Emotional reactions..

[Julia Frugoli]

 Annette C. Hollmann said 
(large snip)

>It's not really gender related, it's based on your previous experience. 
>Crying and violence can both be reactions to anger.

Agree-I do both at once! (At home, where only my significant other can 
see me, and he knows that just because I'm ready to kill someone and am 
rehearsing a quitting speech that evening, I will be ready to tackle it 
again in the morning and so should be listened to, but not taken too 
seriously.)

>People who have been in a lot of situations they could not deal with
>(such as being beaten up by siblings/classmates twice their size, or 
>being
>abused by an adult), they will be more likely to resort to crying 
>rather
>than violence because that was the one chance of getting any help.

I disagree strongly.  I count several people among my friends who were 
abused as children and the one thing they all have in common is 
difficulty crying.  Often crying or showing "weakness" led to more 
abuse.  These people have learned to hide their feelings AT ALL COSTS 
and often take years of therapy and struggle to undo this kind of 
"training."

 If >they
>have been in a large number of hopeless situations, they stop trying to
>deal with even the problems they can handle - because they have learned
>that resistance is futile.
>
>Crying is considered an unacceptable way of dealing with problems 
>because
>it indicates that you are going to give up.

I don't think so, but I think it depends on one's experience of people 
who cry.  I saw my mother cry as a child, but she never gave up, and so 
I see crying as a recharging.  On the other hand, it takes a lot of 
grace to let someone cry in front of you-the kneejerk reaction is to try 
and comfort the person crying, while no one comforts the person smashing 
the wall-the kneejerk reaction here is to exit quickly to be out of 
harm's way.  Perhaps our acceptance of violence versus crying has to do 
with how we feel when we are confronted with people expressing them.  
Society lets us leave the violent person alone, while it expects us to 
comfort the cryer.

Julie,
who cries to get anger out and usually DOES NOT want to be comforted,
Julia Frugoli
Dartmouth College

visiting grad student at
Texas A&M University
Department of Biological Sciences
College Station, TX 77843
409-845-0663
FAX 409-847-8805

"Evil is best defined as militant ignorance."
																										Dr. M. Scott Peck