Boys, from the moment of birth and for at least the first six months of life, are more emotionally expressive than girls. But "emotionally expressive" is not a phrase usually attached to adult males. What brings that change about, argues Harvard Medical School psychologist Ronald F. Levant, Ed.D., in the June issue of the American Psychological Association's (APA) journal Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, is not so much a matter of genetics as it is a matter of how males are socialized.

While adherence to the traditional "masculinity ideology" may appear to give men some advantages in life, Dr. Levant notes that men are also "disproportionately represented among many problem populations: substance abusers; the homeless; perpetrators of family and interpersonal violence; parents estranged from their children; sex addicts and sex offenders; victims of homicide, suicide, and fatal automobile accidents; and victims of life-style and stress-related fatal illnesses."

Citing numerous studies of child and gender role development, Dr. Levant describes a four-part process by which emotionally expressive infant boys can become aggressive, emotionally unempathetic and unexpressive men -- at least relative to women.

First of all, he notes, mothers "work harder to manage their more excitable and emotional male infants." Secondly, fathers, who tend to take an active interest in their children after the 13th month of life, "socialize their toddler sons and daughters along gender-stereotyped lines." Thereafter, he says, both parents participate in "gender-differentiated development of language for emotions." While they discourage their son's learning to express vulnerable emotions (such as sadness and fear), they "encourage their daughters to learn to express their vulnerable and caring emotions (such as warmth and affection)" and "discourage their expression of anger and aggression." Finally, he writes, "sex-segregated peer groups complete the job." Young girls typically play with one or two other girls in activities that foster their "learning emotional skills of empathy, emotional self-awareness, and emotional expressivity." Boys, on the other hand, play in larger groups in structured games in which skills "such as learning to play by the rules, teamwork, stoicism, toughness and competition are learned."

Whatever problems men encounter in life by trying to obey the traditional logy of masculinity (which has been inculcated into most contemporary adult men) are compounded, Dr. Levant says, by the strain some men experience when they feel they are not measuring up to that traditional ideology. These forms of strain have been associated with anxiety, depression and cardiovascular reactivity, a risk factor for cardiac illness.

Reference:
The New Psychology of Men by Ronald F. Levant Ed.D. in Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp 259-265.

12/29/97

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