Losing It: How Men and Women Differ in Expressing Anger

Written by Tabby Biddle

It has both bothered and perplexed me to see my husband, who I think is the most loving and gentle man on earth, publicly get righteous with the security person at the airport who refuses to let him on with his carry-on bag because they “changed their carry-on dimensions.” Or get pissed off at the computer store sales clerk who decides he forgot to mention a $75 charge for removing a hard drive.  There have not been many of these incidents, but enough to rattle my world and wonder how the same man who loves and cares for me so tenderly can have such a “beef” with other people.

How do I handle and is it okay when he gets mad at people who he believes are incompetent or liars?

Right now I am reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s new book “Committed” – her follow-up to her ever-popular “Eat, Pray, Love.” “Committed” is about Elizabeth’s journey through her questions about marriage, peppered with historical, cultural and philosophical perspectives on marriage from around the world.

To be honest, I wasn’t that taken with the book until about two-thirds the way through where she caught me with an AHA moment.

In reference to her soon-to-be husband, Elizabeth says, “Felipe has the bad habit of sometimes snapping impatiently at people he feels are either behaving poorly or interfering somehow with the quality of his life. This happens rarely, but I wish would happen never.”

I have been married now for eight months and while everything about marriage is actually way better than I ever imagined, this one area of my husband getting angry at outside people has not settled with me completely.

But why?

In Elizabeth’s case, she explains that whenever she sees Felipe “fly off the handle” in public it messes around with her cherished personal narrative about what a gentle and tender-hearted guy she has chosen to love. And it is this messing around that, as she puts it: “frankly, pisses me off more than anything else.”

In my case, I think there is definitely an element of that and also frankly, a fear of my own anger. Let’s face it … if a woman vents her anger in public, she is usually classified as “crazy” or “a bitch.” I don’t really want to be called either of those things, and I would fancy a guess that there are a good number of other women who feel the same way.

As a result, women generally tend to vent less than men in public, and internalize the anger instead.

“While he [Felipe] expresses zero tolerance towards idiots and incompetence, I think that behind every incompetent idiot there lies a really sweet person having a bad day,” says Elizabeth.

I would say that this is also an element to my equation. Researchers have shown that females have a brain that is more oriented toward interconnectedness, global thinking, and as a result, more compassion. But I wonder, does this compassionate view sometimes keep us from speaking up for ourselves?

In a conversation on this topic, my husband wondered if women also forgo the rightness or wrongness of a situation (the morality, let’s say) because they don’t want to take the heat of looking bad. “A woman might want to save face instead of admitting that someone else did something wrong,” he says.

If someone does something “wrong” to him like try to overcharge him, he’ll write the CEO of the company. He doesn’t care about being nice. In other words, he’s not worried about the CEO being upset with him.

Maybe we can learn from each other, my husband and I.

Maybe he could gain some compassion for those he is considering “idiots” and let go of some self-inflicted stress. And maybe I could gain some chutzpah and let go of the fear of speaking up for myself.

(Actually, I am learning already because I recently wrote my first CEO letter to a company that had crossed some professional boundaries, and … IT WORKED!)

When it comes to anger, I’m learning there is a difference between losing it and using it.

What do you think?

*****************************************************************

Tabby Biddle, M.S. Ed. is a writer and editor specializing in health and wellness, women’s issues, social change, personal growth and empowerment. Her work has been featured by The Huffington Post, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, LonelyPlanet.tv and other popular media sites. She lives in Santa Monica, CA with her husband.

Join Our Mailing List

Why Do Women Feel They Need Permission?

My husband is often surprised to learn that when I seem (to him) to make a decision, I haven’t really made it at all. “Haven’t you already decided to do that?” he asks. Coming from a male viewpoint, my husband can’t quite understand why I need to discuss the same thing multiple times and have it reflected back to me and affirmed by multiple girlfriends before I actually DO what I say I am going to do.

To tell you the truth, I wasn’t even fully aware that I do this until he pointed it out to me. “What is this about?” I wondered. Could it be my Libra Moon sign that leads me to seek social approval before making a decision? Could it be a simple personality trait of wanting to make sure that I understand every angle before proceeding? Or could it actually be a lack of self-esteem?

Luckily, I happened upon a book that is helping me answer some of these questions. “The Female Brain,” written by neurobiologist and psychiatrist Louann Brizendine of the University of California, looks at the distinct female biology and provides neurological explanations of how and why we as women show up in the world the way we do.

As many of us know, studies in physiology have proven that the female brain is different from the male brain on some very basic levels. First off, compared to the male brain, the female brain has a larger communication center.  Secondly, the female brain has a larger area for processing emotion and reading social cues. Males, by contrast, have two and half more times the brain space devoted to sexual drive than females AND they have larger brain centers for action and aggression!  If biology translates into personality, one could argue that there is a strong foundation for females and males to behave differently from one another.

In looking at females and males from a young age, a study at the University of Texas observed how one-year old girls and boys differed in the way they read and responded to social cues.  A child and mother were brought into a room, left alone together, and instructed not to touch an object. The mother stood off to the side. The study showed very few of the girls touching the forbidden object, even though their mothers never explicitly told them not to. The girls looked back at their mothers’ faces 10 to 20 times more than did the boys, checking for signs of approval or disapproval. The boys, by contrast, moved around the room and rarely glanced at their mothers’ faces. They frequently touched the forbidden object even though their mothers shouted, “No!”

I found this study hysterical. Although it was done on one-year-old children, could it explain why my husband goes ahead and does what he says without much rumination and why I seek out approval and in a way “permission” before I move ahead in business and in my personal life?

Examining the roots of female brain development, Dr. Brizendine revealed more telling information. She says, “Baby girls are born interested in emotional expression. They take meaning about themselves from a look, a touch, every reaction from the people they come into contact with. From these cues they decide whether they are worthy, loveable or annoying.”

Wow!  Double Wow!

She goes on to explain, “Whether or not she is being listened to will tell a young girl if others take her seriously, which in turn goes to the growth of her sense of a successful self. If she does not connect, her sense is of an UNSUCCESSFUL self.”

Aha! This struck a distinct chord with me. I know that when I am listened to attentively, I feel much more alive, empowered and self-confident. If a young girl’s brain searches for validation through external cues, then it makes sense that the mature female brain might seek the same external validation.

So I wonder…is it possible that if we are aware of our distinct female biology and neurological need to seek social approval, we can actually move beyond it? Or is this consensus building form of decision-making just a part of being female and in some way beneficial in some grander global way?

What do you think?

************************************************************************

Tabby Biddle is a writer and editor specializing in helping women entrepreneurs and emerging authors get their message out. Additionally she is the founder of Lotus Blossom Style, a yoga lifestyle company created to support women in their personal transformation. She lives in Santa Monica, CA.