Abstract
Actions expressing strong emotions such as anger can be appropriate responses when an agent judges a serious injustice to have been committed. Certainly, a woman can experience these conditions and express herself through actions such as gesturing aggressively, gritting her teeth, or lashing out verbally. If she is consequently labeled “crazy,” “hysterical,” or “a bitch,” what has gone awry? This paper offers an analysis of the common charge of inappropriateness in the case of women’s actions expressing emotion. To begin, I will present core normative distinctions that define appropriate emotional expression. Following this, the “double-bind” of women’s actions expressing emotion will be explored with reference to the conflicting normative practices outlined in the first section of the paper. Put briefly, when a female agent surpasses gendered behavioral expectations, she is seen as having failed what can be called the first test of social coping. The perception of this failure shuts down further avenues for interpreting her behavior. Instead, the social inappropriateness of her emotion is used as further proof of irrationality. The arguments of the second section leave no doubt that gendered norms in the case of actions expressing emotions must be rejected both on epistemological and moral grounds. The final section of the paper explores epistemically and ethically viable alternatives for deciding the rational appropriateness of actions expressing emotion.
Highlights
In the 1949 film Adam’s Rib, Amanda Bonner (Katharine Hepburn) begins to cry during a quarrel with her husband Adam (Spencer Tracy)
Mrs Bonner’s crying is ineffectual because, in her husband’s eyes at least, it is an emotional behaviour that is excessive to the matter at hand, i.e. the argument
Why does he mark this behaviour as excessive? Is the fact that her husband perceives the tears as ineffectual sufficient to discredit them? If we know that Mrs Bonner has used her actions expressing emotion in the past to deflect attention from the matter at hand—we are more likely to side with her husband’s assessment
Summary
In the 1949 film Adam’s Rib, Amanda Bonner (Katharine Hepburn) begins to cry during a quarrel with her husband Adam (Spencer Tracy). Norms defining and constraining behaviour being plentiful, I wish to focus on those which come into play when actions expressing emotion are interpersonally assessed. Actions expressing emotions ought first be appraised in terms of their apparent (in)coherence with these norms of evidential rationality.
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