September 4, 2013 • 34 mins
Anger is complex emotion, especially when gender gets involved. Caroline and Cristen explore how men and women experience and express anger differently and how to manage anger when it naturally arises.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from housetop works
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
and I'm Kristin Kristen. I was talking to a group
of young women are our age, young ladies who were
discussing the topic of anger, women in anger, and we
(00:25):
we sort of got on the topic because one one
of the women was saying, you know, I've just been
feeling so angry lately, and not at a person or
at a thing, or just with road rage, but just
sort of bubbling over with anger in general. Does anyone
else feel this way? And how can I combat it?
And I came back with, you know, hey, lady, I
(00:47):
actually feel the same way. And I didn't really want
to talk about it because, you know, nobody wants to
seem like a negative Nancy. Nobody wants to come off
as some really negative, angry person, especially with all of
the different types of research that have been done on
how women are perceived when they're angry versus men. You
could do, you could get into a whole thing with it,
which we will. But so I thought it would be
(01:10):
a great topic to look into. But as I was
doing some research as Christian and I were researching, we
really did not find anything that jumped out at us
as far as a trend piece or anything about women
in our generation experiencing more anger, less anger, different anger
(01:31):
than women in the past have. Right, there's some scientific
research that will get into into the biological sex differences
and some socialization factors that get into that, um, but
there wasn't that much digging into culturally this idea of
the angry woman, and especially how you know, if you
(01:52):
think about um, in feminist circles, how often are women
liberal women criticize this angryef eminence and it's such a
bad thing if we're angry. And then there's also the
tripe going beyond all of this, of say the angry
black woman, where it's like, oh, be careful not to
rile her because you'll just spiral right out of control. Um,
(02:13):
So let's let's get into this anger and maybe circle
back to anger in adult women. Because yeah, similar to you, Caroline,
I was really surprised at the gap of where are
the angry women and we just not want to talk
about it. Yeah, well, I mean I am surprised just
because I feel like there are a lot of things
(02:35):
today with our generation and where we are as far
as in the workplace and trying to I mean, how
many articles have been written about women trying to balance
everything in their lives, but where are the articles about
like how that actually can make us feel. Yeah, so
let's start from a very basic point of what is anger?
(02:56):
I mean, I think everybody knows the feeling of anger
and the effects of anger, but scientifically speaking, anger is
an emotional state that consists of feelings of irritation, annoyance, fury,
or rage, and heightened activation or arousal of the autonomic
nervous system. Right, so where does anger come from? When
(03:17):
does it jump up in our system? Usually anger results
either from violations of expectations that we have or blocking
our goals, and it sparks in the brain so quickly
it takes the brain lesten too seconds to process anger.
And it activates the amygdala, the frontal lobe, which is
(03:39):
our seat of reasoning, our fight or flight response. And
and thankfully there's a hormone called a set of coline
that once our anger starts to ebb, it brings us
back down from the edge of the cliff. Oh and
even just thinking about that physiological feeling of anger is
making me tense. Well, I wonder if that's what's going
(03:59):
on when I'm in traffic. I've been doing so ever
since I got back from vacation, I have been trying
to do some deep breathing in traffic, like anytime anyone
cuts me off, because hello, it's Atlanta, So it happens
every two seconds. Um, I try to take that deep breath,
and I feel that immediate calming sensation. So I wonder
if that's the hormone or if that's just me taking
a breath, or maybe just a combination of both. Um,
(04:23):
And I mean the thing. I don't know about you,
but for me, anger is sort of a frightening emotional
reaction because it feels so uncontrollable. And maybe it's because
it's considered a primitive human reaction, right. Rich pifer Is,
the president of the National Anger Management Association, wrote that
(04:43):
anger activates the primitive human brain, referred to as the
limbic system, which is automatic and impulsive. And this is
going off of something that T. D. Kemper wrote in seven,
basically saying that anger has actual evolutionary value. It's been
with us forever, present in our early life as children.
It has cross cultural universality and has differentiated autonomic patterns
(05:07):
in our brains from other emotions. Yeah, it's so very
distinct and so very common. Some surveys find that Americans
report feeling anger one to two days per week. But
I mean there are also some sites that say that
up to a third of us, I think, report feeling
angry every single day. I have those weeks, Yeah, it happens.
(05:29):
Sometimes those are not good weeks. No, not good weeks.
That's when you bring out the box of wine. But
the interesting thing about anger too, when you think about
from an emotional standpoint, is that it's a very social emotion.
A lot of times, if you're just sitting in a
room by yourself, you know, not on the internet, just
just hanging out, anger is not going to be all
(05:50):
of that present. Probably it's usually when other people get
involved that anger tends to spark more often. Right. Scott Scheiman,
who is from the univer City of Toronto and wrote
the anger chapter in the Handbook of the Sociology of Emotions,
which I would love to go back and read about
the other emotions, uh talks about the fact that common
(06:10):
elicitors of anger include perceived or actual insult, injustice, betrayal,
in equity, unfairness, goal impediments, the incompetent actions of another
which is pretty much why I'm angry all the time,
um and being the target of another person's verbal or
physical aggression. And the big reason for anger is actions
(06:33):
that threaten an individual's self concept, identity, or public image.
So again we see those common themes coming up over
and over again of expectations being violated, control factors, other
people coming in the way of what we need to
get done. And so no wonder anger arises quite often
(06:56):
at the workplace as a result of mary Ridge relationships, parenting,
and so forth. Whenever you're getting all those people in
a room together, I'm going to get angry, right, And
I mean that's not even mentioning or going into like
the gender and power divides yet. I mean, of you know,
all of those multifacined aspects of the workplace, of marriage, relationships.
(07:21):
But you know, well, anger can be definitely negative because
you know, excessive anger does affect your mental and physical health.
There are positive aspects of it, I mean, to a degree.
It can help motivate you. Sure, I mean, when you
feel so angry it can push you forward to finding
a solution, right exactly. That's actually, I mean, anger is
(07:44):
sort of kind of what drove me to leave my
newspaper job. I mean, you know, I just got I
just got one more email. I just got one more
terrible office space kind of email, and then I was done. Well. Also,
I mean so in addition to motivating you to possibly
improve your situation, anger can also increase your sense of control.
(08:06):
I mean, how many times have you experienced, maybe not
like super excessive negative anger, but like a degree of
anger that makes you think, you know what, I'm going
to do something about this today. Then that is very positive. Yeah.
