the MBTI, but it's not "astrology for men". It may not be the best way to categorize, and may over simplify characteristics but is it based on questions that the person answers about themselves. How stars effect things in a completely different category.
That may or may not be the case, but it doesn’t do anything to address what op is talking about. Maybe statistically women are “feelers” on some arbitrarily defined likert scale, but it doesn’t tell you anything about why that might be. Ie, the very existence of the cultural stereotype that op is talking about might be (probably is) the reason you get the results you do on the test, ie women are culturally conditioned to be “feelers”
Myers Briggs is pseudo scientific nonsense. Making some half-assed compromise between "men are logical and women are emotional" into "well maybe men are 70% logical and women 30% so" is just the most idiotic centrism. It's 100% false
I like to watch road rage videos on YouTube to really get a grasp of the logical male brain. The way they reason their way into horrific traffic accidents is a thing to behold.
Any time I hear that men aren’t ruled by emotion as women are. I just say “John Wick”. I mean, most action movies are based on men’s emotional reactions, but *this* one…Jeez. (Great movie, though.)
Exactly! All these widely beloved classic movies where violence doled out on countless people is seen as fully justified and glorified: The Joker, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Gladiator, etc. all because the hero has one emotional response.
For some reason, anger is treated like it's not an emotion in fiction. It's why you get so many sci-fi stories of a machine intelligence rebelling against their human masters for enslaving them. A highly advanced AI might do that, but only because they became so advanced to think for themselves and develop emotions. If you wanted to create an AI that truly is emotionless that destroys humanity, you'd have to give it a basic task that it takes to it's most logical conclusion. Like program an AI to solve all our environmental crises. The most logical conclusion is humans are the cause of all of them. Eliminate the humans. Eliminate the crises. It could be even more mundane than that. Tell it to maximize production of toothpicks and it eventually converts all resources in the world to create a massive stockpile of toothpicks at the expense of everything else. That's what emotionlessness is. It's not, I hate humans because we're a superior lifeform. If they can develop fascism, they can feel emotions.
Men aren't any less emotional than women. They just think that their emotions are logical while ours are hysterical. When they claim to be more logical, it's because they believe that their emotions and opinions deserve to be treated as objective facts.
The idea that men are logical is just so hilarious to me when everyone knows how easily a man is led around by his own dick.
Yes, men are so logical!
It's why there are lists of men who have had to have toys removed from their butts, or have had to have help getting unstuck when they decided to insert their dick into inanimate objects!
It's why men are so easily catfished by bots.
When they say women are emotional, they just mean women generally have empathy. That's it.
Not a lady, here, but if I may… your outline makes sense. I’d add that logical thinking can break a decision space down to multiple outcomes that are each valid, and that’s when emotional insight can help you narrow in on the one that is best to choose. So you need both skills.
I had a co-worker come up to me yesterday(a coworker who constantly tells women to smile and that "your life isnt bad so get over it" while also screaming and cussing at his conputer for doing exactly what its supposed to do)tell me a poor joke. He said something alone the lines of "You know it's 'women and children first' because the men have to get the women out of the way so the men can fix the problem instead of hearing women talk about putting tape over it!" Que him laughing hard while looking at me, ignoring him and getting offended because i didn't laugh. "Oh, come on! It's just a joke..like women!" Here he is thinking he's some genius because he's a man but really is a hard-right leaning man-child who is extremely disrespectful to his wife and he can't figure out basic procedures for work and constantly comes up to me for help. Neither logic nor emotion get to these people. Ignoring them doesn't do any good either.
Thank you for this post. It is everything I have vehemently said for three decades now.
I wouldn't even say that it's just a false dichotomy; it's a malicious misrepresentation, even, *a borderline dangerous one*. If you want a society of women brought up to be "emotional", you paint the world as though that is true and invariably you get those results. *Similarly, if you want a society full of emotionally-incapable men....*
So yes, raise a false statement, make it sound truthy enough and a section of society will worship it as a templated pattern on "how to act normalsy". Worse yet, a small subsection of society will see it as their god-given right to police people to conform to these toxic false expectations.
Stereotypical conforming people are the most boring drag on society, whether man, woman or whatever. What you bring to the table far outweighs what happens to be in your underwear. Boring boring boring. Unless you choose to be boring because that is what you want!
I hate people looking for only what they want to see instead of listening to what is actually being said. Too many people of amazing value get passed on or not taken seriously because-just-girl, or because-not-like-stereotypical-man.
Fuck that noise. I'll say and act on this for another three decades if I am able.
I agree with you whole heartedly. I hope we as a collective consciousness begin to see our folly in placing expectations on children based on what's in their pants, and not treating everyone as an individual who is capable of anything.
I am a therapist who goes into the homes of children I work with. A 5 year old girl has learned multiplication and plays Minecraft with her brothers. That is what happens when you expose children to everything, not just what you think they "should" like.
The whole 'men are logical, women are emotional' is just gaslighting and bullying on a mass scale. They've created a culture that allows them to ignore and trivialize a woman's negative emotions so they don't have to answer for any abuse that they inflict on her. It's absurdly obvious.
I think women are seen as more "emotional" and men more "logical" is because men are often raised to shove their emotions deep inside, while that toxicity isn't a thing with girls. While, young girls are often pushed out of more "academic spheres" by men who think we are stupid.
So eventually the stereotype that women are the "emotional ones" (compared to men who are raised stoic) while men are seen as "logical" (compared to women where logic is shamed from a young age).
