Labeling Women As ‘Emotional’ Undermines Their Credibility, New Study Shows

New research finds that labeling a woman as “emotional” or telling her to “calm down” makes her point of view seem less credible. From Kamala Harris to Oprah Winfrey, the “emotional” label is often thrown on women in politics, entertainment, business and any realm where women are trying to be heard.

Generally, we tend to think that people are either rational or emotional, but they can’t be both. When a woman's arguments are attributed to her emotions, it suggests she’s not thinking clearly or rationally. As a result, the legitimacy of her arguments weakens.

This link between the “emotional” label and the legitimacy of a woman’s arguments was established in recent studies published in the Psychology of Women Quarterly. Study participants read a dialogue between two people disagreeing. During the conflict, a woman or a man was told to “calm down.” When a woman was instructed to “calm down,” the participants rated her argument in the disagreement as significantly less legitimate. In a similar study, where the woman was labeled “emotional,” the researchers obtained the same results. In both situations, the woman’s credibility takes a hit.

Interestingly, men’s legitimacy doesn’t take a hit when they’re labeled “emotional” or told to “calm down.” That’s because people don’t believe the “emotional” label when it’s applied to men. The researchers write that participants “believed the emotional evaluation when it was directed toward women, but did not believe it when directed toward men. Specifically, when both women and men were called emotional in identical circumstances, women characters (in the disagreement) were perceived as more emotional than the men characters.”

Women often complain about being told to “calm down” or express less emotion at work. Oprah Winfrey told The Hollywood Reporter that she was criticized at 60 Minutes for expressing too much emotion, even in how she said her name. “Never a good thing when I have to practice saying my name and have to be told that I have too much emotion in my name," Winfrey said. “I think I did seven takes on just my name because it was 'too emotional.' I go, 'Is the too much emotion in the "Oprah" part or the "Winfrey" part?',” she explained. She also said she was told to flatten out her voice and show less emotion in reads for the news television program.

Female politicians are often easy targets for the “emotional” label because the job requires a passion for their convictions. A former Trump campaign adviser called Vice President Kamala Harris “hysterical” after Harris asked pointed, challenging questions of Attorney General Jeff Sessions during a hearing in 2017. In 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump labeled candidate Hillary Clinton as “a totally unhinged person.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been given a hard time for shedding “crocodile tears” after a vote on the House floor.

The link between emotion and female politicians is so strong, some still believe women are unfit for the job. A 2019 study from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce found that about 13% of men and women still have doubts about women’s emotional suitability for politics. That’s a whopping 1 in 8 people.

The good news is there has been some progress since the 1970s when the percentage believing women were emotionally unsuitable for politics peaked at almost 50%. At that time, when considering appointing a woman to the Supreme Court, President Nixon told John Mitchell, ''I don't think a woman should be in any government job whatever. I mean, I really don't. The reason why I do is mainly because they are erratic. And emotional.''

Despite the advances, the belief that women are more emotional than men remains one of the strongest gender stereotypes. And the new research shows the detrimental effects of activating those stereotypes, even when they are inaccurate.

Yale management professor Victoria Brescoll has argued that “gender stereotypes of emotion present a fundamental barrier to women's ability to ascend to and succeed in leadership roles.” Brescoll has also written about how expressing emotion creates a double bind for female leaders. Leaders are often penalized for minor displays of emotion, but being emotionally unexpressive may also result in penalties. Unemotional women are seen as failing to fulfill the warm, communal role that women are supposed to adopt. In other words, when it comes to expressing emotion, women can’t win.