Women Cry

"No woman, no cry." Crooned Bob Marley.

What did he mean? In vernacular he was saying, "Hey babe, don't cry."

Why are there no songs such as "Hey dude. Don't cry."?

Women cry much more than men, to the point where everyone knows this to be true by their own experience. Women cry a lot and with little provocation.

The fact that women have a propensity to cry for emotional reasons in any stressful conditions, is a truism.

The problem is that crying tends to give you more sympathy, if you are a woman.

A woman who complains about a work colleague's behaviour is more likely to have action taken against their offender if they start crying, and especially if their offender is a man.

This is not fair. It is also sexist.

In society, it is a greater offense against someone if they "caused" their female victim to cry.

The problem not acknowledged is that women cry. Men don't. In general.

The treatment should be the same, but it is not. More is done for the one crying, especially for women.

Women crying should be treated the same as if they weren't. Crying should not be given more value.

What is not acknowledged is that it is normal for women to cry in many situations. It's what women do. This is not sexist, it is making an empirically verifiable generalisation with high levels of predictability.

Women cry watching ads on TV. They cry at weddings. They cry in arguments. They cry when they're upset. They even cry with what they admit has no reason. They cry out of the blue.

Women cry.

So when there is an argument between two colleagues at work and one cries, that person crying receives more sympathy and the perceived causer of their crying receives harsher judgment.

Why should this judgment be allowed support?

Because the sight of a woman crying provokes an instinctive reaction in the observer.

Babies cry a lot. And the instinct is to feel sorry for them and to comfort them.

Adults crying triggers the same instinct.

But why is the response different between adult females crying and adult males crying.

The sight of a man crying provokes a different response. We are repulsed by the weakness of a man crying, which is why men will do their best not to cry in public.

...Unless they think this desperate act of weakness will go in their favour when they're in serious trouble.

This is Crocodile Tears. A popular manipulative tactic used successfully only because of the likely sympathy it affords. When a child is caught red-handed by their parents, they will turn on the water works to mitigate their punishment, because they know what we have forgotten: crying gets you sympathy.

If a man cries, it must be serious. Men are respected for opening up their inner most feelings in a one-off dropping of their manliness.

Men use this tactic against women who want to break up with them.

There are some few siutations in society where crying is acceptable by both men and women, even expected; funerals, mental breakdowns, tragic loss.

Reason is slave to the passions, said David Hume. It takes some effort to first be self-aware enough to identify an instinct and more effort to employ reason to take over and command it.

Therefore, as commanders of our instincts, we need to be aware and then force reason to the fore.

It is not a rational conclusion that if a women is crying they are in greater distress than if they weren't.

It is a feeling provoked by an observation that your brain cross-references with observations of infants crying. Your brain tells you, this is the same experience.

Don't be fooled.

No woman, no cry, really means, You cry because you are woman.