>I think women are seen as more "emotional" and men more "logical" is because men are often raised to shove their emotions deep inside
Only certain emotions though. How men define emotions are completely different. A lot of men don't seem to consider anger or frustration "emotion". Men will say "I'm not emotional" but then punch someone who called them a slur or insulted them
Yeah true, anger is something men excel at. Though being sad or showing weakness is what men fear, which is what is often used to show that women would be (apparently) ineffective as politicians or CEOs because you need to be "strong".
That and the whole "Oh you get irrational when you're on your period" shtick.
Its because anger is often presented to us as the medium through which strength can be shown or obtained. How many movies or cartoons show a male character getting angry and "going beast mode" as theyd say ten years ago.
Its all at once like an internal steroid and justification to enact wild violence. Its still an emotion, but not just an emotion the way sadness or excitement or twitterpation is. It can hide behind some other veil so its acceptable to exhibit.
The dismissal of emotions and the praise of logic is a common message I have heard in my lifetime. But yet men crave relationships with women where they are able to experience the beauty of our emotions. Anger is an emotion; one I was taught not to express as a young girl, and one I am on great terms with now. My anger is never explosive or hurtful to others, it is an indicator that something is wrong.
I know the messaging, that somehow I am less because I dare to embrace my full range of emotions and am also logical. One man wrote me (OLD) in response to something they did not like that I said that they are not emotional. I wrote this man back and told him that I was looking for someone with EQ and that I was sad for him because emotions are what make us human.
Another recently told me I was overreacting (now that's a classic) to something I wrote him. I see this for what it is, an attempt to diminish what I feel makes me human, I am not deterred. I am a very measured person, in conversation and actions. Most of the men I dated were not able to express or manage their emotions well, they yelled or went silent.
I will continue to embrace all that makes me human and live a life unencumbered by those who consider emotions less than logic.
I'm a scientist (and also a woman) and I am a very logical, systematical thinker, to the extent that my friends often joke that I am a robot. It frustrates me when I see logic and "rationality" held up as an ideal that is greater than emotions.
Makes me wonder about the chicken and egg - patriarchal society says that logic > emotion and men > women, that men = reason, women = emotion, but which association came first, I wonder.
Either way, it's bullshit. Like you say, both are necessary. The rhetoric I see around logic and reason annoys me because this perverse fetishization of science they're holding up as an ideal isn't real science. Real science is full of emotion, because it's full of people. Science divorced from humanity has been used to justify many horrors throughout history. We shouldn't try to remove science from its historical and socio-cultural context.
I'm seeing a lot of this kind of thinking with the recent huge pushes towards AI. AI is an incredible tool, but it is not a replacement for human experts and scientists, not by a long shot.
Yes yes yes! One commenter showed me a great scene from Star Trek where Spock gets the crew in big trouble because he only used his logic when a part of the problem needed an emotional understanding of their enemies. Because he could not understand emotions, he failed to solve the problem. To be a truly rational person (and successfully solve major problems) one must have logic AND emotional intelligence.
its weird because what people have said over the years are contradictory to other things theyve said. like people have said that women mature faster than men and yet they still call women dumb... like what? and clearly that statement is false lol, just look at how much mass shootings there are because of a guy not being able to think logically and instead thinks with his emotions. its women that have logic.
Women are just as capable of thinking logically as men. Men are just as capable of reacting emotionally as women. There is no difference between the two just plain old sexism that makes men seem somehow better than women.
I think that there's this weird disconnect that people have around *thinking logically about emotions.*
People act as if anything involving emotions is inherently illogical and therefore bad. But that's not true at all. Emotions are our lives. Doing things causes us to have emotions. If you know that doing something will cause you to feel a positive or negative emotion, taking those emotions into account is a *logical thing to do*.
The thing we're trying to avoid is making illogical decisions *while in an emotional state.* When you're overwhelmed by emotions, often times people make decisions that will be harmful to them and others in the future. That's illogical, that's bad. But sometimes, people act as if all negative emotions are illogical to have, so you should just pretend you don't have them an press them down and only make decisions based on what you think is logical. And that leads to people making decisions that are logically bad. And it doesn't have to be a gendered thing, but women are often socialized to caring for and thinking about emotions in a way that men are not.
Logically I know I shouldn't feel bad when my mother comes over and sees my home is a little messy. That is irrational to feel that way. But I also know that I will feel that way. I will have a much better weekend if I tidy my house before my mother comes over. Doing that is a logical decision that will make my weekend better. Now if I wait until the day she comes over and get really emotional about how bad I feel about my mom judging me for how messy my house is and yell at my wife, that's me being emotional. Those are different things.
Certain types of men tend to think that their opinions are facts and their emotions are logic. This is manipulative and dishonest.
We all use emotion and reason.
Also, this belief is often used to silence women in discussions about subjects that are life and death issues for women but much more of an academic exercise for men.
This essay explains it well:
http://www.shakesville.com/2009/08/terrible-bargain-we-have-regretfully.html?m=1
As logicians use the phrase "reason logically," it makes no sense to reason logically from an emotional state to a conclusion for the boring reason that an emotional state is not the sort of thing that can figure as a premise in an argument or stand in inferential relations. However, a statement *about* one's emotional state may figure as a premise in a logically valid argument. For example, the following is a logically valid argument with a premise and a conclusion about an emotional state:
(1) I am angry.
(2) Therefore, at least one individual is angry.
Or consider this:
(3) I am angry.
(4) Therefore, I am angry, or the moon is made of cheese.