I remember distinctly when I was probably sixteen seventeen years
old in high school and the first time that I
got mad at my parents. I mean, granted it was this,
(08:27):
you know, kind of a teen rebellion acting out sort
of thing, but I got angry, and I got loud,
and I felt that sense of control for the first
time of saying, oh I own this room now, and
I'm being very angry, okay, And it was I'm sure
it was a nightmare for my parents at the time,
but yeah, there was that distinct feeling of like, now
(08:50):
I'm gonna I'm gonna do this well, But that is
a feeling I think that maybe you know, we're about
to get into gender issues here. That feeling of like
taking control, I think is what a lot of women
feel uncomfortable with. Absolutely. Um, it's interesting when you look
at how common anger might be between men and women.
(09:13):
It's not so different. It's not that men are angrier
than women or vice versa. The difference between anger and
men and women really comes down to the way that
we experience it. So our gender, our sex affects how
we perceive anger, ours and others, whether it's positive or negative,
(09:34):
but also how we express it. Now. Stereotypes that were
all very familiar with about emotions say that women have
less self control with emotions, whereas men are more buttoned up.
You know, women were always like weeping and asking for
chocolate and crying on our best friend's shoulder, and men,
you know, they man up in they're they're all tough.
(09:54):
But Shiman, who we mentioned earlier, says that anger might
be the exception to that emotion stereotype. It's definitely considered
a male masculine emotion, and so perhaps men are more
comfortable with expressing anger, and there are often these gender
scripts that helped shape emotional regulation, and that women are
(10:15):
expected to not show their anger or else risk being
labeled as hostile, neurotic, or unladylike, whereas men and boys
are expected to be overt. No, you know, that's my
impression of an angry man. You didn't get it, um.
And there are some interesting studies that have been done
looking at how we perceive the an angry emotion on
(10:39):
someone's face, and and there was one that showed people
just androgynous faces, not particularly masculine or feminine, and people
rated those faces that had angry expressions on them as
masculine and those depicting sadness or happiness as feminine. And
so no wonder, Caroline. Feminists are so often labeled as
(11:01):
just angry as an insult because our outright expression of
anger is a direct violation of gender norms. Interesting, it's
daring to be angry. Yeah, exactly, just like you did. No,
I know, well, that's kind of the bad side of anger.
And I mean, I'm sure whatever I was arguing, I
don't even remember what I was arguing with my parents about.
(11:23):
But I'm sure it was something along the lines of
me wanting to stay out later than I should have. Well,
darnet dad gummant dad gummint um. Well, so, I mean,
we have these gender stereotypes, but it's not like we
don't act according to them. Men do tend to be
aggressive and impulsive, and Dr Raymond Giuseppi found that men
(11:45):
actually had more of a revenge motive to their anger,
so they're they're pretty driven in their anger, whereas when
women are angry, we talk more about our feelings and
stay angry longer. We are more resentful and more likely
to just write off another person because they've made us mad. Yeah,
And when I read that, it totally resonated with me,
because you know, I've seen this happen. I may or
(12:07):
may not have been guilty of at least making that
threat in anger of like, well, you know, you'll just
be gone. I just don't have to deal with you anymore.
And in my mind, that kind of anger of just
eliminating a person writing somebody off to me, that's far
more powerful than throwing a punch or just yelling and
stomping out. I've done it. I wonder if it's because
like We watched so much Oprah where they talk about
(12:29):
toxic people, you know, like cutting toxic people out of
your life. But I've done it. I mean I think, Okay,
have people done it in an overreacting way? Yeah? Probably,
but it does It does feel good when someone's making
you angry and you have that realization of like, oh,
but you make me angry all the time that when
you finally do write that person off, I mean, maybe
(12:52):
you're not as angry anymore. And you know what that
circles back to is increasing that sense of control there
you because you're like, oh wait, I actually don't have
to deal with you. Maybe we should table toxic people
for another one. Not to say that it's always you
know that people are always deserving of being written off
any who. How Um, there was an interesting study though
(13:12):
that was conducted. It was a little bit dated, but
it was one of the first groundbreaking looks at where
women's anger tends to stem from. And it was conducted
by psychologist Sandra Thomas, and she identified three major roots
of women's anger, which speaks volumes about these gender dynamics
(13:34):
because it's powerlessness, injustice and the irresponsibility of other people. Yeah,
so give us equality in the workplace and put your
dishes away. That's right, yeah, But I'm seriously like, I'm
not trying to be glib. When I read irresponsibility of
other people, I was like, I know, right, would people
(13:55):
just clean up after themselves? It would be it would
be nice anyway, So moving on now. There's a study
publishing the journal Aggressive Behavior published in February two thousand
and six that looked at differences in anger provoking behaviors
and verbal insults, and it found that men were more
(14:16):
likely to consider sort of physical things as anger provoking. Uh.
And in the examples given in the study, those were
women exhibiting physical aggression or a man hurting another person um,
whereas women were more likely to mention condescending or insensitive
behaviors regardless of whether it's coming from a man or
(14:36):
a woman, along with verbal aggression as being more anger provoking.
I mean. And of course they also found physical aggression
to trigger the anger, but the verbal stuff and the
more behavioral stuff came into play a lot more for women.
And also for women, one of the big differences was
(14:57):
accusations of promiscuity, whole split shaming. Hey, what's up? Yeah,
no wonder, it makes it makes us angry. Um. Dishonesty
just just dishonesty, plane and simple provoked more anger when
coming from a woman. Huh. Oh lying women, lying women interesting? Um.
(15:18):
One thing you know, we we we talked about gender
divides in the workplace a lot, and you know, anger
is no different. It's something that people experience at work.
Um uh. Studying psychological science from March two thousand eight
found that men benefit straight out benefit from anger at work,
whereas women do not. Um. Men who expressed anger in
(15:40):
a professional context were conferred higher status than men who
expressed sadness. So there we have those gender norms. Anger
is a normal masculine emotion, where a sadness is considered
more feminine. Um. Both men and women conferred lower status
on angry female professionals than male was just totally not
surprising whatsoever, because if you already have a woman in
(16:04):
more of a leadership position, she's already at social risk
from having violated those those forms of climbing up the ladder,
and then to show anger on top of that, well,
she's just going to be considered a shrew. Right. One
thing that I thought was really interesting about this study, though,
was that women's emotional reactions were attributed to internal characteristics
(16:24):
their p m s NG again, whereas men's were attributed
to external circumstances. So obviously, if a woman is expressing
a masculine emotion like anger, you know, she's got to
be like, you know, her her uterus is floating around
her body, whereas men probably have a legitimate reason yeah
you know, the shipment didn't come, that didn't come in
on time or something. But there was an equalizer with
(16:47):
all of this. They found that providing an external attribution
for the person's anger eliminated gender bias. So if you're
able to basically say, oh, okay, well, uh our stock
price plummeted today, so that's why he or she is angry,
then everyone's like okay, right. But yeah, so that I mean,
(17:10):
that is something important to keep in mind, whether you're
a man or a woman. At work, people are making
really big assumptions about you when you act a certain way.
