In 1987, Pat Schroeder was moved to tears when she announced her decision not to seek the Democratic presidential nomination.
It was not a pretty sight. The Colorado congresswoman was mercilessly criticized for her actions and accused of single-handedly setting the women’s movement back 20 years. Syndicated columnist Roger Simon said Schroeder’s face was so contorted with emotion that “she looked like a Cabbage Patch Doll.”
Almost a decade later, another congresswoman, Enid Waldholtz, of Utah, held a weepy five-hour press conference to defend herself against charges of financial improprieties. After the marathon melodrama, public opinion was split on whether Waldholtz was a victim of blind ambition or blind love. The consensus on the tears, however, was unanimous: cheap and manipulative.
Contrast this to another recent press conference at which Christopher Darden broke down after O.J. Simpson’s acquittal. America ached for the Los Angeles prosecutor, praising him for his compassion and for the depth of his commitment.
What’s going on here? Attitudes about men and crying have clearly evolved. (Remember the 1972 presidential candidate Ed Muskie, whose tears destroyed his career and forever branded him a wimp?) Alas, for women, it is still regarded as the ultimate taboo.
This, at a time when so many feminine traits — team-building, cooperation, collaboration — have been embraced by corporate America. Even such an advocate as Sherry Suib Cohen, author of “Tender Power,” which advises women to make the most of their consensual skills, draws the line at tears. “I say that with a heavy heart. . ., but it is still the last frontier.”
Others are more tolerant of the occasional sob or sniffle. There are times, they say, when it’s OK — even necessary — to cry, but it is an emotion that can be unleashed only under specific circumstances, and even then it carries an element of risk.
“The context is extremely important,” said Rosanna Hertz, a sociology professor at Wellesley College, in Massachusetts. “It has to be appropriate, but when such emotions are expressed openly and without fear, it makes the workplace a far more humane and honest place.”
William Frey, a biochemist and an authority on tears, agrees. “What is the biggest problem in business today? That people don’t care. So here we have people who care passionately and we’re going to penalize them? It doesn’t make sense.”
Tears also receive a thumbs up as a crucial component of emotional well-being, said Frey, research director of Health Partners Dry Eye and Tear Research Center, in St. Paul. Giving in to a good cry is cathartic, and certainly it is healthier than drinking, popping pills, taking up risky pursuits (bungee jumping, anyone?) or getting an ulcer.
It’s no accident that most people feel better after they reach for a Kleenex.
“Emotional tears contain a higher protein concentration than tears that are shed when the eye is irritated by onion vapor,” said Frey, who has studied the subject since 1979. “We are quite literally crying it out — removing chemicals that have built up in the body due to stress.”
Let academicians praise tears all they want, many women say. In the trenches, it is still viewed as a sign of weakness, vulnerability and irrational behavior — not exactly qualities that propel a woman to the top of the organizational chart.
While men might get away with venting their anger, a woman who seems out of control still violates a workplace norm.
Actually, anger and tears are both responses to rage, said Adele Scheele, an author and head of the Career Center at California State University, in Northridge.
“The difference is that women relieve it and men drive it away,” Scheele said. “But everyone tolerates the male response because it’s boy stuff. We know it. . . . We’ve seen it before. Tears, however, were something new.”
In 1978, three Vanderbilt University psychologists conducted a five-year study of workplace tears and concluded that “crying among adult professional women is a phenomenon experienced far more often than it is studied or publicly disclosed.”
Two decades after the Vanderbilt study, not much has changed. The navy blazer and striped tie may have been relegated to the clothes scrap heap, but a stiff upper lip is still very much part of the corporate uniform.
Ironically, the influx of women into the labor force has paved the way for men to exhibit a wider range of feelings. In the public arena, recent examples include Henry Kissinger at Nixon’s funeral, Bill Clinton listening to Jessye Norman’s stirring rendition of “Amazing Grace” and again, at news of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination; George Bush reflecting with TV’s David Frost on the gut-wrenching decision to send U.S. troops to the Gulf War.
“If it is appropriate to the situation, it says that men are present, conscious and engaged,” said Scheele.
That evidence is being borne out in corporate offices as well. One woman, a senior officer at a Fortune 15 firm in Chicago, said that in the last 12 months she has had more male executives crying in her office for a variety of reasons — layoffs, financial problems, illness and death — than ever before.
“It doesn’t bother me at all,” she said. “In fact, I think it’s a high compliment that they feel secure enough to share the most intimate details of their lives. It’s OK for them. . . , but it would still be used against me.”
On that rare occasion when her emotions get the best of her, it’s an intensely private affair.
“It’s only OK in a bathroom stall, preferably with the door barricaded, in an office building across town from your own,” she said. “After 26 years, I still absolutely forbid it of myself.”
While men are allowing themselves more emotional latitude, they are still unnerved when a woman’s eyes well up, especially during tough performance reviews, said Freada Klein, a Boston attorney.
Klein is a consultant to many companies on recruiting and retaining female employees. Many men find themselves tempering criticism, or not delivering it at all, in an effort to avoid the dreaded tears, she said.
“I ask them, `What do you think will happen to the careers of women who don’t get honest feedback compared to the men who do?’ ” she said. “They look quite sheepish and come away with a better understanding of their retention problem. Personally, I find it less threatening to have someone cry than pound the table and shout.”
The Vanderbilt study found that managers are uncomfortable because they don’t know how to respond. While a hug or a pat on the shoulder would be a way to sooth a distraught friend or family member, it would be inappropriate with a subordinate.
This confusion often results in anger toward the employee, whose tears are seen as manipulative, an unfair accusation, Frey said.
“Humans may vary in their ability to tolerate stress, but when the intensity goes above a certain critical threshold, it triggers the natural crying response. The idea that it can be turned on or off to get sympathy is baloney.”
If men are uncomfortable with sobs or sniffles, many women get downright angry because they have held such a tight rein on their own emotions for so long.
Yevette Brown, an independent TV producer in Chicago, holds herself to such standards. As a woman, she feels her job performance comes under harsh scrutiny.
“If you’re at a disaster site and bodies are being carried out, I think people understand if you take a moment to compose yourself. But it’s never permissible because you have two minutes to air time.”
She concedes to offering a hug and a handkerchief to employees for traumatic personal events too.
“But if you play the tear card with me because you were reprimanded or because you’re stressed, that is not going to set well with me at all.”
Anne Mitchell, an attorney in Palo Alto, Calif., considers herself pretty ferocious when she goes after an opponent, but she thinks there are times when a woman can cry without damaging her credibility.
She recalled a case in which she represented a father who was trying to get custody of his 1-year-old daughter from the mother, who had a history of drug and physical abuse. It was a long shot, Mitchell said, because the court had previously awarded custody to the mother.
When a clerk came out and announced, “You better pick up your daughter because you’re going to have her from now on,” Mitchell broke down with her client.
“The relief was incredibly overwhelming,” she said. “I don’t think it should ever be inappropriate for clients or colleagues to know that you’re human.”
Cate Stika, an obstetrician/gynecologist in Chicago, sees a clear distinction: Tears of empathy are OK; tears of conflict or because your circuits are overloaded are not.
“In medicine, because you are dealing with life and death, there are times when you cry with your patients, and that crosses gender,” she said. “Those are tears that say `I ache for you . . . and for the sadness in your life’ — and even then, you cannot let it interfere with the distance that is required to exercise sound medical judgment.
“But frustration? Exhaustion? Those you choke back. . . . Those are the rules of life.”