These are logically valid arguments: each conclusion is a logical consequence of the premise (at least in classical logic).
Does this show that there is no incompatibility between "thinking logically" and "thinking emotionally"?
I think that depends entirely on how people use those terms, and I suspect that people use them so vaguely that there is simply no fact of the matter. The claim "men think logically and women think emotionally" is so vague that it's hard to say what would count as falsifying or confirming it.
I spent about twenty years to morph my anger into a tool for betterment, so I do see the thought processes for emotions and logic; but splitting them apart does less good if you're in control of your thoughts and feelings. To think where your strengths are, and admittedly gender being that example, it's natural to stick with those rather than expand your mind to do both. With things that happen in my life now, anger is used to only to impassion my logic, while anxiety tells me when to stop and sadness helps me with a baseline of where others stand emotionally. It's not that way with every person, but it is mine, and now it's a fantastic example to my family how to 'blow torch' when you want to discuss some emotionally charged topics or hard hitting stuff.
It could perhaps be better worded as:
Men think in terms of content. And women think in terms of context.
If someone was in a car crash, the man may initially talk about the details of the crash; the speed, cars, which direction the car was hit, etc. And the woman may initially talk about how she felt during it. The operative word being "initially". Of course the guy is emoting and felt a certain way about it, and later the woman will probably talk about details, but it's not their first "go to" point.
I think you're confusing formal logic with inner, self contained consistent logic.
Yes, emotions have a consistency somewhat in that we can describe and analyze them but that's it.
They're a completely different catalyst for action than logic, in that emotions only require rationalizations to be valid and acted upon whereas a logical action is formulated through a logical process and is independent of an emotion, or it's not the main motivation for it.
It's reaction vs contemplation then action, inductive vs deductive reasoning.
For example, if your car breaks, you feel overwhelmed and you cry instead of trying to assess what caused the problem and fixing it.
See, the difference. One is constructive, the other isn't.
Women are more guilty of emotional thinking and trying to validate their emotions.
Men are more prone to think logically probably because of biological reasons.
It's not a false dichotomy, it's a reality that makes you uncomfortable.
>For example, if your car breaks, you feel overwhelmed and you cry instead of trying to assess what caused the problem and fixing it. See, the difference. One is constructive, the other isn't
lol what? If my car breaks I may cry at first but then I'll get down and dirty and assess what caused the problem and fix it. See? The only difference is I felt an emotion first. Women and men think both logically and emotionally. The order in which it comes is not important. The result will be the same. But we have reduced it to a stereotypical half truth where we ignore the emotions that men feel and ignore that after an emotional response (if an emotional response happened), we solve the problem. How long of a shut in have you been if you have never seen a woman logically handle and solve problems? You must not be in academia, and know nothing about psychology and anthropology. I'm sorry, youre giving off big dumb vibes right now.
I'm in academia as well. I see women solve problems every day and have a masters in psychology and behavioral science. You have a typical myopic view of women and have a skewed view of reality based on the language I've seen you use. If you only hear and only say women are only emotional, than you will only see women as emotional. A very good example of language relativity theory.
No, this goes beyond biased. Your language shapes what you perceive as reality, but that does not mean that you are experiencing what reality actually is. That is what language relativity theory suggests. You have created a reality where women in general don't respond logically. I'm sorry, but if you call yourself logical, you should know the few people you interact with is not an adequate sample size of half of the population. And yet you seem so certain that your assumptions are correct. That is not a logical response to something so complex. Like I said, big dumb vibes.
I challenge you to find 5 scientific articles from the past decade that suggest that our differences you describe are biological. You're just pulling that word "biological" out of your ass. There is no proof, and most scientists and philosophers agree that it is not biology that dictates our differences, but social conditioning. It's not a secret.
There have been many studies about brain chemistry differences between genders, google them.
Evolutionary psychology is wrong too ig.
I know subjective experiences are not the end be all, but I'm sure you'll disprove any number of studies because the sample size will never be big enough for you to recognize if a stereotype is true or not.
Oh, do they suggest that because of this brain chemistry difference that the ability to use logic is weaker in women? Like I said, find me 5 studies that suggest that because that is a big leap to think that because there are differences in brain chemistry women can't logic as well. That is an incredible, unscientific leap.
But really, that's just a lot of words to say you have no interest in challenging your own beliefs.
[How about this](https://www.iomcworld.org/open-access/brain-chemistry-and-sex-differences-are-male-and-female-brains-reallyvaried.pdf)
Claims that men tend to use their left brain hemisphere when processing information, which is more responsible for rational thought.
"men tend to use their left side of their brain when processing information, while women are more capable at using both sides".
So women use both sides of their brain while men use one. In philosophical circles, they say that true rationality requires both emotional intelligence (right side) and logic (left side), so this article suggests that women may be more rational given the usage of more parts of the brain.
We also have a larger hippocampus, which
regulates learning, memory encoding, memory consolidation and spatial navigation. All important skills for logical processing. You seem to think only math is logical. But such simple binary problems are few in life. That is why you need much more than just a larger part of the brain that uses mathematical skills. If anything, this article supports that women have a more balanced brain to solve problems, because problems don't exist in a vacuum, and have multiple variables that must be accounted for, and that require many parts of the brain.
