Irregardless of whether or not women are angry, when they stand their ground and are firm with respect to an issue, they often reflect on their expression as being mean, rude, abrasive or something of similar.
Their 'internal perspective' of self is often not congruent with an outsider's experience or 'external perspective' of the same behavior. This discrepancy of affect interpretation is more easily noticed when the listener's personal ego isn't affected. Needless to say when a listener's ego gets affected, s/he can easily contribute to escalating expressive states.
When "external ego of other" is left out of the emotional equation, within that neutral space following firm expression, women's self reflection is often negatively magnified. Why does this happen? I'm not positive though I do have some ideas. Any thoughts?
One possible reason that the internal experience of perceived expression is more intense than it actually manifests (out of mouth/talk) is that it is colored by internal emotional processing, internal somatic response, and internal thoughts that create a more intense milieu leading to magnified perception.
The variance of inner perception versus outer world manifestation with respect to being firm and/or the expression of anger may also be a more pronounced difference in women due to gender social conditioning. US culture emphasizes the importance of certain female personality characteristics such as being demure and reserved, and erudite with subtle assertion, which could affect the way one judges inner world milieu and external expression as these states are unconsciously compared to cultural standards.
The variance of inner volume and outer expression of anger emotions by the presenter may also not be appropriately assessed by the self as the presenter is both inside of her being and outside of her being (expression) at the same time. Furthermore, the internal world is distorted from linear time in that it involves memories, future ideas and many imagined angles of perception. Therefore when and if in reflection, it's hard to discern what energy magnitude actually exited the being versus what magnitude remained internal.
I wonder what internal tools one might develop to help ascertain the intensity of expression versus what is experienced within? Thoughts? Of course the talker can check in with the listener to gain a sense of expressed magnitude, but it is important to not rely on 'other' for perception and monitoring of self. Other than the importance of self regulation, inevitably, different listeners will have different thresholds of firm/anger acceptance levels. While somewhat adjusting for levels of firm/anger expression in terms of listener's acceptance variances, it is important to have an internal guage of the firm/anger self so that its expression can have continuity throughout life. With continuity both through time and with respect to audience, a more accurate perception of self can be formed with baseline dependable levels. If one were only relying on external cues of 'other' to gauge external expression of firm/anger or in which to judge self, the emotional regulation and sense of a self foundation would be quite fickle.
Not to blame other or make them at fault for their anger thresholds or emotional carrying capacity levels and resulting reactivity, identifying an acceptable internal gauge and external volume range for firm and anger is a good guide to differentiating between what is considered "his/her stuff" versus "self stuff."
Anyway, with respect to women, who often have a tendency to emotionally beat themselves up for having a firm and/or assertive voice, it is important to gain understanding of "right sized view" of self in order to avoid anger compensatory behaviors in any dynamic.
Without anger compensatory behaviors, (emotional seeking of other's reassurance, being overly apologetic, dismissing of importance of request, being "sideways nice" to compensate for perceived anger expression etc) interpersonal or relational boundaries are formed and respect is elicited.
Furthermore, quieted and pacified or channeled anger by women often results in addictions . . .addictions: to please, to drugs, to food, to emotionally beating up of the self, to approval to passive aggression to manipulation.
So, if you are a woman and reading this post, it is advised that you accurately learn to assess the expression of your firm voice and your anger so that you free yourself of all the distortions, flagellation and unnecessary compensatory behaviors in life. . . not to mention that adequate self view allows for presentation and existence of full inner wisdom and power.
I really like reading through an article that can make people think.
ReplyDeleteAlso, thanks for allowing me to comment
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