Labeling Women as Emotional Undermines Them

Why do we use the word Emotionality as a personality trait?

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KEY POINTS

• Women have been labeled emotional since the 19th century.
• Emotionality in women is seen as a personality trait.
• Personality traits are not good predictors of actual behavior.

‘Emotionality’ is associated with sentimentality, histrionics, melodrama, excitement, mawkishness, and effusiveness. Women are told, ‘Don’t be so emotional’. Here are some synonyms for being emotional: sentimental, demonstrative, effusive, and temperamental. Emotionality is usually seen as the opposite of rational or effective.

It’s Not a Compliment to Call Someone Emotional

The idea that women are emotional but not men got codified in the 19th century when physicians attributed women’s problems to hysteria — a term referring to a wandering uterus — which caused ungovernable emotional excess.1 Hysteria was considered a diagnosable physical illness in who were seen as emotional and unstable, and likely to develop behavioral problems. Of course, men couldn’t be diagnosed with ungovernable emotional excess because they didn’t have a uterus!