This award goes to Harvard Psychology Prof. Daniel Gilbert, for casually bringing up studies which suggest that the different "emotional" experiences of men and women are socially constructed. In his book 'Stumbling on Happiness,' a birthday gift I only just got around to reading, Prof. Gilbert takes aim at the ideas that men are less emotional than women, that men and women experience different emotions, and that we wimmenfolk get weepy because of that whole bleeding thing. (See the paperback, 228-29.)

First, he points out that when men and women are asked to recall emotional experiences a month prior, and they are not prompted about gender, they recall equally intense reactions. If they are asked to think about gender, women report higher-intensity feelings, and men report lower-intensity feelings.

Second, there was a study where male and female volunteers played a competitive game. Those who reported their emotions immediately after playing the game expressed the same kinds of emotions, regardless of gender. Those who reported their emotions a week later tended to report more stereotypically feminine emotions if they were female (he cites sympathy and guilt) and more stereotypically masculine emotions if they were male (he mentions anger and pride.)

Third, female students who kept a diary of their feelings throughout the menstrual cycle were shown not to vary throughout the cycle, although when asked to look back on their periods, they remembered more intense emotions.

So, a big feminist thank-you to Prof. Gilbert, for slipping in a bit of gender-essentialist debunking in a book that has to do with happiness, our predictive powers, and the human mind. It is a nice antidote to all this female brain nonsense. (I'm looking at you, Dr. Brinzedine.)

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September 26, 2008 12:30 PM

[0+|0-]  gomillis said:

Yay! I second this thank you, although I have not read this book (yet). Dan Gilbert was my undergraduate mentor's mentor, and she always had wonderful things to say about him. So apparently in addition to being a good feminist professionally, he is also one personally.

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September 26, 2008 3:57 PM

[0+|0-]  LittlePunk said:

Haha, he was actually one of my professors. He's fantastic, I loved his lectures. So I third the thank you :D

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