What Will Smith’s emotional outburst tells us about US politics

The world feels upside down when the acting is being done among senators and the outbursts of genuine emotion are seen onstage at the Oscars, writes Holly Baxter

Acting up: Smith during the Oscars (AFP )

Age-old stereotypes about men and women say that women are the “fairer” sex, more delicate and, of course, more emotional. Much has been made over the past few decades about female hysteria (indeed somewhat of a tautology, considering the word “hysteria” – coming from the same root as “hysterectomy” – is already coded female) and female “overreactions”. Women’s emotions are the butt of jokes on comedy stages about “that time of the month” and in shows where father figures shake their heads in apparent confusion at their wives’ apparently unwarranted behaviours. But what’s actually crazy is how men have gotten away with this charade for so long.

Men benefit from the fact that society has collectively decided anger isn’t an emotion, and so when women cry they are seen as fragile and overemotional but when men get into fights outside pubs they’re seen as “boys being boys”. Perhaps because we never really address male aggression except to roll our eyes at it, grown men end up getting emotional in public far often than grown women. They are more likely to lose control and shout in the office or on the street, more likely to get involved in road-rage incidents, more likely to assault family members in the home, and more likely to physically break things when reacting to bad news. While women are told to go and cry in the toilets, men storming round a workplace or yelling in meetings are simply seen as de rigueur. If you’re frightened, upset or “triggered” by the man’s emotional reaction, that’s your problem; but a woman who cries publicly is seen as the problem herself, and other people’s discomfort natural.