The Emotional Expectations of Women

The other day, I made a complaint at a service that I pay an inordinate amount of money for. I don’t think the topic or place of complaint is relevant, so I’ll leave it out. But as I was stressing about this problem, which meant I was unable to use this service without either a large amount of hassle, or paying an extra 5GBP, I mentioned that I should have gone to the other location (run by the same company, where this is not a problem).

Anyway, the guy responds to this by telling me I’ve hurt his feelings. I’m completely thrown by this, and end up paying up the extra money and going away, still annoyed.

I maintain that my complaint was reasonable, and he derailed it by making it not about what was bothering me, but about him. But even if my complaint was unreasonable, how are his feelings relevant – bearing in mind that my way of expressing my complaint was expressed in a moderate tone, free from personal insults.

Because it’s derailing – I’m not supposed to complain anymore, because of HIS feelings.

And yet, women are supposed to be more emotional.

It’s the double standard that is imposed on women – be less emotional, don’t cry, don’t make “emotional” decisions. But make sure you do the emotional labour of considering the feelings of the men around you.

Men don’t have to worry about the feelings of women, because it’s been agreed (somehow) that women shouldn’t have them. But woe betide the woman who hurts the feelings of a man.

I loathe this. I am tired of worrying about the feelings of men, how they will react to things, what kind of trouble they will cause me as a result. Demanding that women somehow be less, and more emotional is not something that we are ever going to win.