Emotion vs Logic: Sexism, Psychology and Advocacy
Emotions are seen as a weakness, at least in this U.S. society that I grew up in. Emotions are feminine, logic is masculine, and therefore (the story goes) logic is better.
Even an article that sets out to show that our perception of women as more emotional than men is a socially constructed perception, not reality, doesn’t acknowledge let alone address the underlying sexism of the issue.
The popular press, as well as the scientific literature, is full of claims that women are the more emotional sex. [...] And as we saw in last year’s Democratic primaries, a healthy chunk of the electorate believes that women are too emotional to hold high office. No wonder, as Barrett and Bliss-Moreau write, “women continue to be under-represented in positions of economic and political power that require a level head and a steady hand. Jobs that require rational decision-making and high levels of performance in demanding circumstances would presumably be unsuitable for those who cannot keep their head under pressure.”
Yet the empirical evidence for the belief that women are more emotional is skimpy. When people are asked which sex expresses emotions more, the majority choose women. But when the movement of facial muscles is measured by an electromyograph, some studies find no sex difference. That was an early clue that differences in emotional expression might be in the eye of the beholder: when a woman does it, it’s considered emotional; when a man makes the exact same expression, it’s not.
This bias against emotion is common in advocacy as well. From the environmentalists brushing off animal rights arguments by labeling them as “emotional” to some animal rights advocates schooling other animal rights advocates on the proper (i.e., logical) way to approach the issue, the message is clear: emotions, and emotional arguments, are faulty, and should be abandoned in favor of logic.
I commented on a post on Mary’s blog a few weeks back that logic had nothing to do with my personal decision to go vegan: it was an emotional decision. Phillip Steir made an interesting reply:
This point is another interesting subject. Emotion vs logic. They are both entangled with each other. We cannot have logic or rational thought without emotion. We feel something first then we are able to react possibly…. logically or rationally. We cannot think rationally without feeling something first.
This is a very new and recent discovery actually… and it proves that our empathy is what creates our culture and society not our reasoning, which we have always been led to “believe” has been responsible for designing our modern way of life.
I read up on it and found an article, Emotion of Decision:
Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio studied people who had received brain injuries that had had one specific effect: to damage that part of the brain where emotions are generated. In all other respects they seemed normal – they just lost the ability to feel emotions.
The interesting thing he found was that their ability to make decisions was seriously impaired. They could logically describe what they should be doing, in practice they found it very difficult to make decisions about where to live, what to eat, etc.
[...]
So at the point of decision, emotions are very important for choosing. In fact even with what we believe are logical decisions, the very point of choice is arguably always based on emotion.
[...]
An even stranger factor is research where the subject’s brain was wired up to recorders and the subject was asked to simply press a red button at any time. The notion was that if the conscious mind was in charge, then that part of the brain would be seen to change first, an if the decision started in the subconscious, then electrical activity in that part of the brain would work first.
And the answer was…that the subconscious started activity first. The shocking conclusion is that the subconscious is in charge of the bus, and that we are living an illusion of conscious choice. As emotions also stem from the subconscious, then this makes it even more likely that decisions have a strong emotional influence.
Though there are definitely some who go vegan despite not caring at all about animals, we all go vegan because we care about some aspect of the issue. Yes, indeed, our emotional responses are a significant part of our decisions, and likely play a dominant role.
I’m not saying abandon those carefully crafted logical arguments; I’m offering a reminder that people have to care about the issue before they will change, no matter how strong our logic is. Emotions not only are not strictly feminine, appealing to emotions should not be dismissed through a sexist belief that logic is better. Logic and emotion both play roles in our decision-making, and it is important to remember this in our advocacy, and our lives.
Stephanie Ernst
Marji
Kelly G.
Deb
Mary Martin
Thanks for exploring this, Deb. Conservatively, 80% of you mind is the subconscious, and that’s where all of your emotions, memories, beliefs and habits live. Meanwhile, the conscious mind is your analytical, rational thinking mind where your willpower and voluntary bodily functions live. Like you and Philip allude to, this is part of why it makes perfect sense that many people hear the logical argument for why we shouldn’t use animals, but do nothing. All of that is happening in the conscious mind, and as they say, “the subconscious mind is the boss.” Logic simply isn’t powerful enough on its own to create change most of the time because change comes from someplace much deeper.
