Are Men Less Emotional? Neuroscience Says No

So there’s this idea that women are the ones with all the feelings, not men.

Women cry. Men fix.
Women feel. Men think.
Women are emotional and expressive. Men are logical and stoic.

And this belief plays havoc in relationships.

Some men blame half the problems in their relationship on their partner’s feelings. She’s happy; she’s sad. She’s excited; she’s down. So many feelings! He doesn’t know what to do with them. He wish she would just stop.

Ringing any bells?

And women, on the other hand, wish men would have more feelings.

They want to know how their guy feels. They know he feels something. They can see it in the way he holds his shoulders, the tenseness in his mouth, but he just won’t tell them. They feel shut out and denied of the opportunity to support him.

So feelings are a huge source of conflict in relationships… but they don’t have to be.

Because it’s our stereotypes that are the problem, not what we’re feeling.

The Truth About Feelings

Here’s the truth. Men have lots and LOTS of feelings—they just don’t acknowledge it.

Anger is a feeling. Frustration is a feeling. Boredom is a feeling.

Excitement, craving, pleasure, contentment… all feelings!

Men are swamped in feelings every day. In fact, research suggests that little boys feel more deeply than little girls. (“Triggering feelings” can be a powerful method to bring a distant man back.)

And when we understand the science of feelings, we can see why.

Feelings are not a female thing. They’re a human body thing.

They’re a technology designed for survival—and the more danger you’re in, the more you need them.

Why We Have Feelings

The latest science of feelings has completely overturned how we thought feelings worked.

I came of age in an era where we thought there were primary and secondary emotions that corresponded to certain facial expressions and existed as physiological states in the body. Nonsense!

The queen of emotions research is Lisa Feldman Barrett, and I’m going to butcher her work right now, so sorry, Lisa!

She argues that emotions are our body’s predictions.

Our body gathers in all this data from the environment, and before this data even reaches our conscious mind, the body makes a prediction about what response is needed. That prediction is your feeling.

Feelings motivate you to respond instantly, without having to think.

Let me say that again:

Feelings are how your body motivates you to respond instantly to your environment.

That’s why you feel fear the instant before you see a snake. Your brain hasn’t had time to process the danger, but your body knows. It’s assessed danger, produced fear, and that fear has made you freeze—before your mind has had a chance to catch up.

So your feelings are a message from your body, indicating how it wants you to respond to a situation—often before you’ve even had the chance to think.

Can you see why we need them? We’d be dead without feelings!

Why Men Don’t Like to Feel

But some men have a huge prejudice against feelings—not because their bodies work differently to female bodies, but rather because of culture.

Culture is the reason some men like to think they don’t have feelings.

Culture is the reason one gender can express certain feelings while the other can’t.

Men think women are allowed to express their feelings while men aren’t, but that’s not true. Women have to suppress their feelings all the time: they can’t be angry, can’t feel resentful, can’t show emotions at work any more than men.

We all suppress feelings we don’t feel we’re allowed to have.

And when we suppress them, that doesn’t mean we stop feeling—it means we push those feelings down beneath conscious awareness.

Someone who thinks they’re going through life logically and rationally is responding emotionally all the time; they’re just not self-aware enough to realize it.

How many of you have noticed that women can often be better at reacting calmly and rationally while the men get angry, frustrated, and aggressive?

Yet those men will think they’re behaving rationally—because they can’t see their own big emotions.

Talk About It

So it’s time to talk about feelings in your relationship.

Start with the assumption that feelings are already running the show in your relationship, so it’s better to be honest about them rather than pretend they’re not there.

Ask each other these questions:

• What feelings do you think I show most often?
• Are there any you wish I showed more?
• Are there any you wish I showed less?
• Do you ever hold back your feelings with me? Why?
• Are there emotions you think are more acceptable for men than women… and vice versa?
• Do you ever worry I’ll judge you for feeling what you feel?

These questions might open up something new.

Because feelings aren’t the problem. Pretending we don’t have them is.