One quality often associated with being feminine is being too “emotional”. Firstly, this association suggests that emotions are something unique to women, or at least women are more sensitive. Secondly, this implies that being emotional is a bad thing. Society values people who don’t express or show their emotions easily –those who are perceived as being stoic. Typical examples are masculine movie characters, such as James Bond. This association has also become a common conscious or unconscious excuse for not promoting women to leadership positions. “She is just too emotional to be a leader.”
It hurts both genders. The gender role that society has most often assigned to men is to be masculine, to be always in control with no space for vulnerability. On one hand, it’s unhealthy to keep all emotions to themselves. Suppressed emotions brew inside and over time grow into tumors. We call for normalizing emotional expressions so that men have space to let out their joy and frustration. Moreover, lacking experience in emotional communication might hinder the development of more well-rounded leadership. While the cultural norm seems to require strong and intelligent leaders who always know what to do, in reality, leaders rely on the ability to connect with others to move forward. Even in romantic relationships, as Jodie Foster once put it*, men with vulnerability stand out. In other words, embracing femininity - embracing emotions and vulnerabilities - means better mental health outcomes, better leadership, and higher attractiveness to women.
Yesterday, we, the class of 2022, graduated. We celebrate the success of the whole class and are also excited that women won all 5 personal awards. While we recognize the unique advantage in femininity that women have, both genetically or socially nurtured, we also ought to be aware of the traps that are around the corner. Emotional labor* is a serious issue and we do it for free all the time. The woman's gender role to be always caring and loving is making us obsess over our need to please others. And we feel bad when we don’t. This common guilt can be used to manipulate us in all sorts of relationships, in and out of the workplace.
While we celebrate the accomplishments of the bright women in our school, according to historical pattern, in a few years, a large number of female graduates will quit the workforce and become stay-at-home moms. It is definitely noble and incredibly valuable to bear the responsibilities of home and family, and individuals create personal value in different ways. However, we are hoping for a shift to an equal ratio in taking care of family responsibilities. We are calling for a culture that supports men in being vulnerable and accepts them unconditionally when they choose to stay home, and we want a culture in which women opt to prioritize family out of their own will instead of under societal pressure.
We are stepping into the real world today. The microaggressions we experience in a class might turn into hepeating* in work meetings, boys club after-work hangouts, the skewed gender ratio in upper-level leadership teams, unfair family chore allocations, etc. But here we Kellogg graduates come. We will bring our knowledge and concerns about gender equity to wherever we go and make the change - high impact, low ego, we are the Kellogg brave leaders, right?
Written by: Cen Chen
*Jodie Foster Interview (3'45''): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBF47Kc03ks
*Hepeating: https://mashable.com/article/hepeating-term-women-workplace
*Women Aren't Nags—We're Just Fed Up
Emotional labor is the unpaid job men still don't understand. https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a12063822/emotional-labor-gender-equality/
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