Turns Out Angry Men Get Rewarded While Angry Women Get Punished
Regardless of all the other ridiculous and disappointing shit that happened during this past election, one that may have particularly pissed you off was that men seemed to critique the fact that Hillary Clinton wasn’t always as pepped up as a cheerleader.
Hillary-haters bashed her tone of voice, her smile, or simply the fact that she was talking about things that got her riled up (and not in a “sexy” way).
But Hillary was pissed off, just like you are pissed off now, and just like all women have probably been pissed off at some point or another. But do you ever feel like women get chastised for being pissed off whereas men get commended for “speaking up?”
Well, you’d be right. A recent study found that women’s anger worked against them whereas men’s anger helped them be “powerful” and “persuasive.” Cool.
The study, conduced at Arizona State University and the University of Illinois, took place in a scripted “jury” chat room in which four “jurors” would agree with the participant and one juror would not. This juror was called “the holdout juror.” In some cases it was a woman and in some cases it was a man, but both used the exact same language.
When the man was perceived as emotional, he was considered more credible for getting angry. But when the woman was perceived as emotional, participants became more sure of their own opinion, even if they considered the woman credible. As the researchers put it: “When a woman expresses anger, this does not just make her seem less credible, but seems to make assessing her credibility irrelevant.”
Basically, a man can say the exact same shit as a woman does and can seem credible, whereas women seem angry and emotional. Because this was done via a chat room, there was no voice-inflection, facial expressions, etc that could’ve swayed the participant’s opinion, it all boiled down to a masculine vs. feminine name. Nice.
But does this mean that we should stop showing our opinions and be “quiet” and “ladylike” just like white men want us to be? Fuck no.
Keep getting angry, keep using your voice, and keep calling people out–whether it’s your local fuckboy or your congressman–on their bull shit.
Sure, we may get called “feminazis” or “emotional,” but would you rather sit in the corner quiet with a smaller salary, fewer rights, whatever other bullshit women are constantly dealt? No thank you.
