I'm Getting Emotional

There was this interesting Deep Space Nine episode years ago that had a wandering group of refugees visiting the station.  The group were farmers looking for a new planet to settle. What set them apart was that they were a matriarchal society. Yes, an oddity, a society in which women were in all the positions of power.

When Major Kira  asked their leader why women were in charge and not men she answered, with a laugh, “oh, my dear! Men are far too emotional to be in charge.”

My guess is that Kira thought to herself “Ain't that the truth!” Of course in her universe as well as ours, it's the reverse. Men are in all the positions of power. Oh, there may be a handful of congresswomen, etc. but it's mainly men.

The problem is—men may indeed be too emotional.  Of course, right now you're saying to your computer screen (you realize you're talking to yourself, right?) “But Jay, didn't Barbara Jordan once say, authoritatively, that all men had their emotions surgically removed at birth?” or something like that.

Yes she did (sort of), and I think women, and perhaps society, have accepted that belief. The thing is that it's wrong. They accept this belief because it's women who have been allowed to establish the definition of emotion and love for the past four or five decades.

The evidence isn't there though.

For example, look at the thousands of male fans at a football game (male/female ratio about 100/1). 

They have their faces painted, thumping their chests, screaming at the top of their lungs all for the love of their team. That's not emotion?

Crimes of passion.  You know, something like a lover discovers his beloved with another man and kills him (often the woman too). That's not emotion? Of course it is! And sadly, it's mainly men who do it. Um, what I mean is that it's sad that they resort to violence, not sad that it's not more women.

And nine times out of ten that person honking at you and giving you the finger while passing you on the road during rush hour is male.  That's right, that emotion on the road is rage. A very powerful and overwhelming emotion. Mostly male.

So by now you may be picking up on a trend.  These emotions I've been mentioning are rather, um, violent. They are emotions though.  Women choose to ignore them because they define emotions as less violent. Caring, compassion, love and kindness are the emotions that women respect and believe in and have convinced society are the only true emotions. 

Men have these, but are better known for shouting at the ref then for picking up that turtle and moving it off the road.  Because of this, men get saddled with the stereotype of being emotionless.

Women don't help the situation either. Not just in that they are allowed to define the parameters of emotions, but also they have the habit of stating that men who do show emotions (the emotions they accept) are weaklings.  Oddly, they declare this shortly after telling their girlfriends how they wish their man would open up more.

That's right, no matter the emotion we men show, women will have some objection to it.  Yell at the TV because your team just fumbled and she'll say you are too impulsive or excessive.  Drop a few tears and your a pansy boy.

Sheesh.

So it's time we changed things and admit that men are way more emotional then women.  If that happens we men might also agree to let more women into positions of power. In fact, we'd probably welcome this because then more of us could just stay home and watch sports on TV.

Wow.  I'm about to get emotional about that thought. 

  (for more pictures to get emotional about go to http://www.scavengeinc.com/p-951-sexy-referee-costume.aspx)