Although I will say, I mean, you know, while this
study says that men benefit from anger at work, I
imagine that's to a point. Sure. I mean, if you're
hitting people and like flipping over desks and creating a
toxic environment. Correct, and then I would just write you off.
(17:32):
That's right, because I'm ruthless. I mean to write you
off in march, straight to the unemployment office. I'll show you. Um.
But let's go back to to this idea that women
might hold in our anger, stay angrier longer even though
we might be quieter, because this might be leading to
a higher rate of internalizing disorders. Right. This is coming
(17:56):
from psychologist Susan Nolan Hoaxima and Geral L. Rusting, who
found that women show higher rates for all mood and
anxiety disorders except importantly enough manic episodes. Uh, and that
includes depression, and they report feeling more shame, sadness, guilt,
and fear, whereas externalizing disorders, things like antisocial personality disorder
(18:22):
and substance use disorders are diagnosed more often in men.
But when it comes to self reporting, women yet again
reported just as much anger and hostility as men. So again,
we're expressing it, we're experiencing it, probably differently, and so
the inconsistency in these findings could be related to the
(18:43):
gender differences that elicit anger and that we're more likely
to feel shame and sadness. Oh man, that's depressing. Yeah,
because I just I feel like it's kind of a
mind field. Not only are we kind of discouraged from
feeling or breast saying anger, but if we do, I
feel like we're more likely to be guilty about it
(19:05):
and and ashamed of our strong masculine emotion. Oh yeah.
If I if I let my temper flare and I
allowed to another person about it, try to put this delicately,
I feel incredibly guilty. It's like it's a cycle. I
can predict it almost down to the minute. Well I can't.
(19:26):
All right, maybe this says something bad about me. I
can't say that when I get actually angry, not just
annoyed or whatever. When I get actually angry, I can't
say that I feel guilty about it. But I do.
It just poisons like the next several hours for me. Right,
I guess it's more. I don't feel guilty about feeling angry.
I feel guilty if I express it to the target
(19:46):
of that anger. Because mavose Caroline can get loud. Yeah,
I'm a yeller. Well, I um just drop a lot
of f bombs, like uncontrollably. Now, I'm like I had
a day a couple last week, a day where I
just seriously, like, let loose a string of F bombs
and I couldn't even control it. Like I couldn't even
(20:09):
It's not like I was making a conscious effort to
say F this and F that and F that guy
and screw this, and no, I was just I think
I don't know how I blacked out for a second.
I came to and I was like, man, I said
a lot of F bombs, but I've got to go
do work now. So well, and then you realize you
were live on television. Oh you've been Ashton Kutcher this
(20:30):
whole time. Uh No, But seriously, a lot of a
lot of this uh This research has been resonating a
lot with my own personal patterns of anger and even
just talking publicly about being angry. I'm not calling myself
an angry person, but even just acknowledging to the world
that I experienced and express anger, sometimes I'm feeling uncomfortable.
(20:52):
Really yeah, yeah, uh, I guess I think that speaks
to our identities are personal, our personal identities, how we
think of ourselves, and also how we want to portray
ourselves to other people. It feels very vulnerable just to
speak honestly about it. But maybe perhaps could it get
(21:15):
better as as we get older. Maybe we're just young
and crazy, and you know, we just fiery women, and
anger will just kind of chill out as we get older. Um. Maybe,
but probably not. Most studies have shown honestly that if
you're a fiery angry twenty something, you're going to be
a fiery angry sixty something. Oh well, and there was
(21:39):
also this I'll be curious here from any listeners to
fit this demo whether this rings true to you. Sandra
Thomas at ut Knoxville to study in January two two,
and she found that women in their forties scored significantly
higher on anger at work than women of other ages.
(22:00):
Their scores were twice as high as men in their forties.
I wonder, though, This is my pet theory, is that
women in their forties, if you have a job, you're
probably also taking care of kids. There's the imbalance a
lot of times of the housework. Yeah, you might, you
might be a bit angrier. Yeah, I absolutely I thought
(22:20):
the same thing when I read that. Um. But as
far as Kristen raising our voices and expressing anger to
other people, you're in the majority. Um they found in
this study. As Thomas found in the study that UM,
there were significant age differences for the propensity to overtly
express anger. Women in their twenties and thirties had the
(22:40):
highest mean score on the total expressed anger scale, leading
Thomas to ask whether we're seeing a weakening of traditional
gender role socialization. So basically, women are becoming more expressive
of anger more often. Yeah, there was speaking of which
of very flimsy daily mail, Yes, the daily Fail story
(23:05):
that we found on how young girls are fighting and
becoming you know, these rambunctious young women, and so we
must be angry and crazy? Now what what what to
do about it? Which I don't even know if it's
worth sighting. Yeah, I just thought it was funny because
in all of this was actual academic research about anger
(23:26):
and how we express that according to our gender norms. Um,
there's like, hey, girls getting bar fights now that means equality,
right or something? Now? Moving on, so how do we
manage all this anger? We we both acknowledge that it
happens to us, cool, it happens to other people, and
it's this fully physical mental process that is natural, stilly natural,
(23:50):
but we need to we need to manage it. How
do we do that right? Well, there are three basic
responses to anger. Those are one expression, everything from having
a nice, calm discussion to blowing up and yelling a
lot of F bombs about something that didn't go your way.
Not that I'm being specific. Suppression, which can be holding
(24:11):
it in, changing your focus, or letting it go. And
you would think that letting it go could be a
good thing, but I would think that this refers to
like if somebody keeps harping on you or infringing on
something and you just continue not to deal with it,
that could be a bad thing. But also let's look
at management. That's the third one, and that is acknowledging
anger as a normal emotion and making choices to improve
(24:32):
your situation, not just dropping f bombs, but actually doing
something about it. Yeah, there's some of the stuff we
read said that venting, like that letting your volcano explode
is actually not the best way to express yourself. So
the Mayo Clinic, for instance, offers a number of suggestions
on healthy anger management, which is as basic as counting
(24:55):
to tend and taking a time out before you react,
um expressing your anger once you're calm, so you're not
being confrontational. Exercise that's something I wholeheartedly believe in. I've
talked before about how yoga essentially keeps me saying along
with jogging um. Also looking for solutions rather than just
(25:15):
looking for a target. Yeah. And one important thing that
I try to remember every time I have I try
to have a productive conversation with my roommate is to
use I statements. Try to avoid criticizing or placing blame um.
And also this is a hard one, I think, but
don't hold a grudge. Try to forgive and learn from
the situation. Also practice relaxation skills things like yoga, help, meditation,
(25:39):
you know, napping, um. But also know when to seek help.
For instance, the whole conversation that started this topic that
we picked. You know, there's a point at which you're
not just kind of going through a funk. Maybe you're
not just annoyed with you know, traffic or work or whatever.
