I’ve never understood the male mantra, often spouted by Patriarchy-serving women, as well, that ‘men are logical and women are emotional’. It just doesn’t make sense in the face of reality.

Every time I see a man:

• freak out about nothing, especially imagined slights,
• verbally abuse people, especially women,
• act out physically because of frustration, jealousy, pride, fear, helplessness, etc,
• whine because of some minor illness,
• get distracted by lust in the workplace or other otherwise professional situation,
• or get pissy when he doesn’t get his way or has his privilege pointed out,

I see emotion. High emotionality. And more importantly, an inability to control his emotions. Exactly the opposite of the qualities I want to see in a leader or person in a position of power. There are men who can deal with emotion sensibly, of course. But to say that men aren’t emotional is a load of crap.

Every time I see a woman:

• negotiate her way out of a violent situation at the hands of an emotional male or Patriarchy-compliant female,
• diffuse a situation, professional or otherwise, where men are getting emotionally out of control,
• ensure that everyone’s needs are heard and met in a group situation,
• look for the least violent, most peaceful and satisfying answer to a problem,
• or sensibly evaluate an unpredictable or escalating situation as one from which she should extricate herself and then do so,

I see logic. Objective, fair logic, and more importantly, a sense of control and consideration. Exactly the qualities I want to see in a leader or person in a position of power. There are women who do things that don’t seem sensible, of course – and most of these instances have to do with complying with Patriarchy and the impossible-to-deal-with pressure that such a system places on women. Patriarchy isn’t logical, you see.

So why the gender-based stereotypes?

First, the positing. I posit that once upon a time, long long ago, a man noticed a woman being emotional about some human rights abuse or other – possibly her own abuse and slavery administered by said man – and thought to himself, “This won’t do. She is distracting me from my self-serving plan with her plea that I consider other people’s/her feelings. I must put a stop to this!” And from then on, emotionality became a bad thing. Calling out a woman for a display of emotion – regardless of whether there is actual emotion being displayed and regardless of whether it is ‘appropriate’ for the situation, would immediately discredit a woman’s valid words, and form grounds for preventing women from seriously participating in anything. This tactic has worked for millennia.

Okay, so the particular catalyst for this very misogynistic derailing tactic may not have happened in exactly the way I posited (although, I’d be tempted to bet money on a scenario such as that). But the point is that somewhere along the way, men defined their emotional displays as good and women’s emotional displays as bad. Further, they failed to understand what ‘logic’ actually is, and became adept at selectively noticing and ignoring behaviour to support their own emotion-driven illogic. And then called it logical to carry on this abusive way!!! Fucked up or what?

First and foremost, Logic is a branch of mathematics. Very few people in the world have a strong grasp of it and can use it correctly. I knew a couple of guys in college who took Logic with a female professor (holy shit!), had their asses kicked, failed, and had to take the whole course again. What I’m saying is that Logic isn’t a male thing or a female thing. It is just a thing. A tool. A field of study. And both women and men are capable of understanding and using it if they study hard.

The term ‘logic’, on the other hand, is more loosely defined, and very often used incorrectly by men to define ways of acting or not acting that are acceptable to them. Logic, as men define it, is more about socialized male behaviour, primarily: expressing negative emotions, suppressing positive emotions and empathy, and engaging in violence and oppression. ‘Logic’ actually has little to do with logical thinking processes, as men define the term. But in reality, logic is about thinking and reasoning, and has nothing to do with sex or gender. Further, logical thinking and emotion are not mutually exclusive. One can have an emotional response to a moral issue that complements one’s logical thinking on the subject, for example.

Bottom line. Tools, such as logic, are gender-neutral. They have no agenda. They don’t target groups of people for harm or help. The users of these tools, however, can be very gender-biased and agenda-driven. In the hands of a well-meaning user, any tool can be efficient and helpful and elevate our species. In the hands of an idiot with nasty, self-serving intentions, the tool can appear to take on the power of that bad person and be used to hurt others and take society several steps backwards in its evolution.

So, even if just using the term to apply to a way of thinking, rather than referring to the branch of mathematics, logic is still gender-neutral. Only when you use it in a negative emotional way (as men tend to do) to stereotype and hurt groups of people, are you moving away from ‘logical’ usage. Nothing affects one’s ability to think logically or misuse a tool than having a fear- or hate-based agenda. Right, dudes?