See Nancy Clark
at The Learning Annex

Nancy Clark, CEO WomensMedia
Author of blog, Women's Lunch Talk,
and podcast Working in Heels

Listen to this (always less than 10 minutes):
Is It OK If Big Girls Cry In The Office? —Business and Emotions (In Control) Are A Good Mix or read it here.

Listen to this (always less than 10 minutes):
Stereotypes, Not Differences, Are Holding Women Back —Are Mars-Venus Stereotypes Barriers To Women’s Advancement? or read it here.

Related article on WomensMedia:
There is No Crying in Business

ABC News: Crying at the Office

October 13, 2005
Big Girls Don't Cry
By Stephanie Rosenbloom

When women first joined the executive ranks of corporate America a generation ago, they donned sober slacks and button-down shirts. They carried standard-issue briefcases and adopted their male colleagues' stoicism.

More than two decades later, women have stopped trying to behave like men, trading in drab briefcases for handbags and embracing men's wear only if it is tailored to their curves. Yet there is one taboo from the earlier, prefeminist workplace that endures: women are not allowed to cry at the office. It is a potentially career-marring mistake that continues to be seen as a sign of weakness or irrationality, no less by women themselves than by men.

For evidence consider a recent episode of NBC's "Apprentice: Martha Stewart," in which a young woman whose team had just lost a flower-selling contest told Ms. Stewart that she felt like crying. Her admission elicited no sympathy from her prospective employer, only blunt career advice.

"Cry and you are out of here," Ms. Stewart said. "Women in business don't cry, my dear."

Women in politics don't either, judging by Geena Davis's performance as the steely Mackenzie Allen on ABC's "Commander in Chief." Discussing the pilot episode, in which Allen navigates a political minefield to ascend to the office of president of the United States, Ms. Davis told a reporter from The Chicago Sun-Times, "I did not cry in my pilot - no!"

For reasons both biological and social, scientists and sociologists say, women are more inclined than men to feel the urge to cry when they are frustrated. Yet Martha Stewart is not the only woman executive who expects her underlings to remain dry-eyed. Many other workplace veterans also impose the rule and through seminars, books, Web sites and private conversations, recommend tricks for how to follow it.

"I hear women being called crybaby all the time, even by other women," said Lori Majewski, the managing editor of Teen People. The judgment can be unfair, she said, because sometimes women cry for good reason. Nevertheless, she said, "women need to be vigilant, to hold it in."

Ms. Majewski, 34, knows what it is like to cry at work because she has done so herself - once. She was in her early 20's and had a scare about a magazine cover photo shoot falling through. Her boss took her aside and told her she needed to remain composed in front of her colleagues.

She has since handed down the lesson to her own employees, suggesting that they leave the office and take a walk if they feel the need to cry. "Don't even go into the bathroom," she said. "If you go into the bathroom, someone's going to see you and the gossip gets around."

When a woman does cry at work, she should address her superior about it directly, Ms. Majewski said. "Go to your boss and say, 'I was quite overtaken with emotion, it's so not me, I hope you understand,' " she said. "Just don't blame it on your period."

Some women pinch their skin, bite their lips or breathe deeply to stem tears while at work. Advice on the Society for Women Engineers' Web site, swe.org, suggests anticipating and rehearsing difficult situations. An article about crying on Womensmedia.com, advises emotional detachment: "Compartmentalizing feelings is also a good skill to learn. Practice not acting on a feeling you have."

Crying at work is different from crying at a wedding, a sappy movie or at someone's hospital bed because it is typically triggered not by compassion or even sadness but by frustration or anger. And at work people are expected to react rationally to such feelings.

"When people show emotionalism in the workplace, they are not taken as seriously," said Mary Gatta, the director of work force policy and research at the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University.

Men learned this lesson back in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when the Industrial Revolution structured the workplace and the workday, and required a disciplined work force, said Tom Lutz, the director of the M.F.A. writing program at the California Institute of the Arts and the author of "Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears." Factory managers trained their workers to be calm and rational, the better to be productive. "You don't want emotions interfering with the smooth running of things," Mr. Lutz said.

Women for the most part did not receive this particular kind of on-the-job training. Nor did they usually learn, as boys did, that it was acceptable to express frustration in other ways.

"Men are allowed to be more direct," said Marianne LaFrance, a psychology professor at Yale University. "They can pound table tops and yell and throw something against walls and do various kinds of physical acting out. Women's mode of expression is supposed to be more passive, more childlike." She continued, "If women could act out like men, there would probably be less tears."