It's it's something that maybe has change changed or something
(26:01):
that has gotten worse over time, and maybe you're just
now noticing it. So you do need to go talk
to someone that's perfectly normal and healthy. Yeah, I think
the point of remembering the anger is a normal human
emotion that has been with us for millennia is really important.
It also you kind of rationalize things maybe right heat
(26:23):
at the moment. And I absolutely think that because when I,
like when I took vacation and I had a minute
to actually think, you know, a minute to actually sit
and drink coffee and think, you know, I did reflect
on the things that had made me angry in my
life and like, Okay, what what's driving this like crazy
town feeling? And what can I do to change that stuff?
(26:44):
You know, not just letting it stew, actually give yourself
a minute to kind of think about why you're having
this reaction and what needs to change. Because the thing
is not managing your anger and just letting it eat
away at you is not good for your health overall.
It's probably not good for your relationships either. But just
(27:06):
physically speaking, a lot of studies have shown how not
managing your anger in a positive way is possibly worse
than the health effects of smoking and obesity. Yeah, we
found a lot of studies from Harvard Um. Most of
them focused on men. So we'll have to you know, hey,
listeners out there who do research could you get on this? Um?
(27:30):
Harvard found that among men with an average age of
sixty two, the angriest were three times more likely to
develop heart disease than the most relaxed. And coming from
John's Hopkins, a study tracked male medical students for thirty
six years and found that anger and young adulthood emerged
as a predictor of premature heart disease. Listen to this.
(27:53):
The angriest students were six times more likely to suffer
heart attacks by fifty five and three times more likely
to develop some type of cardiovascular disease. And so I
can only imagine that the fact that women tend to
stay angrier longer could have equally dire physical consequences as well.
I mean, because think about all those physiological facets of anger,
(28:15):
things like a surge in adrenaline, the stress hormone that
boost blood pressure and pulse rate, increasing the heart's workload
and increasing also its need for oxygen. Anger actually makes
your body work harder, right, It activates platelets, those little
tiny blood cells that trigger blood cloths, and high anger
levels can even provoke a spasm in a coronary artery.
(28:37):
So it's really not a good idea to get angry
and stay angry for a long period of time. Yeah,
there was one study we found from July two thousand
three in Psychosomatic Medicine UM, and it suggested that women's
suppressed anger correlated with cardiovascular and cancer related early mortality,
and so essentially these women were dying sooner maybe possibly
(29:01):
related to not expressing that anger. Yeah, so I don't know, man,
I guess I would sum it up by saying that
you've got to use anger as a catalyst to look
internally at things that maybe aren't going your way and
figure out how you can change them or fix them,
because if you just stay angry, I mean that has
(29:24):
some pretty dire consequences. And also maybe focusing on how
anger can be a positive in those ways that we
noted in terms of being a motivator to find solutions,
a warning that something might be wrong you need to
adjust something in your life, or increasing that sense of control,
and perhaps as women circling back to the beginning of
the conversation with you know, women are age saying like,
(29:45):
you know what, I'm angry and I don't know why,
or you know, feminists who are criticized for being angry
and like the label of anger being sort of dangled
over women's heads of like, oh, you don't want to
come across that way, do you, and maybe saying you
know what, actually, it's totally fine to be angry. Yeah,
there are reasons for it. There are definitely reasons for it.
We're not talking about being irrationally angry, you know, but
(30:08):
sure maybe it should be okay, more okay for women
to get angry sometimes. So curious to hear what folks
have to say about this one. Your thoughts on anger
expressed kindly? Yeah, don't be angry at it? Yeah. Mom
Stuff at Discovery dot com is where you can send
(30:29):
your letters. You can also messages on Facebook or tweet
us at Mom's Stuff podcast. And we've got a couple
of messages to share with you when we come right
back from a quick break and now back to our letters. Okay, well,
I have a letter here from Elizabeth, who wrote to
us about our bachelor party episode. She says, I am
(30:51):
Mormon and so are my friends who are my bridesmaids,
and as such, we had a stone cold, sober night
out on the town in Baltimore. We spent first part
of the day shopping and touring the Inner Harbor, followed
by a delicious dinner and dessert at a downtown restaurant.
The night was finished by going to a dueling piano
bar and enjoying the spectacular musical talents. I had such
(31:12):
a great time with all of my girlfriends and never
once thought I was prude or missing out because I
didn't have penis whistles, binge drink, or watch a male stripper,
et cetera. In fact, I firmly believe I hadn't even
better time because of it. No hangover, less expensive. I
remember all the good times and it felt very classy
and fun. I saw the night as a celebration for
me and the girls of my upcoming nuptials, and as
(31:33):
part of my thank you for all of their hard
work and efforts supporting me along the way. Just food
for thought for other women who were turned off by
the current status quo for bachelorette parties. And then she says,
thanks for the podcast here. You're welcome, and I've been
listening for a couple of years now and always enjoy
that it challenges me to think outside my sometimes narrow
view of the world. And thank you for sharing your
(31:55):
view with us, Elizabeth and I'm going a Facebook message
here from Ana and she was writing about our episode
on office romances, and she has an interesting story to share.
She says, I currently work in a male dominated work
environment of brewing, and I am dating my boss. She said,
(32:16):
when I was going through this, I was extremely happy
in my job and extremely attracted to my boss. I
didn't want to lose my job, blues space, or mess
up the women in brewing image. I needed guidance. I
really couldn't find any that suggested that the scenario might
work out. Ultimately, against the advice of almost everyone I knew,
I decided to trust myself, and so did he. I
(32:36):
agree with Caroline that working your way to the top
using sexuality is despicable. I think these days character determines
the existence of abuse, exploitation, and inequity in the workplace
dating dynamic. I don't think the formula male manager plus
female subordinate necessarily equates to those things. Once my manager
and I decided that we were falling in rub we
(32:57):
told the CEO and HR. The response was, Okay, we'll
make this work. We signed one of those cupid type
contracts and have moved forward. It's been a year now,
we live together and I can still work with him
as my manager. I think that the CEO's judgment was
based on this thought that we were good people with integrity.
Maybe if we were unscrupulous people, he would not have
(33:18):
trusted us to engage in what it's now pretty much
against company policy. But the relationship was never casual, so
perhaps there was inherent respect to rely on. I suppose
that if it was merely dating, I wouldn't have trusted
him as much. So long story short, you can date
your boss as long as both parties aren't heads. Uh So,
(33:39):
thanks Danta and Elizabeth and everybody else for writing in
mom stubb Discovery dot com is where you can send
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(34:00):
Mom Never Told You is where you can go and
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of other topics. Is it How stuff works dot com,
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from housetop works
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
and I'm Kristin Kristen. I was talking to a group
of young women are our age, young ladies who were
discussing the topic of anger, women in anger, and we
(00:25):
we sort of got on the topic because one one
of the women was saying, you know, I've just been
feeling so angry lately, and not at a person or
at a thing, or just with road rage, but just
sort of bubbling over with anger in general. Does anyone
else feel this way? And how can I combat it?
