Who is Emotionally Smarter Sex, Men or Women?
February 10, 2008
Are Women Emotionally Smarter Than Men?
Men are reasonable! Women are emotional! In the intellectual arena, men and women have gained equality, but in the field of emotional intelligence, there still seems to be a conflict. The question is: Who is the emotionally smarter sex, men or women?
Often, women are accused of being too emotional and men of not being emotional enough. Yet, at times, the opposite is true: women can be insensitive and men can be hypersensitive. In the day-to-day reality of our lives, what we have all experienced is that both genders struggle with emotional matters. Although we are a highly evolved society that excels in technology and the sciences, in the domain of emotions, we are painfully under-educated.
Women may be more vocal and expressive about their feelings, but that doesn’t mean that they understand and manage their feelings more skillfully than men do. Men may be more selective in their attentiveness to or expression of their feelings, but that doesn’t mean they are deprived of having emotional experiences. Men and women have an equal capacity to feel; they are just using this function differently. With the help of societal conditioning, men may feel more freedom to express emotions that relate to their favorite sports teams and the ups and downs of their stock investments, while women feel greater permission to express emotions that relate to their children, lovers and friends. Yet - beyond all psychological conditioning and gender reinforcements - the emotional reality is the both sexes possess feelings about the full range of life’s experiences.
The problem we experience with understanding and managing emotions is not in our capacity to feel - whether we feel “too much” or “too little” - but rather how we relate to our feelings. Many of us are confused about our emotions. Society teaches us to value our intellect and ignore our feelings, yet everything we do in life is measured on a “feeling” scale; we organize our lives, educate our minds, and train our bodies so that we can feel a certain way. In order to become emotionally smarter, we need to change the way we view our emotions.
Emotions are messengers that continuously provide us with information about how we’re involved in specific situations, especially situations that matter to us. If we were indifferent, we would have no emotional reaction at all. So, emotions give us the information, and then WE decide what to do with that information. Regardless of our gender, we choose our attitude or behavior according to our preferences, the same way we choose what type of food to eat or music to listen to. For the most part, we make our choices based upon our own uniqueness and not according to our gender.
Therefore, the important question is not “Who is smarter?” but rather, how can we – both men and women - become more emotionally integrated and mature? How can we cultivate the emotional wisdom that will allow us to live more enjoyable, fulfilling, and rewarding lives?Emotional intelligence, like cognitive intelligence, helps us understand who we are and how we relate to our environment. Thoughts help us understand what we’re dealing with; emotions help us understand how. We need thinking AND feeling to fully understand and express our humanness. So instead of intensifying our differences, let’s can embrace them. Instead of competing with each other, let’s learn how to understand each other better.And let’s take the first step by coming to understand ourselves and our own emotions more fully than ever before. To learn more about how to be the master of your emotions, I invite you to read my book Emotions Simplified or attend one of my life-changing workshops.
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