I have never understood why women are thought to be “the emotional sex.” As far back as I can remember I have encountered emotional men; indeed, I have met more emotional men than emotional women. My father could not control his nerves while watching our national sports heroes on television (which made watching hardly bearable); my uncle immediately got damp eyes on hearing the first note of the Dutch national anthem; a friend would lock himself in his room for days when angry; a teacher at school once got so furious that he dragged a pupil out of the class room and hung him up by his clothes on a coat-hook; one of the male managers at our institute was only able to prevent having a nervous breakdown by rigidly trying to exercise total control over his environment; and a male colleague's constant embarrassment in public situations forced him to avoid such settings altogether. I submit that these men are not simply exceptions that confirm the rule; nor are they just extraordinary cases who happened to be part of my personal environment. Emotional behavior on the part of men is simply not that uncommon.

I can hear you asking, “but what about the women?” Of course, I could easily add observations about the emotional behavior of women. However, my point is simply to demonstrate that the notion that women are considered to be the emotional sex, whereas men are not, is not self-evidently true. Stephanie Shields was one of the first authors to put this issue on the research agenda of psychologists.