Temper tantrums are typically frowned upon at the office, too, but they are still considered more acceptable than crying, said William H. Frey II, the director of the Alzheimer's Research Center at Regions Hospital in St. Paul and the author of "Crying: The Mystery of Tears." Nature may also make women more prone to tears than men, he said, explaining that both boys and girls cry about the same amount until the age of 12.

But by the time women reach 18, they are crying four times as much as men, said Dr. Frey, who has conducted research on behavioral, personality and genetic aspects of crying and who has also studied the chemistry of tears.

Scientists do not know exactly why women tend to cry more easily, but Dr. Frey said several factors may be at work. One is the hormone prolactin, he said, which is present in mammary glands and induces lactation but is also found in the blood and in tear glands. Boys and girls have about equal levels of prolactin levels in their blood during childhood. But from ages of 12 to 18, the levels in girls gradually rise, and that may have something to do with why women cry more than men.

Tear glands in men and women also differ anatomically, and that, too, may lead women to cry more easily, Dr. Frey said.
Many women remember crying or wanting to cry at some point in their careers, especially when they were starting out. Jenny Oz LeRoy, the chief executive of LeRoy Ventures, which operates Tavern on the Green, recalled her first difficult days in the kitchen at the restaurant her father owned: "I was the only girl in the kitchen, and there are these guys being testosterone-driven egomaniacs. They were like, 'Get out, let the guys handle it.' " She ran out of the kitchen crying, but returned minutes later and pressed on. "I thought, 'I'm not going to let some guy in a jacket make me feel stupid,' " she said. "You're so watched as a woman for everything you do."
Ms. LeRoy has since learned control. "Nobody wants to see the boss fall apart," she said. "Or, on the other hand, everybody wants to see the boss fall apart."

While women have moved into managerial positions in droves, they account for less than 1 percent of the Fortune 500 chief executives. This fact - as well as persistent, if shrinking, gaps in pay and promotions between men and women - may make women all the more conscious of their own workplace behavior. "Women are still contending with being seen as doing the job," Dr. LaFrance said, "not as a woman doing the job."

A recent study by researchers at Pennsylvania State University found evidence that men's tears are viewed more positively than women's. "It seems that because men are less frequently noticed crying, they're given the benefit of the doubt," said Stephanie Shields, a professor of psychology and women's studies, who led the study.
"When a man cries, it leads people to think he's a sweet, sensitive, caring individual," Dr. LaFrance said, but when a woman cries, she is often seen as "emotionally labile."

Jarrod Moses, the president and chief executive of Alliance, an entertainment marketing firm that is part of Grey Global Group, said he looks down on crying at work because he dislikes extreme behavior of any kind. "I am a true believer in keeping the game face when you're in the office setting," he said. "You have to manage your mind. I think a lot of people lose respect for people who can't. Frankly, I do."

Dana Spain-Smith, the owner and chief operating officer of DLG Media Holdings, which owns Philadelphia Style and DC Style magazines, said: "I definitely have had times when I've had to step out of the office. There's a perception, not that I'm the woman, but that I'm the boss. It makes the employees nervous. There has to be certain type of 'we look up to her.' "

Executives like Susan Lyne of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and Anne Sweeney, president of the Disney-ABC Television Group, were models for the president on "Commander in Chief," according to Rod Lurie, the executive producer of the series. And while his fictional president may be unlikely to break down in the Oval Office, would a real woman as president need to be as stoic?

"Unfortunately," Mr. Lurie said, "she would have to be more stoic than a man."

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Listen to this (always less than 10 minutes):
Is It OK If Big Girls Cry In The Office? —Business and Emotions (In Control) Are A Good Mix or read it here.

Listen to this (always less than 10 minutes):
Are Women As Competitive As Men? —Is Competition Unfeminine? or read it here.

About the Speaker:

Nancy Clark is the CEO of WomensMedia, the #1 Site for Working Women. As a well-known expert on Gender in the Workplace, she has been requested to speak at conferences, businesses, and even at the Pentagon.

See WomensMedia's Latest Articles.

From WomensMedia Receive our monthly Newsletter See our Book List See Our Blog: Women's Lunch Talk Listen To Nancy Clark's Podcast: Working In Heels (Always less than 10 minutes!)