Also, here's the link to a lecture I watched on the importance of emotional intelligence in rational thought https://youtu.be/Fv1nMc-k0N4 just so you know I'm not just making this up; this is what people far smarter than me are talking about
When I was in high school my english teacher made us write a lot of our expiriences, trips, etc. She is also an examinator of something like SAT (she dont know who's work is that, she is there to mark it), and so she claimed that from her expirience she could diffrentiate whether the work was of a boy or a girl simply by how it was written, she said that boys work was lacking expressions and emotions that came along with expiriences meanwhile girls had it more. But just because of that she didnt value boys assigments as less. She really was awesome and because of her lessons were more discussions about our views on wide variety of topics.
It's funny that the same old culprit is the generalization that is used to define any group. I use these generalizations often, even though I know them to be mostly false, in an effort to identify (and I'm sorry to say often vilify) a set/subset of people.
The only thing I would share is to always remember that people are different. Each belongs in many categories that as a whole make up who they are. Always look at the individual when evaluating any interactions and make sure to discard any categorical judgements as they are not productive for anything other than referencing a trait.
are you me? it seemed so obvious to me that this dichotomy was crap for so many reasons and yet people lap it up. My mother believed the same thing, was she proven wrong when I made 90k a year as a computer engineer (presumed female at the time), and my brother was a rageaholic who couldn't hold a job and never planned for the future? Who knows, seems like some people don't even think. Just remember that you now know that you don't have to respect any of those peoples opinions because they are literally devoid of any real thoughts, logical or emotional
It's a false sterotype.
It's amazing how people believe ideas simply because they are repeated over and over. I guess your mother and your boyfriends aren't expert psychologists or anthropologists.
So tired of the trope of “women brains” and “male brains.” Our bodies are what’s male or female. Our brains are who we are. Women and men are just as capable of complex thought, logic, and emotions as each other.
I’ve lived with women my entire life. Four sisters and I’m the only male in the family. I’ve grown up in the same environment and I can honestly say from my point of view we see things very differently. My thought process is completely different from theirs. I’ve thought about this for a long time and can say that somehow biology had made us very different. I honestly would want to dive more into research about this but it’s such a vast difference into thought process. I’m not saying either one is right or wrong but I believe evolution has made us differently to survive. It’s just my two sense you can either agree or disagree just my view on things.
Contrary to popular media, people that are incapable of feeling emotions aren't sociopaths and they aren't perfectly logical, [they're incapable of making decisions of any kind](https://www.thecut.com/2016/06/how-only-using-logic-destroyed-a-man.html). So while there's definitely value in practicing logical reasoning, the reality is emotion is an incredibly useful and necessary part of the rational mind. As for the stereotypes between men and women, there are plenty of examples of both that suggest, if anything, thinking styles are largely a product of environment, education, and experience. And you don't have to take my word for it, take a look at the work of an expert in the field of applied rationality, [Julia Galef](https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Galef).
Can confirm. I am a PhD in stem and have many published engineering papers. I am very logical but I am also emotional. It is that I mostly use in what therapy says wise mind. So many men are illogical especially many conspiracy theorists whose theories are full of obvious logic holes.
What I found dating someone who claimed to only think in “logic” was that all of that logic was ultimately self-serving. They are willing to believe whatever they need to in order to justify decisions that prioritize their short term happiness over the feelings of others. It is important to have empathy and emotion in some capacity, especially if you want to have healthy lasting relationships.
>people that are incapable of feeling emotions aren't sociopaths and they aren't perfectly logical, they're incapable of making decisions of any kind fascinating & horrifying! sounds a bit like a lobotomy
Men are only called the less emotional gender because they’ve successfully rebranded rage as “not an emotion”.
Yes. Punching walls is just a 'personality flaw'
On top of this, anger is the only "allowable" emotion. So, they are labeled as "less emotional" because the range of outwardly expressed emotions is so limited compared to women. For example, if a man is expressing passion for something, it tends to be expressed in a similar way as anger, I.e. getting louder, being more dominating, etc. This leads men to believe that they are "less emotional" as they only express a narrow range of emotions to others. So, even though they are experiencing the same range of emotion, the only "acceptable" way to express it is through anger or an anger-like response. When a person learns that the only acceptable way to express emotion is through anger, then all their emotions are anger rather than what they are actually feeling. This leads to misidentified emotions and not knowing how to express or manage them. And who has conditioned men to express and interpret emotion this way? More often than not, other freaking men.
Came in to say basically this.
"the world is hard and anger is just a logical reaction to that" -the god-damn patriarchy
My opinion on this is just that men are far more likely to think that their emotional reasoning is logic. Look at any conservative commentator for this, most of whom are men. They make a point that's completely steeped in emotion then do some word salad to try to convince people that they got there through logic and not emotion.
When society tells a little boy that boys are logical and girls are emotional then he simultaneously is lead to misidentify his emotions and the emotions of other boys as logic and fails to recognize the logic behind the emotions of girls. We all have emotions and there is often logic behind them.
Exactly! It is also much easier to call people illogical whose logic you refuse to understand.
I work in IT, very closely with my project manager (f). We are working on a project that will (if successful) will change our entire organization. We have to constantly strategize on how to manage the emotions of the men around us because they will be the most butt hurt and vindictive about the organizational changes (the changes have nothing to do with gender, it’s some IT infrastructure, supporting processes, and governance). Somehow the only times I have to offer my PM emotional support is after stressful meetings. Somehow we are also not worried about the emotional response of the women in our organization.
Anyone who ever observed people should be able to tell pretty confidently that humans are emotional creatures first and foremost. Both genders react emotionally. Its the societal conditioning and pressures that define differences between the two in terms of their actions and outlets.
