What’s behind a ‘cathy’ woman?

Women and men differ in their responses to conflict. There is a greater tendency for women to hide disapproval and anger from the offending party and then vent their emotions on another person with whom they feel more comfortable.

Men on the other hand will “duke it out” and express their disapproval openly and directly. Handling conflict in this round about way has earned women unflattering labels such as, “catty,” “bitchy,” “back biters,” “hypocrites,” “fakes,” and “not being up front.”

Much of the difference in the passive responses of women and the aggressive responses of men to conflict, has more to do with biology and socialisation than character flaws of dishonesty or weakness.

Testosterone (sex hormone) levels is a big reason for the dissimilarity in male and female aggression. Testosterone facilitates and stimulates aggressive responses just as estrogen and progesterone inhibits them. Women have lower levels of testosterone than men and therefore respond more passively to conflict than men. Testosterone levels are at their highest in pubescent men and around that time aggression peaks. Scientists believe that by changing testosterone levels in subjects, aggressive responses can be altered. In one experiment, three female monkeys, six and a half months old were treated with testosterone and observed with three untreated males, at intervals of one year, a year and a half and two years. Before treatment the males were more aggressive than the females; after treatment the females were more aggressive. Two females attacked and subdued two dominant males and maintained their dominance until the end of the study and long after the treatment.

Women and men are socialized into different roles and expectations beginning at home and reinforced by the various institutions of school, church and media. Aggressiveness is not culturally an admirable trait for the “fairer sex”, so women are conditioned to be softer, gentler and more lady-like in conflict resolution.

Women who violate this norm are thought to be unfeminine, “manish” or a “butch”- epithets that denigrate womanhood. Socialization casts women in passive roles as nurturers, supporters, homemakers, teachers, mentors and these roles are reinforced by the play symbols of dolls, crafts and homemaker activities.

Contrastingly, men are encouraged into action- oriented activities and aggressive behaviours through the play symbols of sports, trucks and guns. These devices are used to control women’s behaviour and cultivate passivity.

Juanita Williams in Psychology of Women Behaviour in a Biosocial Context, concurs: “Gender codes reinforce socialization of girls and women to acquiesce, support, defend and cling to traditional social roles to enforce conformity on other females as well. Men are honoured by aggressive activity and dishonoured by passivity.”

In addition to repressing angry feelings, women have also been forbidden to openly express sexuality and were encouraged to behave like “a lady in the drawing room and a whore in bed.” Interestingly, women are allowed to release sorrow, grief or frustration through tears, but for a man to do so is usually seen weak and unmanly.

Our patriarchal cultural model labels behaviours and the release of feelings, either healthy or unhealthy, depending on gender. Men are ascribed qualities of “thinkers,” “doers” and “decision makers” while women are ascribed competencies, such as, “supporters” “nurturers” and “implementers of decisions.” These stereotypes of gender roles are eroding under the new economic and technology evolution. But attitudes and behaviours based on cultural norms, and reinforced and ingrained over generations, die hard, and are perpetuated at a more rapid rate than the new thinking can take root.

Another explanation for the variance in the behaviour of women and men has to do with the energy dynamic. The male/female, yin/yang energy principle has women and men as polar opposites and playing different supportive roles in the human dynamic. Women are the intuitive, receptive energy in contrast to men who are the mental, forceful energy. Women receive and men assert.

Symbolically, a woman’s womb receives the implantation of the male sperm, and in coitus, the vagina receives the penis. Biologically, women and men are different in physical, emotional and psychological makeup, neither inferior nor superior, but contrasting energies on a spectrum, working in tandem as opposites in order to facilitate the play of life. Like night and day, sun and moon, back and front, high and low the contrasts give balance and meaning to each other. Each has its place and responsibility in ensuring the continuity of all life.