We don’t have to self-censor, edit, and apologize for expressing our emotions.

Perhaps we judge women for being emotional because we suppress our emotions. Perhaps we inhibit women from expressing their emotions because we were not allowed to do so ourselves. Perhaps we fear the emotional intensity of seeing someone express their emotions – especially an adult, not to mention men – losing control, appearing helpless. 

When you see tears on a woman’s face or her eyes sparking fire, her nostrils wide, her mouth open, her bright teeth glaring, perhaps the right thing to do is let her express her emotions – whatever they are. Perhaps the most important thing you can do is help her let go of control in this image-obsessed world. 

Perhaps what she needs is your understanding. That’s when she needs you the most – when a pragmatic solution is neither feasible, nor relevant; when she needs the only thing that is appropriate to give – and, ironically, the most difficult to give – your unwavering, unjudging, and fiercely loving presence.

In a recent experience, I wished my emotions were not used against me.

As part of a promotion conversation, my boss was giving me feedback and reading out a list of things that would become my new job description. He was reading it out loud from a document on his screen which we could both see, and there it was, buried in the middle of a long paragraph, ‘too emotional’.

“Hang on a second. Explain what you mean by too emotional.” I asked. 

“You wear your heart on your sleeve,” he spent the next hour explaining how emotional I am. I was taken aback and stunned into silence. I felt my face burning and my eyes filling up with tears. I could not speak a single word for fear of furthering the label of ‘too emotional’. 

I was floored by how broken his logic was.

Sadly…

Women’s emotions are still used as a weapon against them.

When I posted about my recent experience on Twitter, several women twitted they are still judged harshly for being emotional. 

We’re in 2021. And still, women are judged harshly for being emotional. 

I’m passionate about my teaching. When I want my ideas to be heard, I raise my voice and speak. For that, I’m labeled as an ‘angry woman’. In team meetings, I tell colleagues and supervisors clearly and calmly what’s not acceptable, and what they need to stop doing or change. 

If I had been in a different body, that of a male, then speaking up would have been seen as assertive and confident. 

I’m sure you relate to one or more of these double standards: 

At your workplace, you can’t be seen crying. When someone hurts your feelings, you have to go into the bathroom and cry so no one sees you. And then you have to try and make it look like you weren’t crying before you can go back out there. 

Women do this mostly because tears on our faces makes other people feel uncomfortable.

When a man raises his voice in a meeting, he’s viewed as a leader. When a woman raises her voice, she’s seen as “out of control.” 

A recent research supports this.

Kimberly Elsbach, a professor at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, did an extensive research on women crying in the workplace. When women express their emotions they are often viewed as:

. Weak

. Unprofessional

. Manipulative

I can relate. 

There were so many instances, at multiple workplaces, where people would call me too angry and aggressive. They accuse me of having a tantrum or a meltdown – where the same emotion, anger, is seen as a positive quality – indicating passion – in my male colleagues. 

There is more:

When we raise important issues, we’re quickly written off as overreacting. We’re hysterical. Our wombs are roaming all around our bodies. We must be on our periods. When we convey our thoughts passionately, we are too sensitive. We’re judged to be too ‘mouthy’ or we are interrupted and shut down while a man takes our ideas and runs forth with it. 

When we try to be diplomatic and clear like, “This is what I’m saying,” we have to speak with a flat tone. And even then – we’re met with a bit of friction. Even then.

It sucks that women are still judged harshly for being emotional. That it’s difficult to show emotions without the fear that we’re being labeled as ‘too emotional’.

A culture that judges women for expressing their emotions has a big problem. 

. It denies a truth. That women feel. We fear. We hurt. We doubt. 

. Women learn to suck all their emotions in, where they bubble like trapped, molten lava, until they erupt in spectacular bursts of rage. Emotions, when unprocessed, stagnate and fester. They acidify – become corrosive. They become harmful, dangerous. 

. Their capacity to love and feel empathy, sympathy, and compassion for others diminishes.

. They stop participating fully in the emotional grandeur and poignancy of life.

Women do not have to self-censor our emotions.

Expressing our emotions is not a bad thing. It’s not something to be terrified of. It’s an entirely natural and human thing to do. 

We don’t have to edit and apologize for expressing our emotions.

In my 20s, showing any emotion terrified me. Now, I’ve learned expressing my emotions is not a weakness. 

When you express emotions, you feel naked, psychologically speaking. No pretenses, no facades, no bullshit. The feeling of release is intense. Cathartic. Like a rebirth. You feel light. Free. Whole.

Weightless.

One of my colleagues does not get this. 

I’m working closely with a female colleague who’s carrying emotional suppression like a badge of honor right now.

Both of us worked hard to get a promotion since COVID hit us and forced us to deliver online classes. I got the promotion. She didn’t. I expected many emotions. I expected her to be sad for a couple of weeks or days at the very least. I expected maybe she would be furious at me. 

I did not expect her avoidance of her feelings. 

“Tell me what you feel,” I asked. She said, “I don’t like to talk about my feelings.” She talked about getting a promotion for the entirety of 2020. And now, she refuses to even acknowledge her disappointment for losing a promotion.  

She is not the only woman I know who is afraid to show her emotions. Women tell each other not to cry. Men encourage their friends to suppress their emotions. 

I understand their fear.

Expressing your emotions is choosing to be vulnerable in a world that tells you to toughen up, to be invulnerable. 

But I don’t want to march through life stoically, my heart neatly sealed, safe from the joys and sorrows of life.

Do you?

Do me a favor and ask yourself this question. 

What is the most painful emotion you can ever experience? What do you do to avoid that emotion? If you have to sit in a dark room to process that emotion, please do. There are days when you can be strong and days when you won’t be strong. It’s ok not to be strong all the time. It’s ok to cry. 

Women don’t have to be perfect, high-functioning superwomen every day. 

We can be brave. We can admit to the fear, sadness, and pain we all feel. We can be there for each other without judgment.