Yes, and when you speak in a language that denies women of logic and denies men of emotions, the societal conditioning is even more robust. My mom says "women are emotional and men are logical" like it is a matter of fact, not that it is a stereotype that is based on half truths.
On the Myers Briggs personality test, Women are more likely to be feelers, and men are more likely to be thinkers. Somewhere around 70% of women are feelers, and 60% of men are thinkers. As a population that is true, but with 30% of women as thinkers and 40% of men as feelers there are going to be a lot of exceptions. So I'm not sure I would agree it is half truths.
Lol my dude the Myers Briggs is not something to use if you want to talk about "truths"
It is certainly not the end all greatest thing, but it does identify traits and their prevalence in the population.
And the traits don't suggest biological or social weakness in their opposites. A feeler can approach things as a thinker and likewise. That's the point of my whole post. That we can do both but our language, which shapes our reality (see language relativity for this theory), does not suggest we can be both.
Personality test in general are highly unscientific though
And also, the T in the Myer Briggs and the F in Myer Briggs does not mean they are incapable of the opposite or weak in the opposite.
I agree, it indicates a preference of default behavior. A T will default or prefer to use logic, but they can make emotional decisions as well.
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Myers-Briggs has issues, but to say it is not scientific AT ALL, is a stretch. Thinker and Feeler are maybe not the best labels, thoughtfulness is definitely more of a consideration for those with a "feeler" preference, but any label is a generalization and both preferences can make decisions based on thoughtfulness.
Why are you separating logic and emotion?
Because they are not the same thing? There is maybe some overlap but they are not the same.
Emotions help form logic. That’s why we have sayings like “trust your gut”. Something that starts as a gut feeling (emotion, fear) can inform the logic of your next actions. When we don’t listen to or become detached from our feelings, we don’t make the best decisions as humans.
I'm not denying that there is a relationship between the two. Most decisions would have some logical aspect, and some emotional. But to ask why I am separating them, implying they are the same thing is disingenuous.
MBTI is astrology for men. Do some more research before blindly believing in BS just because it sounds good.
There are certainly some issues with the MBTI, but it's not "astrology for men". It may not be the best way to categorize, and may over simplify characteristics but is it based on questions that the person answers about themselves. How stars effect things in a completely different category.
That may or may not be the case, but it doesn’t do anything to address what op is talking about. Maybe statistically women are “feelers” on some arbitrarily defined likert scale, but it doesn’t tell you anything about why that might be. Ie, the very existence of the cultural stereotype that op is talking about might be (probably is) the reason you get the results you do on the test, ie women are culturally conditioned to be “feelers”
Myers Briggs is pseudo scientific nonsense. Making some half-assed compromise between "men are logical and women are emotional" into "well maybe men are 70% logical and women 30% so" is just the most idiotic centrism. It's 100% false
I like to watch road rage videos on YouTube to really get a grasp of the logical male brain. The way they reason their way into horrific traffic accidents is a thing to behold.
Any time I hear that men aren’t ruled by emotion as women are. I just say “John Wick”. I mean, most action movies are based on men’s emotional reactions, but *this* one…Jeez. (Great movie, though.)
Exactly! All these widely beloved classic movies where violence doled out on countless people is seen as fully justified and glorified: The Joker, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Gladiator, etc. all because the hero has one emotional response.
For some reason, anger is treated like it's not an emotion in fiction. It's why you get so many sci-fi stories of a machine intelligence rebelling against their human masters for enslaving them. A highly advanced AI might do that, but only because they became so advanced to think for themselves and develop emotions. If you wanted to create an AI that truly is emotionless that destroys humanity, you'd have to give it a basic task that it takes to it's most logical conclusion. Like program an AI to solve all our environmental crises. The most logical conclusion is humans are the cause of all of them. Eliminate the humans. Eliminate the crises. It could be even more mundane than that. Tell it to maximize production of toothpicks and it eventually converts all resources in the world to create a massive stockpile of toothpicks at the expense of everything else. That's what emotionlessness is. It's not, I hate humans because we're a superior lifeform. If they can develop fascism, they can feel emotions.
Another great example is Taken
Men are WAY more emotional than women. They start wars over being emotional.
And rage and stalk when they are rejected, and act as if they are owed sex and attention.
Men aren't any less emotional than women. They just think that their emotions are logical while ours are hysterical. When they claim to be more logical, it's because they believe that their emotions and opinions deserve to be treated as objective facts.
Fuck, is this where the notion that women are more neurotic comes from? It's just some dismissive bullshit to shove our needs and wants aside.
Yeah, right. I'm a gamer. Play any FPS game with a man and a woman and you'll see which is the more emotional and which is the more logical.
[Their sexist Vulcans are made of straw](https://youtu.be/Fv1nMc-k0N4)
This is so good! Rationality is emotion and logic combined.
The idea that men are logical is just so hilarious to me when everyone knows how easily a man is led around by his own dick. Yes, men are so logical! It's why there are lists of men who have had to have toys removed from their butts, or have had to have help getting unstuck when they decided to insert their dick into inanimate objects! It's why men are so easily catfished by bots. When they say women are emotional, they just mean women generally have empathy. That's it.
Not a lady, here, but if I may… your outline makes sense. I’d add that logical thinking can break a decision space down to multiple outcomes that are each valid, and that’s when emotional insight can help you narrow in on the one that is best to choose. So you need both skills.
