People are happiest when they allow their individual personality to come out, not when they conform to popular images. Men who believe they must act tough and women who believe they must act soft are boxed in to a set of expectations that have nothing to do with who they are.
Look around at a funeral, and you will see women crying and men standing with steely faces. Men have been taught to be tough, not to reveal their emotions. Women have been taught to be more open, more expressive. The National Institutes of Health has documented that with both physical and emotional pain, men are much less likely than women to reveal their discomfort. It is important to remember, though, that not all of us fit those expectations.
A man who wants to cry at a funeral but stops himself because he's been taught to be tough is not really being tough. He's pretending to be what he thinks people expect of him. A woman who forces herself to open up in front of others but who would rather act more reserved is not a nicer person for showing her emotions and will not be happier for having to act in a way that is unnatural to her.
You have to act the way you think is appropriate, not the way you think the average man or woman is supposed to act. Our generalizations about men and women are often false and too often damaging.
Satisfaction with life was not found to be connected to how well men and women fit into gender stereotypes of femininity and masculinity.
Ramanaiah, Detwiler, and Byravan 1995
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