YES YES YES YES YES.
I have a degree in and work in the field of psych and cognitive neuroscience (which doesn’t make me an expert on everything btw, but it is how I came upon these studies), and have found that this research has been going on for years.
It is very true that emotion and logic, feeling and rationality, are inseparable. Most things in the brain are inseparable from each other which is often why brain injuries can be so difficult to deal with for some people. For instance, if areas of the brain responding to smell are damaged, people become depressed and have memory issues because smell is linked to emotional health and memory.
Another funny thing on the sexism part is that I do often find some men claiming that they only come from a position of “logic” on the issues and that I must not be since I disagree with them. However, some people are often convinced that I am male online since I do not list my gender. The more convinced someone is that I am male, the more likely they are to believe I am being rational. I believe that this is due to the fact that I do make a variety of arguments ranging from “OMG but animals deserve LOVE!” to “Animal agriculture is an unsustainable and inefficient way of obtaining resources”.
Arguments are often different in person when people see that I am more feminine than they imagine from my writings online. Though I tend to be a somewhat androgynous person overall.
Anyways, I am rambling now. I love this post. Thanks for writing it.
Like you and Phillip, I think emotion and logic are meshed together and don’t exist independently. But in our culture there’s a tendency to separate things into tidy boxes, a reductionist attitude that oversimplifies for the sake of convenience and easy answers.
At some point, probably all of us who are women have been told we have “a bleeding heart.” I always believed it’s better to err on the side of so-called too much emotion than too little. I immediately began a vegan life after watching a powerful animal rights documentary. My heart broke. That was what knocked down the self-made prison walls of my denial. I didn’t feel right with myself. I felt sick in every way a person can feel sick. It was that terrible *feeling* that helped me change my life. I couldn’t doublethink or rationalize and go against what I felt.
I think the issues of suffering and use aren’t separate either. They’re sides of the same coin. And ironically, I notice that the meat industry’s entire “happy meat” campaign hinges on just that: appealing to the emotions of the consumers (with “compassionate animal standards”).
It’s helpful to give sound reasons against exploitation, but from examples in my own life, I think the way to reach others is by helping them make a connection in their hearts with the animals and also by feeding them vegan foods that taste just as good or better than the animal “products” they’re used to. Attachment to comfort foods from childhood is based a great deal on emotion. It can make people defensive against change.
I think emotions are different in each individual, regardless of gender. Even Charles Darwin dared to say in “The Descent of Man”: “Animals not only love but have desire to be loved.”
Fantastic post, thanks for writing this! It is really irritating how animal rights advocacy/veganism involving emotions gets disregarded or invalidated by (some) vegans/vegetarians and meat-eaters alike. The mostly non-emotional aspects of veganism, i.e. its benefits for the environment and for human health are very important. However, I’d like to think that the fact that veganism is better for the animals and, in my opinion, the only moral and ethical decision that one who believes in the livelihood and liberation of animals can support in terms of dietary choices is quite significant in the decision to become a vegan. Believing in the rights and freedoms of other sentient beings and feeling compassion toward all sentient beings (and trying to display that in my life) is something I am emotionally invested in as a vegan, although I suppose the way you frame your connections to animals via veganism and animal rights advocacy is subjective and personal.
And on another note…relying on your emotions as a source of creativity, judgment, assessment, ideas, realities, etc. etc. is something that is too often looked down upon within radical/activist communities, and that upsets me, so I really appreciate someone acknowledging that!
Mary Midgley wrote:
“…feeling and action are essential elements in morality, which concentration on thought has often made philosophers overlook…In general, feelings, to be effective, must take shape as thought, and thoughts, to be effective must be powered by suitable feelings.”
Great post! And great comments as well.
The following article may be of interest: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/19 The author of the piece, Jeremy Rifkin, talks of the impressive global empathic response to the recent catastrophe in Haiti and how people respond to natural catastrophes with more empathy than to human-made plights (e.g., ongoing massive poverty in other countries. Though, in my mind I extended it to the plight of nonhuman animals). Why? Recent studies have shown that humans have a natural biological mechanism that allows for empathy (i.e., the discovery of mirror-neurons or “empathy neurons”), but despite this, our genuine emotional responses in many cases may be overridden by other factors. I don’t agree with everything written in the article, but it is interesting and thought provoking in a positive way.