And I came back with, you know, hey, lady, I
(00:47):
actually feel the same way. And I didn't really want
to talk about it because, you know, nobody wants to
seem like a negative Nancy. Nobody wants to come off
as some really negative, angry person, especially with all of
the different types of research that have been done on
how women are perceived when they're angry versus men. You
could do, you could get into a whole thing with it,
which we will. But so I thought it would be
(01:10):
a great topic to look into. But as I was
doing some research as Christian and I were researching, we
really did not find anything that jumped out at us
as far as a trend piece or anything about women
in our generation experiencing more anger, less anger, different anger
(01:31):
than women in the past have. Right, there's some scientific
research that will get into into the biological sex differences
and some socialization factors that get into that, um, but
there wasn't that much digging into culturally this idea of
the angry woman, and especially how you know, if you
(01:52):
think about um, in feminist circles, how often are women
liberal women criticize this angryef eminence and it's such a
bad thing if we're angry. And then there's also the
tripe going beyond all of this, of say the angry
black woman, where it's like, oh, be careful not to
rile her because you'll just spiral right out of control. Um,
(02:13):
So let's let's get into this anger and maybe circle
back to anger in adult women. Because yeah, similar to you, Caroline,
I was really surprised at the gap of where are
the angry women and we just not want to talk
about it. Yeah, well, I mean I am surprised just
because I feel like there are a lot of things
(02:35):
today with our generation and where we are as far
as in the workplace and trying to I mean, how
many articles have been written about women trying to balance
everything in their lives, but where are the articles about
like how that actually can make us feel. Yeah, so
let's start from a very basic point of what is anger?
(02:56):
I mean, I think everybody knows the feeling of anger
and the effects of anger, but scientifically speaking, anger is
an emotional state that consists of feelings of irritation, annoyance, fury,
or rage, and heightened activation or arousal of the autonomic
nervous system. Right, so where does anger come from? When
(03:17):
does it jump up in our system? Usually anger results
either from violations of expectations that we have or blocking
our goals, and it sparks in the brain so quickly
it takes the brain lesten too seconds to process anger.
And it activates the amygdala, the frontal lobe, which is
(03:39):
our seat of reasoning, our fight or flight response. And
and thankfully there's a hormone called a set of coline
that once our anger starts to ebb, it brings us
back down from the edge of the cliff. Oh and
even just thinking about that physiological feeling of anger is
making me tense. Well, I wonder if that's what's going
(03:59):
on when I'm in traffic. I've been doing so ever
since I got back from vacation, I have been trying
to do some deep breathing in traffic, like anytime anyone
cuts me off, because hello, it's Atlanta, So it happens
every two seconds. Um, I try to take that deep breath,
and I feel that immediate calming sensation. So I wonder
if that's the hormone or if that's just me taking
a breath, or maybe just a combination of both. Um,
(04:23):
And I mean the thing. I don't know about you,
but for me, anger is sort of a frightening emotional
reaction because it feels so uncontrollable. And maybe it's because
it's considered a primitive human reaction, right. Rich pifer Is,
the president of the National Anger Management Association, wrote that
(04:43):
anger activates the primitive human brain, referred to as the
limbic system, which is automatic and impulsive. And this is
going off of something that T. D. Kemper wrote in seven,
basically saying that anger has actual evolutionary value. It's been
with us forever, present in our early life as children.
It has cross cultural universality and has differentiated autonomic patterns
(05:07):
in our brains from other emotions. Yeah, it's so very
distinct and so very common. Some surveys find that Americans
report feeling anger one to two days per week. But
I mean there are also some sites that say that
up to a third of us, I think, report feeling
angry every single day. I have those weeks, Yeah, it happens.
(05:29):
Sometimes those are not good weeks. No, not good weeks.
That's when you bring out the box of wine. But
the interesting thing about anger too, when you think about
from an emotional standpoint, is that it's a very social emotion.
A lot of times, if you're just sitting in a
room by yourself, you know, not on the internet, just
just hanging out, anger is not going to be all
(05:50):
of that present. Probably it's usually when other people get
involved that anger tends to spark more often. Right. Scott Scheiman,
who is from the univer City of Toronto and wrote
the anger chapter in the Handbook of the Sociology of Emotions,
which I would love to go back and read about
the other emotions, uh talks about the fact that common
(06:10):
elicitors of anger include perceived or actual insult, injustice, betrayal,
in equity, unfairness, goal impediments, the incompetent actions of another
which is pretty much why I'm angry all the time,
um and being the target of another person's verbal or
physical aggression. And the big reason for anger is actions
(06:33):
that threaten an individual's self concept, identity, or public image.
So again we see those common themes coming up over
and over again of expectations being violated, control factors, other
people coming in the way of what we need to
get done. And so no wonder anger arises quite often
(06:56):
at the workplace as a result of mary Ridge relationships, parenting,
and so forth. Whenever you're getting all those people in
a room together, I'm going to get angry, right, And
I mean that's not even mentioning or going into like
the gender and power divides yet. I mean, of you know,
all of those multifacined aspects of the workplace, of marriage, relationships.
(07:21):
But you know, well, anger can be definitely negative because
you know, excessive anger does affect your mental and physical health.
There are positive aspects of it, I mean, to a degree.
It can help motivate you. Sure, I mean, when you
feel so angry it can push you forward to finding
a solution, right exactly. That's actually, I mean, anger is
(07:44):
sort of kind of what drove me to leave my
newspaper job. I mean, you know, I just got I
just got one more email. I just got one more
terrible office space kind of email, and then I was done. Well. Also,
I mean so in addition to motivating you to possibly
improve your situation, anger can also increase your sense of control.
(08:06):
I mean, how many times have you experienced, maybe not
like super excessive negative anger, but like a degree of
anger that makes you think, you know what, I'm going
to do something about this today. Then that is very positive. Yeah.
I remember distinctly when I was probably sixteen seventeen years
old in high school and the first time that I
got mad at my parents. I mean, granted it was this,
(08:27):
you know, kind of a teen rebellion acting out sort
of thing, but I got angry, and I got loud,
and I felt that sense of control for the first
time of saying, oh I own this room now, and
I'm being very angry, okay, And it was I'm sure
it was a nightmare for my parents at the time,
but yeah, there was that distinct feeling of like, now
(08:50):
I'm gonna I'm gonna do this well, But that is
a feeling I think that maybe you know, we're about
to get into gender issues here. That feeling of like
taking control, I think is what a lot of women
feel uncomfortable with. Absolutely. Um, it's interesting when you look
at how common anger might be between men and women.
