Ode to Emotional Women

This week is Education Week on BYU campus and today I went to a very enlightening seminar. It was entitled: "Communication: Promoting Mutual Understanding through Her Way of Talking and His Way of Talking."

Let me preface my comments by saying that the reason I went to this is that for quite sometime and especially this past year I've heard very negative commentary about women and their emotions. Since I was little I remember feeling the pressure not to cry while bearing my testimony about my church, because it appeared weak. I'm not sure why.

That said... three cheers for the presenter of this lecture. She outlined very specifically the biological differences in men and women's cognition. These are things I've picked up on over the years, but as a professional in her field of family counseling she was able to solidify some of the variables for me. First things first... we are different AND we complement each other. Women feel emotions and they vary greatly from day to day (or hour to hour) and have the unique ability to multi-task. Men are usually a flat line of emotion and are very focused on one thing at a time. For years I've had male friends who complain about women being too emotional in relationships. Well, their right, and if they want a relationship with someone who thinks the same as they do, they need to come out of the closet and find their life partner. :) I'm tired of feeling guilty all of the time for having emotion and trying to keep it all inside. She talked about how women have something in their skin that makes them more sensitive to the elements and emotion. FASCINATING. All of these years I've been fighting against my own genetic make up.

That said... it does not give me the right to romp around in constant display of emotion. But if I'm sad I could cry, or not wait until the emotion is bursting (from bottling it all up) and then decide to talk... that is pretty fruitless and all sorts of verbal weapons are unleashed. (Like have you ever fought with someone after keeping it all inside for weeks and when everything hits the fan, you pull out things not even pertinent to the initial fight as weapons?)

Working as a professional these days, women are trained to have thick skin. But I feel as though when I look at women who are nurturing, loving, and well... just women. I've mocked it (mostly by influence)... I used to be an classic women and somewhere over the years and through careful realignment now find that I am brittle, closed, and can emotionally crash as a result.

So this is a clarion call in my life to embrace womanhood... for it is what makes us unique. It is ok to feel things, to want to nurture things, and to love and serve. Men have their strengths too, but it is the compliment of the two genders that is divine.