Men are more logical and women are more emotional?

There's a common belief that men are more logical and women are more emotional. However, I think this is actually a misconception due to misunderstandings and mischaracterizations of what it means to be logical and what it means to be emotional. As a logical woman, I have experienced multiple examples of men making illogical decisions, and in some cases, going so far as to tell me that I'm being "too logical".

Logic vs Emotion

First, logic and emotion are not mutually exclusive. It is possible for a person to be both logical and emotional simultaneously. Some emotions are irrational meaning that they are based on some sort of cognitive distortion. However, many emotions are perfectly rational. For example, it's very reasonable for someone to feel anxiety about losing their job after their company announces layoffs. They can simultaneously feel the emotion (anxiety) while taking logical steps (like increasing their emergency fund or updating their resume) to prepare themselves for a potentially negative outcome. What I've noticed is that many people assume that any decisions made while a person is visibly emotional are automatically illogical which is not the case. These decisions need to be evaluated separately from the observation of the emotional response to determine whether they are logic-based or not.

What does it mean to be emotional?

If a person *expresses* their emotions more, that does not mean that they are more emotional. Being emotional is based on what emotions are felt not on what emotions are expressed. Keeping emotions inside does not magically make them go away. I do think women are more likely to express their emotions. This may be partially based on biological differences, but I think a large factor is social conditioning. Boys and men are often told not to cry. They are told to toughen up and keep a brave face. Girls and women are not told these same things at the same rate. This difference in treatment extends to many other expressions of emotion. One key exception is anger which brings me to my next point.

For some reason, it's ok for men to be angry without being labeled emotional even though anger is definitely an emotional response. In some cases, the anger is valid (refer back to point #1), but in many cases, it's an overreaction or not justified at all. For example, it doesn't make sense for a man to destroy property or get into a fight over a sports game, but this happens quite frequently and many people seem to think it's perfectly acceptable. Whereas when women are emotional (even for valid reasons), it's dismissed and the reasons are invalidated (misogyny smh).

What does it mean to be logical?

I've noticed that many people think of logic as strictly "if A then B" where A and B must be things that can be concretely measured. This makes sense when we are talking about academic logic. However, in real life, things can look a bit different.

First, many concepts in real life are more abstract and it's a bit difficult to concretely determine which outcome B will result from a given input A. For example, let's say that a Black married couple is trying to decide which school to send their child to. In this scenario, school #1 has better teacher/student ratios, better test scores, etc, but is not diverse at all. School #2 is very diverse including Black teachers. It has good stats, but isn't quite as good as school #1 in that regard. Many people would say that it's illogical to factor in the diversity of the school and whether a child will fit in as part of school choice. However, diversity and community actually have been shown to affect educational outcomes. The actual impact can't really be concretely measured since it will be different for different students.

Additionally, women are less likely to express their thoughts in an "if A then B" format. In many cases, what happens is that a man may not follow a woman's thought process, so he concludes that it must be illogical. In reality, it's perfectly logical. It just wasn't laid out in a way that made sense to him. It's a difference in values and communication styles vs a difference in logical thinking.