(09:13):
It's not so different. It's not that men are angrier
than women or vice versa. The difference between anger and
men and women really comes down to the way that
we experience it. So our gender, our sex affects how
we perceive anger, ours and others, whether it's positive or negative,
(09:34):
but also how we express it. Now. Stereotypes that were
all very familiar with about emotions say that women have
less self control with emotions, whereas men are more buttoned up.
You know, women were always like weeping and asking for
chocolate and crying on our best friend's shoulder, and men,
you know, they man up in they're they're all tough.
(09:54):
But Shiman, who we mentioned earlier, says that anger might
be the exception to that emotion stereotype. It's definitely considered
a male masculine emotion, and so perhaps men are more
comfortable with expressing anger, and there are often these gender
scripts that helped shape emotional regulation, and that women are
(10:15):
expected to not show their anger or else risk being
labeled as hostile, neurotic, or unladylike, whereas men and boys
are expected to be overt. No, you know, that's my
impression of an angry man. You didn't get it, um.
And there are some interesting studies that have been done
looking at how we perceive the an angry emotion on
(10:39):
someone's face, and and there was one that showed people
just androgynous faces, not particularly masculine or feminine, and people
rated those faces that had angry expressions on them as
masculine and those depicting sadness or happiness as feminine. And
so no wonder, Caroline. Feminists are so often labeled as
(11:01):
just angry as an insult because our outright expression of
anger is a direct violation of gender norms. Interesting, it's
daring to be angry. Yeah, exactly, just like you did. No,
I know, well, that's kind of the bad side of anger.
And I mean, I'm sure whatever I was arguing, I
don't even remember what I was arguing with my parents about.
(11:23):
But I'm sure it was something along the lines of
me wanting to stay out later than I should have. Well,
darnet dad gummant dad gummint um. Well, so, I mean,
we have these gender stereotypes, but it's not like we
don't act according to them. Men do tend to be
aggressive and impulsive, and Dr Raymond Giuseppi found that men
(11:45):
actually had more of a revenge motive to their anger,
so they're they're pretty driven in their anger, whereas when
women are angry, we talk more about our feelings and
stay angry longer. We are more resentful and more likely
to just write off another person because they've made us mad. Yeah,
And when I read that, it totally resonated with me,
because you know, I've seen this happen. I may or
(12:07):
may not have been guilty of at least making that
threat in anger of like, well, you know, you'll just
be gone. I just don't have to deal with you anymore.
And in my mind, that kind of anger of just
eliminating a person writing somebody off to me, that's far
more powerful than throwing a punch or just yelling and
stomping out. I've done it. I wonder if it's because
like We watched so much Oprah where they talk about
(12:29):
toxic people, you know, like cutting toxic people out of
your life. But I've done it. I mean I think, Okay,
have people done it in an overreacting way? Yeah? Probably,
but it does It does feel good when someone's making
you angry and you have that realization of like, oh,
but you make me angry all the time that when
you finally do write that person off, I mean, maybe
(12:52):
you're not as angry anymore. And you know what that
circles back to is increasing that sense of control there
you because you're like, oh wait, I actually don't have
to deal with you. Maybe we should table toxic people
for another one. Not to say that it's always you
know that people are always deserving of being written off
any who. How Um, there was an interesting study though
(13:12):
that was conducted. It was a little bit dated, but
it was one of the first groundbreaking looks at where
women's anger tends to stem from. And it was conducted
by psychologist Sandra Thomas, and she identified three major roots
of women's anger, which speaks volumes about these gender dynamics
(13:34):
because it's powerlessness, injustice and the irresponsibility of other people. Yeah,
so give us equality in the workplace and put your
dishes away. That's right, yeah, But I'm seriously like, I'm
not trying to be glib. When I read irresponsibility of
other people, I was like, I know, right, would people
(13:55):
just clean up after themselves? It would be it would
be nice anyway, So moving on now. There's a study
publishing the journal Aggressive Behavior published in February two thousand
and six that looked at differences in anger provoking behaviors
and verbal insults, and it found that men were more
(14:16):
likely to consider sort of physical things as anger provoking. Uh.
And in the examples given in the study, those were
women exhibiting physical aggression or a man hurting another person um,
whereas women were more likely to mention condescending or insensitive
behaviors regardless of whether it's coming from a man or
(14:36):
a woman, along with verbal aggression as being more anger provoking.
I mean. And of course they also found physical aggression
to trigger the anger, but the verbal stuff and the
more behavioral stuff came into play a lot more for women.
And also for women, one of the big differences was
(14:57):
accusations of promiscuity, whole split shaming. Hey, what's up? Yeah,
no wonder, it makes it makes us angry. Um. Dishonesty
just just dishonesty, plane and simple provoked more anger when
coming from a woman. Huh. Oh lying women, lying women interesting? Um.
(15:18):
One thing you know, we we we talked about gender
divides in the workplace a lot, and you know, anger
is no different. It's something that people experience at work.
Um uh. Studying psychological science from March two thousand eight
found that men benefit straight out benefit from anger at work,
whereas women do not. Um. Men who expressed anger in
(15:40):
a professional context were conferred higher status than men who
expressed sadness. So there we have those gender norms. Anger
is a normal masculine emotion, where a sadness is considered
more feminine. Um. Both men and women conferred lower status
on angry female professionals than male was just totally not
surprising whatsoever, because if you already have a woman in
(16:04):
more of a leadership position, she's already at social risk
from having violated those those forms of climbing up the ladder,
and then to show anger on top of that, well,
she's just going to be considered a shrew. Right. One
thing that I thought was really interesting about this study, though,
was that women's emotional reactions were attributed to internal characteristics
(16:24):
their p m s NG again, whereas men's were attributed
to external circumstances. So obviously, if a woman is expressing
a masculine emotion like anger, you know, she's got to
be like, you know, her her uterus is floating around
her body, whereas men probably have a legitimate reason yeah
you know, the shipment didn't come, that didn't come in
on time or something. But there was an equalizer with
(16:47):
all of this. They found that providing an external attribution
for the person's anger eliminated gender bias. So if you're
able to basically say, oh, okay, well, uh our stock
price plummeted today, so that's why he or she is angry,
then everyone's like okay, right. But yeah, so that I mean,
(17:10):
that is something important to keep in mind, whether you're
a man or a woman. At work, people are making
really big assumptions about you when you act a certain way.
Although I will say, I mean, you know, while this
study says that men benefit from anger at work, I
imagine that's to a point. Sure. I mean, if you're
hitting people and like flipping over desks and creating a
toxic environment. Correct, and then I would just write you off.
