April 21, 2014 - Written by: Yazmin Joy

‘Help, My Girlfriend is Crazy’: Notes on the Emotional Woman

So I saw this HILARIOUS post on my social media newsfeed the other day.

Haha all women are tyrannical loons hahahahahaha. We’re all fucking mental man. Bitches are so soooo crazy. We just loooooove to walk around all angry and shit, yelling at our men telling them about our feelings and trying to “communicate”… Nope, we have nothing else to do with our lives. Why? I don’t know, just frustrated, I guess. I have periods.

You know what would make this gag EVEN FUNNIER?? If this attitude was more ironic you know. Like, wait wait wait for it, if we lived in a world where there was more equality and shit. HAHAHA wouldn’t it just be hilarious then!?

Don’t think we need equality? HAHAHAHHAHAHA! Here are some stats.

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The sentiment of this ‘joke’ is actually a pretty accurate depiction of how society reacts to women.

Here’s an idea for the dudes that think girls be cray cray: why don’t you LISTEN TO WHAT WE ARE SAYING?

Instead of participating in a culture that constantly says women are innately insane, unreasonable and emotionally unstable why don’t people spend more time telling their sons and daughters the truth:

People are crazy!

Not just women. A lot of men I know are completely bonkers. They are just nuts in a different way.

Society is obsessed with this preconceived idea women, specifically, are nut jobs. From Ancient Greek maenads prancing around in Baccic ritual to 17th Century witch trials.

The term Gaslighting refers to the silencing of women by making them feel shameful or humiliated if they speak out. As Yasir Ali points out in his Huff Post article, it is a form of emotional manipulation.

The problem is if you joke about something enough, people will start to believe it. And unfortunately this gag about chicks being crazy seems to be filtering into the cesspool of patriarchal popular thought, into households, work places and our personal relationships.

Why it’s important we address this…

It might not be a problem in your life right now and you might be thinking: ‘Yaz, you ninny, can’t you take a joke?’ But for centuries little girls have been encouraged to be passive and little boys encouraged to be assertive. This is limiting for both genders. Girls don’t want to live up to this crazy stereotype so many of them keep their mouths shut.

But, if, say, in the future, your daughter wanted to go into politics, the hard truth is she is going to face the challenge of society and media reacting negatively to her participation in heated debates.

In 2013, Hillary Clinton spoke out in the hearing about the Benghazi terror attack, this was one of the headlines:

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Does this have anything to do with the hearing? No. Did the general public even care about the terror attack? Not really. They were more interested in whether Hillary was a ball breaker – an angry women, crazy, a dragon lady. And more importantly how her poor husband must feel. Oh yes, poor Bill.

Back in the UK, Commons Speaker John Bercow recently addressed the lack of female MPs in the rowdy boys-club that appears to be the Prime Minister’s Questions. Are women being intimidated out of political positions because we feel we can’t speak up? Cathy Newman from Channel 4 News spoke out about her experiences of sexism in parliament last year.

‘You know what I’m tired of hearing, that we [women] are too emotional when we talk… well, when we raise an issue we are emotional… I DO GET EMOTIONAL.’ Senator Barbara Mikulski.

If you are a woman and you challenge the status quo you will often be deemed ‘angry’ and ‘hysterical’ but if you agree and laugh along no one has a problem with you. I know which one is easier.

Check out this clip made by The Representation Project. For those who don’t want to watch the whole thing watch 2:18 onwards.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NswJ4kO9uHc#t=114

Earlier this year, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg even launched the campaign Ban Bossy to encourage a positive attitude towards girls who show leadership qualities from a young age, acknowledging that this is a problem that needs to be addressed.

Dudes, here’s my advice.

When your girlfriend has ‘a go’ at you, try listening to what she’s upset about. She’s probably not telling you this information because she’s crazy. She’s most likely trying to tell you something important, because she wants to address the problem and move on.

Or maybe I should give up trying to communicate with you and express myself through the medium of interpretive dance.

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Would that be better? And less offensive?

Banter is all well and good. Hey, I know sometimes I overreact but that’s more because I am human, and less about me having a vagina. Sometimes you (a guy) overreact too. I like a good laugh as much as the next person.

The problem is often women’s attitude towards other women.

The most shocking thing about this whole situation was that almost half the people who endorsed the post on women having mental illness were women themselves.

Some women are just making it harder for the rest of us who are actually out in the damn trenches striving for equality.

It’s up to all of us (I’m talkin’ to you lady!) to change this negative universal attitude into a positive one.

Emotion is not a weakness, it’s a symptom of passion, it drives us. Don’t confuse having emotion with being crazy.

I hope that in the future we’ll all be laughing at this original gag not because we live in a society that encourages the myth of the crazy woman but because it reflects an attitude that no-longer exists.

Have a great week peeps!

If you enjoyed this article, why not check out ‘Ladies, did you get naked?‘ and ‘I’m not your baby‘.