How Men Deal with Emotions Verses Women and How This Can Effects Us Relatioships

In this society, there has always been a sense of division amongst the sexes. This division has been used through out history to categorize or determine an individual based off of their gender with the ideology of male and female roles in society we have come across many conflicts on what it means to be think or act like either sex. Movements like the feminist or women's liberation movements tried to change the seemingly old fashioned views of defining gender roles with an emphasis on career and employment equality. But what makes a woman a woman and a man a man are not their roles in the work place but rather a biological and psychological identification with gender. So on in this blog we will focus on the later and how it can effect us when we try to build and maintain emotional relationships with each other.

The normal accepted behavior of men dealing with emotion is quite limited in this society. It is generally reflected that men can only express two very basic emotions; happy and angry. This can and does cause psychologically based problems due to the obvious fact that there are a wide range of emotions to be expressed on either side of the spectrum. ESPECIALLY dealing with the negative. So why is the only accepted negative emotion anger? Well from my analysis anger is considered masculine because it can show case a high amount of aggression is largely associated with the epitome of masculinity. Leading most men to feel like this is the only accepted way to display a wide range of negative emotions.

This limited perspective of accepted behavior can become very unhealthy to the person who chooses to express it. After all, half the battle of being able to properly cope with emotion is the ability to identify them. By feeling limited to only one expression of negative emotion it dampers ones learned ability to identify emotions.

Some of the negative effects of inability to properly express emotions include

• built up stress and tension in the body causing health problems
  
• psychological problems such as; depression, insomnia, and anxiety.
• relationships difficulties (lack of ability to be persevered as intimate)
• a greater sense of isolation
  

The main hormone associated with masculine behavior is testosterone. So to gain further insight into the male mind one must understand the effects of testosterone and behavior.

Some of the misconceptions about testosterone are

• it is the sole cause of aggression
  
• it is the cause of stereotypical masculine behavior
• it can be used to make men seem primitive and violent
  

Some of the actual functions of testosterone

• helps to develop male sexual organs
  
• helps male libido
  
• when in balance can give men healthy self esteem
  
• in balance it is associated with confidence and assertion
  
• helps cognitive abilities
  
• testosterone also has a monthly cycle

Women on the other hand are viewed more as emotional creatures. Therefore, it is more accepted for women to express or show a wider range of emotions. The woman is often viewed as the less aggressive of the two sexes, and this maybe part of the reason why it is more accepted for her to express emotion. She is often looked at as the more emotionally advanced of the two sexes. In society it is also more common that a woman not only express but identify her emotions. Despite the many positives these generalizations can bring they can also single out the emotional nature of a woman as a weakness or negative. This is often done by assuming that this nature inhibits her ability to use logical reasoning.

The ability to express emotion can be a very healthy strong suit of the woman and maybe part of the reason why female life expectancy rates are higher. Even with the obvious positives of this behavior, when over emotionalism becomes accepted as the woman's "nature" we begin to run into serious behavioral problems. For example a woman blaming her excessive mood changes on her monthly cycle. Now im not debating the fact that this could EXAGGERATE PREEXISTING emotional disturbances, but it must not be viewed as the main culprit or reason why the woman's mood has changed. When women experience these issues they must take the time out to observe and dig deep into their subconscious mind for the source of the problem. They should also consider other biological imbalances if the mood is altered to certain extremes as to create major disturbances in ones lifestyle. Things like diet changes and certain herbs and supplements can be observed as natural ways to alleviate some of these problems.

So how does estrogen affect the woman's emotional patterns? There is strong evidence to suggest that there is a connection between womans mood changes and estrogen levels. Especially during a womans menstrual cycle her estrogen levels can spike causing other hormonal spikes and imbalances. Estrogen also plays a key role in causing depression around and after menopause hormone therapy is often effective in combating this type of depression. Further lending to the evidence of connection between estrogen and emotional stability in woman.

The connection between perceived and accepted gender based behavior can effect relationships in many ways. The woman is considered to be an "I feel therefore I do" being. Meaning that she is perceived more likely to be driving to action by how she feels. Where as the man is considered to be more of an "I think therefore I do" being. Meaning that it is perceived that he is more likely to be driven by how he thinks. This difference if not fully understood can lead to miscommunication when the two sexes try to voice their opinion. Either one degrading or giving less value to the way the other has arrived at their conclusion can only create a destructive form of misunderstanding in the relationship. Either sex must make efforts to try to understand the nature of the other sex. This includes at times putting how one thinks or feels about the situations to understand where the other is coming from. This effort to understand one another will prove as one of the most valuable tools when sustaining long and healthy emotional relationships.

So how can women better understand men? Women must learn that men do have and can be just as affected by emotion as their female counter parts. We must also have patience with the fact that society has conditioned the male mind to shut down his emotional communication skills by not teaching him the proper way for A MAN to express emotion. We must also learn to respect as well as offer understanding toward male emotion. We must also ourselves take the time to help men to understand the complex emotional changes of a woman. This often requires self introspection and the ability to pull ourselves away from the emotion in oder to understand it better. By talking about how we are effected by our emotions from a non-emotional state can give men a special insite toward helping them to manage our sometimes seemingly random mood changes. Remember no on can read anyone else's mind, and that men are by nature prone to problem solve and deal with black and white realities. When we as women try to explain how we feel there are many shades of gray. Try not to overload a man with too many words keep it short sweet and to the point. We must learn to be more clean and concise when speaking to our men about how we feel and what we need from them.

When it comes to men trying to understand women the main thing that come to mind is listening and making the woman feel understood. Sometimes men's minds are so preoccupied with the point of the conversation that can forget to listen and make the woman feel assured that her feelings are being heard. Understand that at times all a woman wants to do is vent or have a place where her feelings are acknowledged. Creating that for her can not only be helpful lifting her mood but in creating greater sense of trust and security in the relationship.

In essence I really feel it's just about learning to speak each other's language. At the end of it we will often find that we are saying the same thing in different ways. This is the beauty of balance, embrace it and learn to harmonize.



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