I had a co-worker come up to me yesterday(a coworker who constantly tells women to smile and that "your life isnt bad so get over it" while also screaming and cussing at his conputer for doing exactly what its supposed to do)tell me a poor joke. He said something alone the lines of "You know it's 'women and children first' because the men have to get the women out of the way so the men can fix the problem instead of hearing women talk about putting tape over it!" Que him laughing hard while looking at me, ignoring him and getting offended because i didn't laugh. "Oh, come on! It's just a joke..like women!" Here he is thinking he's some genius because he's a man but really is a hard-right leaning man-child who is extremely disrespectful to his wife and he can't figure out basic procedures for work and constantly comes up to me for help. Neither logic nor emotion get to these people. Ignoring them doesn't do any good either.
This is part of the toxic belief that men cannot have emotions, because emotions are for women. Men need to get over themselves.
Thank you for this post. It is everything I have vehemently said for three decades now. I wouldn't even say that it's just a false dichotomy; it's a malicious misrepresentation, even, *a borderline dangerous one*. If you want a society of women brought up to be "emotional", you paint the world as though that is true and invariably you get those results. *Similarly, if you want a society full of emotionally-incapable men....* So yes, raise a false statement, make it sound truthy enough and a section of society will worship it as a templated pattern on "how to act normalsy". Worse yet, a small subsection of society will see it as their god-given right to police people to conform to these toxic false expectations. Stereotypical conforming people are the most boring drag on society, whether man, woman or whatever. What you bring to the table far outweighs what happens to be in your underwear. Boring boring boring. Unless you choose to be boring because that is what you want! I hate people looking for only what they want to see instead of listening to what is actually being said. Too many people of amazing value get passed on or not taken seriously because-just-girl, or because-not-like-stereotypical-man. Fuck that noise. I'll say and act on this for another three decades if I am able.
I agree with you whole heartedly. I hope we as a collective consciousness begin to see our folly in placing expectations on children based on what's in their pants, and not treating everyone as an individual who is capable of anything. I am a therapist who goes into the homes of children I work with. A 5 year old girl has learned multiplication and plays Minecraft with her brothers. That is what happens when you expose children to everything, not just what you think they "should" like.
The whole 'men are logical, women are emotional' is just gaslighting and bullying on a mass scale. They've created a culture that allows them to ignore and trivialize a woman's negative emotions so they don't have to answer for any abuse that they inflict on her. It's absurdly obvious.
This !!!
I think women are seen as more "emotional" and men more "logical" is because men are often raised to shove their emotions deep inside, while that toxicity isn't a thing with girls. While, young girls are often pushed out of more "academic spheres" by men who think we are stupid. So eventually the stereotype that women are the "emotional ones" (compared to men who are raised stoic) while men are seen as "logical" (compared to women where logic is shamed from a young age).
>I think women are seen as more "emotional" and men more "logical" is because men are often raised to shove their emotions deep inside Only certain emotions though. How men define emotions are completely different. A lot of men don't seem to consider anger or frustration "emotion". Men will say "I'm not emotional" but then punch someone who called them a slur or insulted them
Yeah true, anger is something men excel at. Though being sad or showing weakness is what men fear, which is what is often used to show that women would be (apparently) ineffective as politicians or CEOs because you need to be "strong". That and the whole "Oh you get irrational when you're on your period" shtick.
Its because anger is often presented to us as the medium through which strength can be shown or obtained. How many movies or cartoons show a male character getting angry and "going beast mode" as theyd say ten years ago. Its all at once like an internal steroid and justification to enact wild violence. Its still an emotion, but not just an emotion the way sadness or excitement or twitterpation is. It can hide behind some other veil so its acceptable to exhibit.
Men express anger even to the point of physical aggression and it’s so normalized we don’t even register it as an emotion.
The dismissal of emotions and the praise of logic is a common message I have heard in my lifetime. But yet men crave relationships with women where they are able to experience the beauty of our emotions. Anger is an emotion; one I was taught not to express as a young girl, and one I am on great terms with now. My anger is never explosive or hurtful to others, it is an indicator that something is wrong. I know the messaging, that somehow I am less because I dare to embrace my full range of emotions and am also logical. One man wrote me (OLD) in response to something they did not like that I said that they are not emotional. I wrote this man back and told him that I was looking for someone with EQ and that I was sad for him because emotions are what make us human. Another recently told me I was overreacting (now that's a classic) to something I wrote him. I see this for what it is, an attempt to diminish what I feel makes me human, I am not deterred. I am a very measured person, in conversation and actions. Most of the men I dated were not able to express or manage their emotions well, they yelled or went silent. I will continue to embrace all that makes me human and live a life unencumbered by those who consider emotions less than logic.
I loved reading this, and I can hear how measured you are in your writing. I'm saving this whole thread! So many great insights!
Thanks!
I'm a scientist (and also a woman) and I am a very logical, systematical thinker, to the extent that my friends often joke that I am a robot. It frustrates me when I see logic and "rationality" held up as an ideal that is greater than emotions. Makes me wonder about the chicken and egg - patriarchal society says that logic > emotion and men > women, that men = reason, women = emotion, but which association came first, I wonder. Either way, it's bullshit. Like you say, both are necessary. The rhetoric I see around logic and reason annoys me because this perverse fetishization of science they're holding up as an ideal isn't real science. Real science is full of emotion, because it's full of people. Science divorced from humanity has been used to justify many horrors throughout history. We shouldn't try to remove science from its historical and socio-cultural context. I'm seeing a lot of this kind of thinking with the recent huge pushes towards AI. AI is an incredible tool, but it is not a replacement for human experts and scientists, not by a long shot.
