Big Girls Don't Cry...or Do They?

I am a crier. Ask anyone who knows me well, and they will tell you that I cry at everything. Happy, sad, funny, hurt, I'm always the first to spring into waterworks. I bet all of my good friends and family have at some point received a phone message from me where I start crying or am already crying while leaving the message. I cry when watching movies (even silly romantic comedies), I cry when I'm tire, and I cry every time I say goodbye to someone I don't see often. I used to be embarrassed by this, but at this point in my life I've just accepted that it's a part of who I am...

So, imagine how excited I was when I came across this article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday: Read It and Weep, Crybabies: Tears of Men and Women Are Different; Why It Can Be Hard to Avoid Choking Up. I thought, could it be? The reason that I cry all the time and Ben hasn't cried in years? And it was.  The article speaks to the scientific and cultural reasons for one of the things that everyone already knows--women typically cry a lot more than men. Read the entire article here, or just read on for a few of my favorite parts:

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Some new research efforts are helping to piece together the biological and cultural forces behind crying, showing that there are different types of tears as well as differences in the way men and women cry.

Women are biologically wired to shed tears more than men. Under a microscope, cells of female tear glands look different than men's. Also, the male tear duct is larger than the female's, so if a man and a woman both tear up, the woman's tears will spill onto her cheeks quicker. "For men and their ducts, it'd be like having a big fat pipe to drain in a rainstorm," says Louann Brizendine, a neuropsychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco.

At another point the article explains:

One hormone in tears is prolactin, a lactation catalyst. Just as it helps to produce milk, prolactin also aids in tear production. By the time women reach 18, they have 50% to 60% higher levels of prolactin in their bloodstream than men do. "We believe this is one of the reasons that women cry more easily," Dr. Frey says.

And later, that:

All sorts of cultural influences determine who cries and the frequency. For her new book, "It's Always Personal," Anne Kreamer teamed with ad agency J. Walter Thompson to survey 1,200 working Americans. She found that age and gender play a role in freeness in crying: Women under 45 are 10 times as likely to cry at work as men 45 and older.

Dr. Vingerhoets conducted a project in 37 countries to compare the different rates of crying among men and women. Women in developed Western economies cry much more than men, and much more than women in societies where women have fewer rights, he says. As men age, they cry more—often provoked by altruism, camaraderie and issues of morality, Dr. Vingerhoets hypothesizes. "When males get older," he says, "their testosterone levels decrease."

The male reluctance to shed tears is relatively new, says Tom Lutz, a University of California, Riverside professor. He traces this to the late 19th century, when factory workers—mostly men—were discouraged from indulging in emotion lest it interfere with their productivity...Biologically, and in the context of centuries and millennia, "male tears are the norm and males not crying is recent historical aberration," he says.

"Glass Tears" by Man Ray

Poor guys. They just can't cry the way that they used to! And women, rejoice! It sounds like there may be some biological (as well as social/cultural) reasons that we cry much more often--and more freely--than men. Although it might be a bit weird for people at first, I call on the males of the world to start crying! Trust me, it feels amazing once it's over :)

Now I just need to see a study on why some women (or certain people) cry a lot more than others. They mention that age plays a role, but what else? Just extra-sensitive? Emotional basketcases? Or is there a biological reason for that, as well (I'm sure there is!)?

Off to my studio for the day...and if something brings me to tears, I'm not going to worry about it at all :)

Namaste,
Mary Catherine

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