Major Project
Aidan Kelleher
Professor Perisse
ENG 170-10
Argument Research Paper
5 May 2023
Are Men and Women Equally Emotional?
INTRODUCTION
GENERAL OPENING:
“I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them” (Wilde).
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
On a factual basis, emotion is described as “a conscious mental reaction (such as anger or fear) subjectively experienced as strong feeling usually directed towards a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body”. In other words, emotions are a factor in every part of our lives. Emotions, whether they are under our control or not, are what make us human. But what happens when we cannot control them?
DEVELOPMENT OF ARGUMENT:
Society as we’ve come to know it today has put rules and restrictions on what emotions should be expressed outwardly for the sake of everyone’s comfortability or even to keep our own pride intact. These rules can be different for men and women, and reactions that are acceptable for some may not be for others. For example, if you were to see a woman crying on the subway, you would feel bad for her or maybe even want to make she was okay. On the other hand, if you saw a man crying on the subway, you would feel more uncomfortable. Or if you saw a man screaming at someone on the street, you probably wouldn’t blink twice and keep walking. But if you saw a woman screaming at someone on the street, you would expect everyone to get their phones out to record her and make a viral clip out of the situation. We consider certain emotional reactions normal coming from some and uncomfortable coming from others.
RESEARCH QUESTION:
Are men more emotional, are women more emotional, or are they equally emotional?
THESIS STATEMENT:
Men and women experience the same level of emotions because we are all human beings and the only instances that sex or gender interfere with that are in what emotions men and women feel comfortable or encouraged to express, and outside elements can cloud our judgment of that.
PRO POINTS:
The phrase “you’re being emotional” has been given a negative connotation connected to so-called negative emotions such as sadness, anger, and jealousy, but being emotional encompasses every emotion that humans have the ability to feel. Emotion is an internal feeling we get in response to something or someone, and men and women are just as likely to have that inward emotional response, the only difference is how we express our emotional response. And lastly, the word “emotional” is wired in our brains to make us think of women over men because the word is mostly used as an attack against women and is rarely used against a man displaying similar qualities.
BODY A: Pro Argument
PRO POINT 1
Topic Sentence:
Emotional has a negative connotation that leads us to think of the so-called “negative” emotions such as anger, sadness, fear, and hatred.
Explain / Argue the Point:
Emotional is rarely a word used to describe someone laughing hysterically or overwhelmed with love, but rather someone who is brutally angry, overwhelmed with jealousy, or sobbing uncontrollably. But being emotional can encompass a variety of feelings that we as humans are capable of and to boil that range down to a select few that are seen as negative emotions brings shame to both the emotions and the word.
Examples:
This shame is what has led to people, especially men, not feeling comfortable discussing those more vulnerable emotions with the people around them out of fear. A lot of people would say that women are more emotional than men because we are choosing for emotional to only refer to certain emotions that men are not known for expressing.
Supporting Evidence:
According to “Sex differences in active tolerance” by Frances Olee Pierce, “females tend to express a higher degree of the four emotions (love, anger, fear, rage) …than males express” (Pierce). This research journal was on a study conducted on over 300 boys and girls in the seventh grade. At that young age even before feeling the pressures of adulthood or manliness, boys were less likely to express their fears, anxieties, or love for their friends.
PRO POINT 2
Topic Sentence:
Our emotions refer to the inward feelings that we have in response to a variety of events, and there is a difference between the emotions we feel and the emotions that we choose to express.
Explain / Argue the Point:
While there is evidence to support women expressing more of their feelings than men, there is no evidence to support any difference in levels of emotions we experience. As human beings, we are just as likely as the opposite sex to feel an emotional response internally to something personal, hurtful, or generally overwhelming.
Examples:
It may vary from person to person who has a strong emotional response to kind words or harsh insults, but more broadly, men and women are just as likely as one another to feel afraid of something they perceive as a threat, love for someone close to them, and rage for something unjust. The only difference lies in our comfortability with expressing these things.
Supporting Evidence:
In the opinion poll conducted on this subject (Google Forms), men and women in long-term romantic relationships with one another were asked if they think that men and women are equally emotional. More than half of the people tested believed that men and women are equally emotional. And those of the second largest group that believed women were in fact more emotional than men, their short answer responses told a slightly different story. Most of these respondents wrote that men and women feel the same levels of emotion, but that women feel more comfortable sharing their emotions in the right setting than the average man might. See, if the question was phrased a little bit differently, the result of the poll would likely have been a landslide in favor of men and women being equally emotional.