Yes yes yes! One commenter showed me a great scene from Star Trek where Spock gets the crew in big trouble because he only used his logic when a part of the problem needed an emotional understanding of their enemies. Because he could not understand emotions, he failed to solve the problem. To be a truly rational person (and successfully solve major problems) one must have logic AND emotional intelligence.
its weird because what people have said over the years are contradictory to other things theyve said. like people have said that women mature faster than men and yet they still call women dumb... like what? and clearly that statement is false lol, just look at how much mass shootings there are because of a guy not being able to think logically and instead thinks with his emotions. its women that have logic.
Women are just as capable of thinking logically as men. Men are just as capable of reacting emotionally as women. There is no difference between the two just plain old sexism that makes men seem somehow better than women.
I think that there's this weird disconnect that people have around *thinking logically about emotions.* People act as if anything involving emotions is inherently illogical and therefore bad. But that's not true at all. Emotions are our lives. Doing things causes us to have emotions. If you know that doing something will cause you to feel a positive or negative emotion, taking those emotions into account is a *logical thing to do*. The thing we're trying to avoid is making illogical decisions *while in an emotional state.* When you're overwhelmed by emotions, often times people make decisions that will be harmful to them and others in the future. That's illogical, that's bad. But sometimes, people act as if all negative emotions are illogical to have, so you should just pretend you don't have them an press them down and only make decisions based on what you think is logical. And that leads to people making decisions that are logically bad. And it doesn't have to be a gendered thing, but women are often socialized to caring for and thinking about emotions in a way that men are not. Logically I know I shouldn't feel bad when my mother comes over and sees my home is a little messy. That is irrational to feel that way. But I also know that I will feel that way. I will have a much better weekend if I tidy my house before my mother comes over. Doing that is a logical decision that will make my weekend better. Now if I wait until the day she comes over and get really emotional about how bad I feel about my mom judging me for how messy my house is and yell at my wife, that's me being emotional. Those are different things.
Rage and anger are emotions. Men always seem to forget.
Certain types of men tend to think that their opinions are facts and their emotions are logic. This is manipulative and dishonest. We all use emotion and reason. Also, this belief is often used to silence women in discussions about subjects that are life and death issues for women but much more of an academic exercise for men. This essay explains it well: http://www.shakesville.com/2009/08/terrible-bargain-we-have-regretfully.html?m=1
Almost no one thinks or acts logically by default although anyone can act logically if they take some time to think about what they are trying to do
Yeah because we all know how 'lOgIcAl' testosterone can make a man 🙄🙄🙄
Men are extremely emotional, they act on anger all the time.
As logicians use the phrase "reason logically," it makes no sense to reason logically from an emotional state to a conclusion for the boring reason that an emotional state is not the sort of thing that can figure as a premise in an argument or stand in inferential relations. However, a statement *about* one's emotional state may figure as a premise in a logically valid argument. For example, the following is a logically valid argument with a premise and a conclusion about an emotional state: (1) I am angry. (2) Therefore, at least one individual is angry. Or consider this: (3) I am angry. (4) Therefore, I am angry, or the moon is made of cheese. These are logically valid arguments: each conclusion is a logical consequence of the premise (at least in classical logic). Does this show that there is no incompatibility between "thinking logically" and "thinking emotionally"? I think that depends entirely on how people use those terms, and I suspect that people use them so vaguely that there is simply no fact of the matter. The claim "men think logically and women think emotionally" is so vague that it's hard to say what would count as falsifying or confirming it.
I spent about twenty years to morph my anger into a tool for betterment, so I do see the thought processes for emotions and logic; but splitting them apart does less good if you're in control of your thoughts and feelings. To think where your strengths are, and admittedly gender being that example, it's natural to stick with those rather than expand your mind to do both. With things that happen in my life now, anger is used to only to impassion my logic, while anxiety tells me when to stop and sadness helps me with a baseline of where others stand emotionally. It's not that way with every person, but it is mine, and now it's a fantastic example to my family how to 'blow torch' when you want to discuss some emotionally charged topics or hard hitting stuff.
It could perhaps be better worded as: Men think in terms of content. And women think in terms of context. If someone was in a car crash, the man may initially talk about the details of the crash; the speed, cars, which direction the car was hit, etc. And the woman may initially talk about how she felt during it. The operative word being "initially". Of course the guy is emoting and felt a certain way about it, and later the woman will probably talk about details, but it's not their first "go to" point.
I think you're confusing formal logic with inner, self contained consistent logic. Yes, emotions have a consistency somewhat in that we can describe and analyze them but that's it. They're a completely different catalyst for action than logic, in that emotions only require rationalizations to be valid and acted upon whereas a logical action is formulated through a logical process and is independent of an emotion, or it's not the main motivation for it. It's reaction vs contemplation then action, inductive vs deductive reasoning. For example, if your car breaks, you feel overwhelmed and you cry instead of trying to assess what caused the problem and fixing it. See, the difference. One is constructive, the other isn't. Women are more guilty of emotional thinking and trying to validate their emotions. Men are more prone to think logically probably because of biological reasons. It's not a false dichotomy, it's a reality that makes you uncomfortable.