On a different note, I have also had many thoughts lately about society’s disdain of what are considered “feminine traits.” I have become very interested in the notion of “intuition,” and how it is considered a feminine trait and therefore has become a symbol of ignorance, silliness/nonsense, or weakness in patriarchal society. (In some cases, it has been erroneously conflated with paranormal abilities.) But what exactly is intuition? It is “the act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes; immediate cognition.” But, perhaps, rational processes are going on behind the scenes?
Similar to what Mary was saying, could it be that sometimes our subconscious connects all the dots, but our conscious mind has yet to? I often get “feelings” or a “knowing” about something, but I cannot articulate why at first. After a period of intense exploration as to why I feel this way (it often takes a conscious effort to really delve into it), I begin to see that I was already exposed to all the pieces of perceived information that led up to this “feeling” (i.e., this feeling did not materialize from nothing) – I was simply not consciously aware of it. My subconscious put all the needed pieces of the puzzle together before my conscious mind did: it perceived and processed many various (even disparate) bits of information from different sources (from books, articles, personal interactions, observances, etc.), and put it all together to make a connection. Our subconscious creates an end result, but we can’t explain why we feel the way we do until we consciously acknowledge it and explore it. Or we can choose to ignore the “feeling/knowing,” and that may explain cognitive dissonance.
Thinking of intuition this way makes it a process that is far more valuable than I once thought. I see intuition now as a sign that my subconscious may be on to something important/insightful, and that I have a responsibility to explore it.
@Mary – I hadn’t realized that 80% was subconscious! I have a friend who agrees with me on every point, but doesn’t change, and he doesn’t even know why. He’s a great example of where logic alone doesn’t cut it. I sent him home with a copy of my calendar and a vegan cookbook. We’ll see if that has any impact. Earthlings had almost none!
@Corvus – if you have any articles you’d recommend for someone who isn’t deep in the field, I’d love to read more on the topic! Very interesting, the reactions you get depending on whether others assume you are male or female. I am reminded of the term hysteria, and all of the sexist implications behind it. That’s the kind of thing we’re still battling, really.
@MJ – what movie was it that had such an impact? I agree that use and suffering are connected. (Did you read Mary’s recent post? “Confessions of an Ex Ex-Vegan”? In the post and the comments they talked a bit about use / suffering.) I think that both sides have a tendency to err, in that way. Some focus on use to the point that it sometimes appears that they demonize anyone who discusses suffering. Others focus so much on suffering that they cloud the fact that all all use = suffering, and that’s where some of the happy meat trend comes in. Great point about the happy meat campaign appealing to the emotions. (Marji posted about this early on, and I think she touched on that too.)
@Aliya – have you read pattrice Jones’ “Aftershock”. Part of what she talks about within the topic of taking care of ourselves, is remembering that we have feelings. She talks about this a lot in the talks I’ve heard her give at various AR conferences too – it’s one of those points that probably can’t be made too often, because we have a tendency (in this society, anyway) to try to hold ourselves above emotions / feelings. I love that pattrice talks about this so much, because as you say, emotions are too often disregarded, and she has a way of bringing some common sense back to the picture. I haven’t noticed this in other radical/activist communities, but I’m a bit of an introvert and sort of skirt the edges of the ones I’m even marginally involved in. I have to say, though, I love the Rockdoves, a radical health collective in NYC. If I lived in NYC, I’d love to be part of their collective. They are, I think, what we’d like to see more of. :)
@Alex – that quote perfectly captures my process of becoming vegan and then solidifying my ideas around it. I had a lot of “feelings”, gut reactions, things like that, around certain campaigns, and it wasn’t until I read more thoughts and theory that I could put any of that into words. And putting it into words helped me understand so much more clearly all of those feelings and my reactions! Thanks for that quote, it’s a great one!
@jeannie – I think the comments are better than the post! I’m getting so much out of them! That was a really interesting article. I remember reading about the empathy neurons last year sometime, but it was a good refresher, and probably a pretty valid application. It does definitely provoke thought in a positive way!
That’s really interesting about intuition. It makes so much sense. In fact, I’ve often felt that the really big life decisions are easier than the small ones. It’s easier to “feel” or “have a feeling” about which is the right one…perhaps because it the different pieces are more significant to our subconscious? Of course I suppose this can lead us in the wrong direction also – confirmation bias? When we want a certain outcome to be the right one, and ignore (consciously or not) anything that doesn’t fit?