PRO POINT 3
Topic Sentence:
The word “emotional” is often used more against women than men.
Explain / Argue the Point:
Male rage is not described as them “being emotional” as it is not an example of them losing control of their emotions, but rather gaining control over others by establishing dominance over others. While female rage is seen as a loss of control.
Examples:
We do not often describe a man screaming with rage as “being emotional”. So, the terminology itself is flawed and gendered. There is inherent sexism underneath all of this because “being emotional” implies a lack of control over your emotions, an insult that has mostly been levied at women rather than men who have gained a sense of pride over having control over their emotions by suppressing them.
Supporting Evidence:
According to “The Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, Sex Differences” by Lara Lynn Lane, men are more likely to display rage than women, dating all the way back to when men were hunter-gatherers and they had to be, while women were more nurturing because they had to be. Even that far back were examples of society trying to put men and women in two completely different categories and nurture us into fitting into them. According to “Men, women, and aggression” by Anne Campbell, “Women believe their aggression results from a loss of self-control, while men see their behavior as a means of gaining control over others. Daughters are deeply ashamed when they get angry, but sons learn to associate aggression with integrity, courage, and triumph” (Campbell).
TRANSITIONAL PARAGRAPH:
Even though we are getting better as a society at realizing these things, there are still large numbers of people who would argue that women are the emotional ones that cannot control their feelings. But also, there are more progressive people that would still argue that men’s capacity for rage and women’s empathy and emotional intelligence could each tilt the scales.
BODY B: CON / Refute
CON #1:
Some of those on the other side of the argument would tell you that women are the more emotional gender by far not because of any stereotypical or misogynistic reason, but from the women themselves that take this notion with pride. But even though it is true that women have a higher tendency to display the so-called “positive emotions”, there is no data to back up that women feel any more love or joy than men internally. There is data to support that boys mature slower than girls in adolescence, and girls develop emotional intelligence faster (DeMichele), but this relates more to the processing of our feelings than a lack of feelings. Besides, we could argue about this topic forever whether men or women display more of every singular emotion, but that would be beside the point. What we are looking for is whether men or women are more emotional overall, gathering all the emotions together to decide who is more likely to get swept up in their reaction to something, whether that is an external reaction or an internal battle.
CON #2:
The most intriguing opinion that the other side had on this topic was that men are the more emotional sex, as their capacity for angry outbursts and their lack of control over their emotions that society does not shame them for makes them more emotional than women. While this is very interesting and makes a good argument, this brings us back to our point about balancing the scales. Sure, the world is more accepting of men having angry outbursts without being seen as “unprofessional” or losing control because, in fact, it is their way of gaining control. But this is balanced by the world’s discomfort with men’s tears and vulnerability.
CONCLUSION:
Men and women are equally emotional because we as humans are the same, the world has only filtered what emotions we feel safe to display. The word emotional has been associated with unhappy emotions and has brought shame to our very natural human emotions and the way we experience them. Men and women both feel the same response to traumatic or joyful events and experiences, we just do not feel the same exact comfort levels with what we can show to the world. And the word emotional is also directed too often at women in a demeaning way and should either be embraced more or used against men who are acting emotionally as well. There should no longer be any argument if a woman could be president. It is the 21st century and we should all come to the agreement that men and women are in fact different but equal.
Works Cited:
Campbell, Anne. Men, Women, and Aggression / Anne Campbell. BasicBooks, 1993. https://suny-new.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01SUNY_NEW/5celm9/alma990002413190204844
DeMichele, Anna. “Sex differences in reading readiness”. Internet Archive, 1949 https://archive.org/details/sexdifferencesin00demi/page/n23/mode/2up
Google Forms, “Are men and women equally emotional?” Opinion Poll https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfwtWSXqWUa_9i7oUU92MJ2YOHQEciJ9Vo-NAv4MTp6Vt3idA/viewform?usp=sf_link
Lane, Lara Lynn. “Sex Differences.” The Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, edited by Bonnie Strickland, 2nd ed., Gale, 2001, pp. 577-578. Gale eBooks, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3406000581/GVRL?u=newpaltz&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=8d7ac363. Accessed 14 Apr. 2023. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3406000581/GVRL?u=newpaltz&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=8d7ac363
Pierce, Frances Olee “Sex differences in active tolerance, 1948” Atlanta University School of Education, Master of Arts (MA) http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12322/cau.td:1948_pierce_frances_o
Wilde, Oscar “The Picture of Dorian Gray” https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray/4Q1HAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP5&printsec=frontcover