(17:32):
That's right, because I'm ruthless. I mean to write you
off in march, straight to the unemployment office. I'll show you. Um.
But let's go back to to this idea that women
might hold in our anger, stay angrier longer even though
we might be quieter, because this might be leading to
a higher rate of internalizing disorders. Right. This is coming
(17:56):
from psychologist Susan Nolan Hoaxima and Geral L. Rusting, who
found that women show higher rates for all mood and
anxiety disorders except importantly enough manic episodes. Uh, and that
includes depression, and they report feeling more shame, sadness, guilt,
and fear, whereas externalizing disorders, things like antisocial personality disorder
(18:22):
and substance use disorders are diagnosed more often in men.
But when it comes to self reporting, women yet again
reported just as much anger and hostility as men. So again,
we're expressing it, we're experiencing it, probably differently, and so
the inconsistency in these findings could be related to the
(18:43):
gender differences that elicit anger and that we're more likely
to feel shame and sadness. Oh man, that's depressing. Yeah,
because I just I feel like it's kind of a
mind field. Not only are we kind of discouraged from
feeling or breast saying anger, but if we do, I
feel like we're more likely to be guilty about it
(19:05):
and and ashamed of our strong masculine emotion. Oh yeah.
If I if I let my temper flare and I
allowed to another person about it, try to put this delicately,
I feel incredibly guilty. It's like it's a cycle. I
can predict it almost down to the minute. Well I can't.
(19:26):
All right, maybe this says something bad about me. I
can't say that when I get actually angry, not just
annoyed or whatever. When I get actually angry, I can't
say that I feel guilty about it. But I do.
It just poisons like the next several hours for me. Right,
I guess it's more. I don't feel guilty about feeling angry.
I feel guilty if I express it to the target
(19:46):
of that anger. Because mavose Caroline can get loud. Yeah,
I'm a yeller. Well, I um just drop a lot
of f bombs, like uncontrollably. Now, I'm like I had
a day a couple last week, a day where I
just seriously, like, let loose a string of F bombs
and I couldn't even control it. Like I couldn't even
(20:09):
It's not like I was making a conscious effort to
say F this and F that and F that guy
and screw this, and no, I was just I think
I don't know how I blacked out for a second.
I came to and I was like, man, I said
a lot of F bombs, but I've got to go
do work now. So well, and then you realize you
were live on television. Oh you've been Ashton Kutcher this
(20:30):
whole time. Uh No, But seriously, a lot of a
lot of this uh This research has been resonating a
lot with my own personal patterns of anger and even
just talking publicly about being angry. I'm not calling myself
an angry person, but even just acknowledging to the world
that I experienced and express anger, sometimes I'm feeling uncomfortable.
(20:52):
Really yeah, yeah, uh, I guess I think that speaks
to our identities are personal, our personal identities, how we
think of ourselves, and also how we want to portray
ourselves to other people. It feels very vulnerable just to
speak honestly about it. But maybe perhaps could it get
(21:15):
better as as we get older. Maybe we're just young
and crazy, and you know, we just fiery women, and
anger will just kind of chill out as we get older. Um. Maybe,
but probably not. Most studies have shown honestly that if
you're a fiery angry twenty something, you're going to be
a fiery angry sixty something. Oh well, and there was
(21:39):
also this I'll be curious here from any listeners to
fit this demo whether this rings true to you. Sandra
Thomas at ut Knoxville to study in January two two,
and she found that women in their forties scored significantly
higher on anger at work than women of other ages.
(22:00):
Their scores were twice as high as men in their forties.
I wonder, though, This is my pet theory, is that
women in their forties, if you have a job, you're
probably also taking care of kids. There's the imbalance a
lot of times of the housework. Yeah, you might, you
might be a bit angrier. Yeah, I absolutely I thought
(22:20):
the same thing when I read that. Um. But as
far as Kristen raising our voices and expressing anger to
other people, you're in the majority. Um they found in
this study. As Thomas found in the study that UM,
there were significant age differences for the propensity to overtly
express anger. Women in their twenties and thirties had the
(22:40):
highest mean score on the total expressed anger scale, leading
Thomas to ask whether we're seeing a weakening of traditional
gender role socialization. So basically, women are becoming more expressive
of anger more often. Yeah, there was speaking of which
of very flimsy daily mail, Yes, the daily Fail story
(23:05):
that we found on how young girls are fighting and
becoming you know, these rambunctious young women, and so we
must be angry and crazy? Now what what what to
do about it? Which I don't even know if it's
worth sighting. Yeah, I just thought it was funny because
in all of this was actual academic research about anger
(23:26):
and how we express that according to our gender norms. Um,
there's like, hey, girls getting bar fights now that means equality,
right or something? Now? Moving on, so how do we
manage all this anger? We we both acknowledge that it
happens to us, cool, it happens to other people, and
it's this fully physical mental process that is natural, stilly natural,
(23:50):
but we need to we need to manage it. How
do we do that right? Well, there are three basic
responses to anger. Those are one expression, everything from having
a nice, calm discussion to blowing up and yelling a
lot of F bombs about something that didn't go your way.
Not that I'm being specific. Suppression, which can be holding
(24:11):
it in, changing your focus, or letting it go. And
you would think that letting it go could be a
good thing, but I would think that this refers to
like if somebody keeps harping on you or infringing on
something and you just continue not to deal with it,
that could be a bad thing. But also let's look
at management. That's the third one, and that is acknowledging
anger as a normal emotion and making choices to improve
(24:32):
your situation, not just dropping f bombs, but actually doing
something about it. Yeah, there's some of the stuff we
read said that venting, like that letting your volcano explode
is actually not the best way to express yourself. So
the Mayo Clinic, for instance, offers a number of suggestions
on healthy anger management, which is as basic as counting
(24:55):
to tend and taking a time out before you react,
um expressing your anger once you're calm, so you're not
being confrontational. Exercise that's something I wholeheartedly believe in. I've
talked before about how yoga essentially keeps me saying along
with jogging um. Also looking for solutions rather than just
(25:15):
looking for a target. Yeah. And one important thing that
I try to remember every time I have I try
to have a productive conversation with my roommate is to
use I statements. Try to avoid criticizing or placing blame um.
And also this is a hard one, I think, but
don't hold a grudge. Try to forgive and learn from
the situation. Also practice relaxation skills things like yoga, help, meditation,
(25:39):
you know, napping, um. But also know when to seek help.
For instance, the whole conversation that started this topic that
we picked. You know, there's a point at which you're
not just kind of going through a funk. Maybe you're
not just annoyed with you know, traffic or work or whatever.
It's it's something that maybe has change changed or something
(26:01):
that has gotten worse over time, and maybe you're just
now noticing it. So you do need to go talk
to someone that's perfectly normal and healthy. Yeah, I think
the point of remembering the anger is a normal human
emotion that has been with us for millennia is really important.