Interesting thoughts. Thanks, everyone, for such a great conversation!
Deb,
The movie was “Peaceable Kingdom,” directed by Jenny Stein. This documentary is no longer available. Much of it has been re-shot and updated so it’s now called “Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home.” It has been playing at film fests and received a documentary award at the 2009 Moondance International Film Festival. You can get more info and view the movie trailer here: http://www.peaceablekingdomfilm.org/
Another excellent film by Jenny Stein is “The Witness.” If you haven’t already seen it, you can now view this beautiful story for free in the new online screening room: http://www.tribeofheart.org/sr/sr_witscreeningroom_english.htm
(Running time: about 44 minutes.)
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Maybe a possible way to clear up this scuffle between the issues of use and suffering–which to me don’t exist as separate issues anyway–is just to focus on something like, “Murder of the animals is injustice.” Rather than despairing and then compromising on total abolition, I think we need clarity that can unite and propel us toward more effective actions. Every day the animals continue to feel agony. Every day farmed animal and vivisection lab animal *individuals* die without ever knowing a minute of kindness or joy as activists get bogged down in semantics and convoluted rhetoric.
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Compassion and love are feelings ridiculed by some people. Perhaps because the enormous power of these feelings frightens them—feelings they themselves have suppressed, often because that’s what they’re taught. But anything learned can also be unlearned, given practice and time.
Thanks! I’m always curious as to which movies motivate people to make change. I’ve heard good things about Jenny and James’ movies, and in talking to them a couple years ago I was excited about the updates they were making to PK, but I haven’t seen any of their movies myself.
Deb,
This is such a great post…
Mary/Deb I think you meant to say unconscious thoughts and not subconscious. There is a subtle difference….
And it’s supposedly 98% of our thoughts that are unconscious. Which would not seem so far fetched when you imagine what it feels like to ride a bike or play the piano…it’s all automatic…so acts the brain/mind while in thought. Our dreams are considered our unconscious thoughts as well so you can imagine how much thought takes place without our knowledge.
This subject…about emotions and feelings in my opinion is extremely important in understanding everything we are/do…what and who we are as well.
I actually gave a talk about this subject recently at Animal Acres and received a lot of laughs when I started by saying I was going to talk about feelings. It really is a strange phenomenon as well that when a straight hetero man wants to talk about feelings it’s perceived as funny or comedic. There is a bizarre stigma attached to men discussing emotions like empathy and compassion. It’s seen as a weakness yet it is what controls everything we do.
All of our reasoning takes place on an emotional level even though weve been told the opposite. This aspect directly relates to our caring about animals in that you can’t think rationally without emotions without feeling something first.
The sexism and ignorance involved with claiming empathy is more female is simply just that sexist and ignorant.
Democracy for instance..the system that we believe we live in…or wish to live in…this system is designed by our empathy. Men of course will want to take credit for the successful aspects of our civilizations but not want to own up to the fact that it is our feelings and emotions that created the roads we build for each other, our fire depts, our police depts our public health care…OK…scratch that last one off the list. But all this comes from human beings conspiring together to make one another happy and for the desire to make the world a better place for others. Unfortunately non human animals are usually left out.
Another important aspect is communicating to others that it is our empathy, our love for animals and our hoping for a more compassionate and less violent world that brought us here…to being ethical vegans.
It is not a female thing to feel and a male thing to think logically…but it is in this ignorance that so much damage is done to our lives and the lives of the animals who are not given the empathy they deserve. However it may be my intuition that informs me that women seem to be less afraid of allowing emotions such as empathy not to be blocked…or… it could be a whole testosterone thing going on with blocking the more caring emotions…but my intuition tells me to save that for another discussion.
Thanks for a great post!!
@Phillip – great points – it’s definitely true that the bias against emotions cuts both ways. It doesn’t do men any favors to believe they are required to suppress their feelings. It also reminded me that certain emotions are seen as acceptable in men, but those tend to be emotions such as anger. Not very helpful for men or women, overall.
Lots to think about! And thanks for getting me started thinking about this topic with your comment over at Mary’s blog!
You can rest easy now – finally there’s hope for the overly logical: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8653500.stm
All they need is a sniff of compassion.