She’s walking into a bar. All this week, her stress has been building, stacking on top of itself until her chest feels its layered pressure. An exam, a fight with a friend, feeling behind in her classes (how is everyone at this school so f-ing smart?). She steps inside and the world slows down; the walls are closing in. Her chest feels underwater. “Closer” by the Chainsmokers sounds strangely discordant. She cannot catch her breath. She tells her friend she needs air, and on the patio of this popular college bar, her heart races. Her lungs feel on fire. Her hands can’t stop shaking. She cries, only because her friends can’t see her.
It lasts 30 seconds. In another minute, she’s back in the bar. She smiles. “Ready for the next stop?”
What does it mean to be strong? I have a picture in my head. It's Colin Kapernick taking a knee, knowing the damage it’ll do to his NFL career. It's a woman in an all-male meeting responding “I wasn’t finished” when a coworker interrupts her. It's a little boy taking a deep breath, then walking out on stage to sing his solo.
It’s doing the impossible. If you feel fear, it is suppressed—pushed into the bottom of the body, to be used as a pedestal on which your two feet can stand. It is a jumping-off point.
To be happy and reserved is permissible, to be contemplatively disappointed is understandable. To be giddy, heartbroken, devastated, infuriated? That is to be a fool.
Strength doesn’t look like feelings, those sickly responses that tell us something hurts, or something is really good, or something is making us want to punch the damn wall. To be happy and reserved is permissible, to be contemplatively disappointed is understandable. To be giddy, heartbroken, devastated, infuriated? That is to be a fool.
Have you ever noticed how gendered that is? We assume that emotions make us weak… then we associate a certain gender with that exact emotionality. Women have been called “hysterical” since Ancient Greek times. Hippocrates introduced the term as a reason why women were unfit for public life and political participation. After all, “their constant mood swings and erratic behavior… made them incontinent and unable to make rational decisions.”
Ninety percent of those polled by Gallup associated emotionality with women. Three percent associated it with men.
It's not a new idea that we feminize emotions. With intention, we cement the idea that to be emotional is to be feminine, like when we tell a young boy to stop crying, to “be a man.” And as we devalue femininity in our day-to-day lives—when we mark femininity as materialistic, shallow, vapid, subordinate, better-suited-for-the-kitchen—we further push emotionality into the category of inferior. To be emotional, to have feelings, is to be womanly: the most profound insult of them all.
To be strong is to lose out on that promotion, and to walk away mildly downcast.
Strength, then, comes from the absence of emotion. To be strong is to lose out on that promotion, and to walk away mildly downcast. To go through a break-up and scoff, “they didn’t mean anything to me anyway.” To sit at a funeral without tears and hear the whispers within the pews—“wow, they’re so strong.”
I am tired of pretending. I am tired of holding up the weight of an impenetrable shield, of feeling embarrassed when others know I care. I feel.
In the “left-brained macho world” around us, it's easy to understand how “rational” thought has become so idolized. Corporate workplaces highlight the importance of numbers. Analytical and cold, the world around us often seems set on some intangible idea of optimization: how to leverage one’s experiences to gain professional experience; how to increase sales numbers; how to _____. Beginning in the early 20th century, “high class” and “culture” was conflated with “rational thought” and detached intellect. Those from marginalized class, race, and gender identities (see: Black women) have long been stereotyped as “irrational” or “angry,” as a way of justifying their economic and political oppression. We have weaponized emotions to keep others down.
And yet, we all feel.
Seventy-six percent of men know that talking about their emotions is good for their mental health. Yet 58% feel as though they have to avoid showing emotions to “show no weakness.” One in five men feel as though they don’t have anyone to confide in about their emotions.
Why assume these emotions are defects, or symbols of difference; something to hide?
Feeling isn’t a “female” experience. Everyone has the capacity to cry: when we don’t get accepted into the program, when we get cut from the team, when we get rejected by a pretty someone. And everyone loves—everyone’s heart skips a beat when that person walks into the room. Everyone’s day is lifted, brighter, fuller when their friends shoot a smile at them across the hallway, when they walk downstairs and see their roommates laughing about the day, their eyes an invitation to join the conversation. Sitting on the patio, everyone feels the weight lift from their shoulders on a summer evening with their (chosen or blood) family; when the cicadas and damp air seem to soothe the soul. Everyone finds themselves in a crowded bar with red, blue, green lights shouting like a siren, struggling, because the bass vibrations and the alcohol swelling up inside of them is making them feel too much too fast, all at once. Why assume these emotions are defects, or symbols of difference; something to hide?
But more importantly, if we want to keep associating feelings with femininity, we must understand that being feminine is okay. Femininity is not an insult. If to be feminine is to love deeply, to care about the world around us unbridled so our experiences may feel important, isn’t that a positive? We must erase the idea that femininity equates to docility, subordination, and inferiority. Because to associate womanhood with those traits, and then add emotions into the mix? It makes us think that to feel—to be vulnerable—is a detriment, when in reality, it’s what makes life worth living.
"Vulnerability is hard, and it's scary, and it feels dangerous, but it's not as hard, scary or dangerous as getting to the end of our lives and having to ask ourselves, 'What if I would've shown up?' 'What if I would've said, I love you?' " - Brene Brown
This Women’s History Month, I challenge us to give ourselves permission to feel. I challenge us to encourage feelings, to not get anxious over having emotions. After all, wouldn’t you rather feel everything and risk hurting, instead of being numb? Vulnerability is terrifying, but it doesn’t have to be. Acknowledge that you are brave to cry, to hurt, to panic, and then dust yourself off and continue on. It doesn’t make you any ‘weaker’ than your peers—it makes you human.