It also you kind of rationalize things maybe right heat
(26:23):
at the moment. And I absolutely think that because when I,
like when I took vacation and I had a minute
to actually think, you know, a minute to actually sit
and drink coffee and think, you know, I did reflect
on the things that had made me angry in my
life and like, Okay, what what's driving this like crazy
town feeling? And what can I do to change that stuff?
(26:44):
You know, not just letting it stew, actually give yourself
a minute to kind of think about why you're having
this reaction and what needs to change. Because the thing
is not managing your anger and just letting it eat
away at you is not good for your health overall.
It's probably not good for your relationships either. But just
(27:06):
physically speaking, a lot of studies have shown how not
managing your anger in a positive way is possibly worse
than the health effects of smoking and obesity. Yeah, we
found a lot of studies from Harvard Um. Most of
them focused on men. So we'll have to you know, hey,
listeners out there who do research could you get on this? Um?
(27:30):
Harvard found that among men with an average age of
sixty two, the angriest were three times more likely to
develop heart disease than the most relaxed. And coming from
John's Hopkins, a study tracked male medical students for thirty
six years and found that anger and young adulthood emerged
as a predictor of premature heart disease. Listen to this.
(27:53):
The angriest students were six times more likely to suffer
heart attacks by fifty five and three times more likely
to develop some type of cardiovascular disease. And so I
can only imagine that the fact that women tend to
stay angrier longer could have equally dire physical consequences as well.
I mean, because think about all those physiological facets of anger,
(28:15):
things like a surge in adrenaline, the stress hormone that
boost blood pressure and pulse rate, increasing the heart's workload
and increasing also its need for oxygen. Anger actually makes
your body work harder, right, It activates platelets, those little
tiny blood cells that trigger blood cloths, and high anger
levels can even provoke a spasm in a coronary artery.
(28:37):
So it's really not a good idea to get angry
and stay angry for a long period of time. Yeah,
there was one study we found from July two thousand
three in Psychosomatic Medicine UM, and it suggested that women's
suppressed anger correlated with cardiovascular and cancer related early mortality,
and so essentially these women were dying sooner maybe possibly
(29:01):
related to not expressing that anger. Yeah, so I don't know, man,
I guess I would sum it up by saying that
you've got to use anger as a catalyst to look
internally at things that maybe aren't going your way and
figure out how you can change them or fix them,
because if you just stay angry, I mean that has
(29:24):
some pretty dire consequences. And also maybe focusing on how
anger can be a positive in those ways that we
noted in terms of being a motivator to find solutions,
a warning that something might be wrong you need to
adjust something in your life, or increasing that sense of control,
and perhaps as women circling back to the beginning of
the conversation with you know, women are age saying like,
(29:45):
you know what, I'm angry and I don't know why,
or you know, feminists who are criticized for being angry
and like the label of anger being sort of dangled
over women's heads of like, oh, you don't want to
come across that way, do you, and maybe saying you
know what, actually, it's totally fine to be angry. Yeah,
there are reasons for it. There are definitely reasons for it.
We're not talking about being irrationally angry, you know, but
(30:08):
sure maybe it should be okay, more okay for women
to get angry sometimes. So curious to hear what folks
have to say about this one. Your thoughts on anger
expressed kindly? Yeah, don't be angry at it? Yeah. Mom
Stuff at Discovery dot com is where you can send
(30:29):
your letters. You can also messages on Facebook or tweet
us at Mom's Stuff podcast. And we've got a couple
of messages to share with you when we come right
back from a quick break and now back to our letters. Okay, well,
I have a letter here from Elizabeth, who wrote to
us about our bachelor party episode. She says, I am
(30:51):
Mormon and so are my friends who are my bridesmaids,
and as such, we had a stone cold, sober night
out on the town in Baltimore. We spent first part
of the day shopping and touring the Inner Harbor, followed
by a delicious dinner and dessert at a downtown restaurant.
The night was finished by going to a dueling piano
bar and enjoying the spectacular musical talents. I had such
(31:12):
a great time with all of my girlfriends and never
once thought I was prude or missing out because I
didn't have penis whistles, binge drink, or watch a male stripper,
et cetera. In fact, I firmly believe I hadn't even
better time because of it. No hangover, less expensive. I
remember all the good times and it felt very classy
and fun. I saw the night as a celebration for
me and the girls of my upcoming nuptials, and as
(31:33):
part of my thank you for all of their hard
work and efforts supporting me along the way. Just food
for thought for other women who were turned off by
the current status quo for bachelorette parties. And then she says,
thanks for the podcast here. You're welcome, and I've been
listening for a couple of years now and always enjoy
that it challenges me to think outside my sometimes narrow
view of the world. And thank you for sharing your
(31:55):
view with us, Elizabeth and I'm going a Facebook message
here from Ana and she was writing about our episode
on office romances, and she has an interesting story to share.
She says, I currently work in a male dominated work
environment of brewing, and I am dating my boss. She said,
(32:16):
when I was going through this, I was extremely happy
in my job and extremely attracted to my boss. I
didn't want to lose my job, blues space, or mess
up the women in brewing image. I needed guidance. I
really couldn't find any that suggested that the scenario might
work out. Ultimately, against the advice of almost everyone I knew,
I decided to trust myself, and so did he. I
(32:36):
agree with Caroline that working your way to the top
using sexuality is despicable. I think these days character determines
the existence of abuse, exploitation, and inequity in the workplace
dating dynamic. I don't think the formula male manager plus
female subordinate necessarily equates to those things. Once my manager
and I decided that we were falling in rub we
(32:57):
told the CEO and HR. The response was, Okay, we'll
make this work. We signed one of those cupid type
contracts and have moved forward. It's been a year now,
we live together and I can still work with him
as my manager. I think that the CEO's judgment was
based on this thought that we were good people with integrity.
Maybe if we were unscrupulous people, he would not have
(33:18):
trusted us to engage in what it's now pretty much
against company policy. But the relationship was never casual, so
perhaps there was inherent respect to rely on. I suppose
that if it was merely dating, I wouldn't have trusted
him as much. So long story short, you can date
your boss as long as both parties aren't heads. Uh So,
(33:39):
thanks Danta and Elizabeth and everybody else for writing in
mom stubb Discovery dot com is where you can send
your emails. You can also message us on Facebook or
tweet us at mom Stuff Podcasts, and you can keep
up with a steering the week over on tumbler where
stuff Mom Never Told You dot tumbler dot com where
you can follow us and don't forget that you can
watch us as well. On YouTube YouTube dot com. Stuff
(34:00):
Mom Never Told You is where you can go and
don't forget to subscribe for more on this and thousands
of other topics. Is it How stuff works dot com,
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
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