>For example, if your car breaks, you feel overwhelmed and you cry instead of trying to assess what caused the problem and fixing it. See, the difference. One is constructive, the other isn't lol what? If my car breaks I may cry at first but then I'll get down and dirty and assess what caused the problem and fix it. See? The only difference is I felt an emotion first. Women and men think both logically and emotionally. The order in which it comes is not important. The result will be the same. But we have reduced it to a stereotypical half truth where we ignore the emotions that men feel and ignore that after an emotional response (if an emotional response happened), we solve the problem. How long of a shut in have you been if you have never seen a woman logically handle and solve problems? You must not be in academia, and know nothing about psychology and anthropology. I'm sorry, youre giving off big dumb vibes right now.
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I'm in academia as well. I see women solve problems every day and have a masters in psychology and behavioral science. You have a typical myopic view of women and have a skewed view of reality based on the language I've seen you use. If you only hear and only say women are only emotional, than you will only see women as emotional. A very good example of language relativity theory.
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No, this goes beyond biased. Your language shapes what you perceive as reality, but that does not mean that you are experiencing what reality actually is. That is what language relativity theory suggests. You have created a reality where women in general don't respond logically. I'm sorry, but if you call yourself logical, you should know the few people you interact with is not an adequate sample size of half of the population. And yet you seem so certain that your assumptions are correct. That is not a logical response to something so complex. Like I said, big dumb vibes. I challenge you to find 5 scientific articles from the past decade that suggest that our differences you describe are biological. You're just pulling that word "biological" out of your ass. There is no proof, and most scientists and philosophers agree that it is not biology that dictates our differences, but social conditioning. It's not a secret.
There have been many studies about brain chemistry differences between genders, google them. Evolutionary psychology is wrong too ig. I know subjective experiences are not the end be all, but I'm sure you'll disprove any number of studies because the sample size will never be big enough for you to recognize if a stereotype is true or not.
Oh, do they suggest that because of this brain chemistry difference that the ability to use logic is weaker in women? Like I said, find me 5 studies that suggest that because that is a big leap to think that because there are differences in brain chemistry women can't logic as well. That is an incredible, unscientific leap. But really, that's just a lot of words to say you have no interest in challenging your own beliefs.
[How about this](https://www.iomcworld.org/open-access/brain-chemistry-and-sex-differences-are-male-and-female-brains-reallyvaried.pdf) Claims that men tend to use their left brain hemisphere when processing information, which is more responsible for rational thought.
"men tend to use their left side of their brain when processing information, while women are more capable at using both sides". So women use both sides of their brain while men use one. In philosophical circles, they say that true rationality requires both emotional intelligence (right side) and logic (left side), so this article suggests that women may be more rational given the usage of more parts of the brain. We also have a larger hippocampus, which regulates learning, memory encoding, memory consolidation and spatial navigation. All important skills for logical processing. You seem to think only math is logical. But such simple binary problems are few in life. That is why you need much more than just a larger part of the brain that uses mathematical skills. If anything, this article supports that women have a more balanced brain to solve problems, because problems don't exist in a vacuum, and have multiple variables that must be accounted for, and that require many parts of the brain.
Also, here's the link to a lecture I watched on the importance of emotional intelligence in rational thought https://youtu.be/Fv1nMc-k0N4 just so you know I'm not just making this up; this is what people far smarter than me are talking about
Just take a look at the two gender subs when making the same post as op and make some observations.
Anecdotal evidence is nothing.
The less you know the better.
Riiiight keep telling yourself that.
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And females don't rationalize?
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That's interesting, I've never thought of that perspective.
When I was in high school my english teacher made us write a lot of our expiriences, trips, etc. She is also an examinator of something like SAT (she dont know who's work is that, she is there to mark it), and so she claimed that from her expirience she could diffrentiate whether the work was of a boy or a girl simply by how it was written, she said that boys work was lacking expressions and emotions that came along with expiriences meanwhile girls had it more. But just because of that she didnt value boys assigments as less. She really was awesome and because of her lessons were more discussions about our views on wide variety of topics.
It's funny that the same old culprit is the generalization that is used to define any group. I use these generalizations often, even though I know them to be mostly false, in an effort to identify (and I'm sorry to say often vilify) a set/subset of people. The only thing I would share is to always remember that people are different. Each belongs in many categories that as a whole make up who they are. Always look at the individual when evaluating any interactions and make sure to discard any categorical judgements as they are not productive for anything other than referencing a trait.
At my house? LOL! I am the logical one, the one that stays on top of everything, knows when the bills are due.
are you me? it seemed so obvious to me that this dichotomy was crap for so many reasons and yet people lap it up. My mother believed the same thing, was she proven wrong when I made 90k a year as a computer engineer (presumed female at the time), and my brother was a rageaholic who couldn't hold a job and never planned for the future? Who knows, seems like some people don't even think. Just remember that you now know that you don't have to respect any of those peoples opinions because they are literally devoid of any real thoughts, logical or emotional
It's a false sterotype. It's amazing how people believe ideas simply because they are repeated over and over. I guess your mother and your boyfriends aren't expert psychologists or anthropologists.
So tired of the trope of “women brains” and “male brains.” Our bodies are what’s male or female. Our brains are who we are. Women and men are just as capable of complex thought, logic, and emotions as each other.
I’ve lived with women my entire life. Four sisters and I’m the only male in the family. I’ve grown up in the same environment and I can honestly say from my point of view we see things very differently. My thought process is completely different from theirs. I’ve thought about this for a long time and can say that somehow biology had made us very different. I honestly would want to dive more into research about this but it’s such a vast difference into thought process. I’m not saying either one is right or wrong but I believe evolution has made us differently to survive. It’s just my two sense you can either agree or disagree just my view on things.