"Gender Display Rules"
I have just learned about how display rules differ between man and woman and it made me think about several things. Display rules may cause not only facial differences, but long term inequalities as well. Men must bottle up their negative emotions because society does not allow them to express themselves the way women can. Who is to say what man and woman can express and cannot?
It has been said that women live longer because they shed tears more than men do. Could the extra stress brought on by suppressing emotions cause the duration of life to become shorter? Today's woman has a life expectancy that is longer than the average mans.
What other differences could be caused by the suppression of emotions? Could hereditary baldness not be entirely genetic? Perhaps baldness could be partly due to long-term stress and partly due to emotional outbursts of pulling out hair while yelling "Why does she stress me out so."
Stress is a common illness in today's society, but the suppression of emotion is not the only cause. In prehistoric times, much of life was simple. And even then, man would not cry at something unimportant, but man would yell meaningless sounds into the air when he became angry. Much like today, man had to keep emotions held in control unless they were masculine.
Based On:
Wade and Travris, Psychology, 5th Edition, New York: Longman, 1998.
