To think it's unacceptable so many women cry in the workplace?

[ttcpatronisers]

I work in an office of approx 40 people. Half of them roughly are women.

Of the Half, the majority have cried in the workplace - many on multiple occasions and often when they are in the wrong about a situation.

I find this unprofessional and odd. Of the men, one has cried.

Why do women cry so often at work? Is it because there's some truth in us being unable to control our emotions? Is it because we fell it's accepted in society for women to cry? Or is it because we attention? Know we can get what we want when we cry as it softens a situation?

Honestly, I find it very odd and annoying. I feel it undermines us in the workplace.

I also find it incredibly unprofessional. Now obviously if something really bad has happened it's a different story but often these tears are because of minor events.

AIBU - crying at work isn't unprofessional
YANBU - people should hold their emotions together and perhaps go to the toilet and cry

@TerraNovaTwo again I'd say it's not even nice or not nice. It is literally just a fact. If everyone is allowed to be different and cry all over the place, why should I not really be able to empathise with it? I can empathise with real issues (eg someone's mum being ill, divorce etc) but I can't empathise with crying in the workplace because you've done something wrong, missed a deadline etc. To me they aren't real issues. I am very black and white as a person and if you're putting energy into crying, then you're not putting energy into solving the problem. Whilst with a real life issue it cannot always be solved, in my experience a not real issue always can be.

@Copasetic

I totally agree. I don’t see how people can be expected to be taken seriously and be equal to men if they keep crying. I work in construction and know a female project manager who is not opposed to crying when things aren’t going her way but I couldn’t imagine her male counterparts ever doing this. They wouldn’t be ridiculed forever!

So the men who scream and shout, I take it you judge them just as harshly as women who cry?

What kind of workplace makes people cry when they make a mistake?

Are you saying that people who cry are big babies? Allowing yourself to cry is in many ways a sign of maturity.

...the absence of men crying shows they are handling the situation better.

No it doesn't, it shows they are handling it or not, differently.

I wish my male friend had cried at work. Out of apparently nowhere he became convinced he'd made an error that was going to have repercussions for many. He didn't cry, he didn't get angry. He behaved professionally. He sucked in his emotions and tried to find what he believed he must have done, so he could try and fix it.

His colleagues had little idea what was going on with him. Unable to find anything wrong but convinced there was, he got up one morning and killed himself.
Deeply damaged so many around him, and a total waste of a life.

I don't think people should hold their emotions in, though I do agree crying openly at work is unprofessional, because of the reaction it tends to provoke in others.

So we should change how we behave in tough or upsetting situations just in case it causes an issue with other people?

If someone feels awkward or uncomfortable because a grown man/woman is crying, that's on them, surely?

@ChargingBuck

Yes I agree with posters men have anger issues, that's a separate thread - I wasn't posting about that.

Inadvertently, you were.

Because this isn't to do with workplaces.
It's to do with the fact that women cry more frequently than men.
That is down to social conditioning. "Boys don't cry" etc, so even when experiencing similar stressors & emotions, women & men express those feelings differently.

I have never worked anywhere where the majority of the female staff broke down in tears though. In fact I can only remember a couple of instances, in a 4 decade career, so it's certainly unusual.

This!

I remember a study in the last few years that found that people who cry more frequently have a different hormonal composition and higher levels of certain hormones, and are less able to control it when distressed (including emotions such as annoyed, frustrated or angry, not just "sad" or even manipulative). Women tend to have higher levels of those hormones as our baseline "normal". We get more emotional when we have hormone spikes, during pregnancy or certain points in the menstrual cycle. That isn't news to anyone here.

It's not defective or a weakness. It just is what it is. And I agree with everyone who has said that we need to stop viewing women as defective men - that really is the problem. Would it be more professional if women lost their temper and took it out on junior staff with the same regularity as we accept unthinkingly of senior men? I'd take a few quiet tears any time.

That said, I've cried at work once, thanks to a dickhead boss, but in the toilets because I'm sure he'd have enjoyed the victory if he'd seen it. I didn't cry when I had a miscarriage in the office toilets. I came close on a phonecall once when helping a customer through very difficult life circumstances which would melt a heart of stone but asked a colleague to tell me a joke instead (and I was pregnant at the time!) There's probably a trigger in the workplace too, is what I'm saying.

@anon12345678901 absolutely I would. Both show a total loss of control.

[quote Copasetic]@TerraNovaTwo again I'd say it's not even nice or not nice. It is literally just a fact. If everyone is allowed to be different and cry all over the place, why should I not really be able to empathise with it? I can empathise with real issues (eg someone's mum being ill, divorce etc) but I can't empathise with crying in the workplace because you've done something wrong, missed a deadline etc. To me they aren't real issues. I am very black and white as a person and if you're putting energy into crying, then you're not putting energy into solving the problem. Whilst with a real life issue it cannot always be solved, in my experience a not real issue always can be.[/quote]
A professional crying over something that they ought to be accountable for, such as going over a deadline or having majorly fucked up at work, is one thing. That's not the same as crying because you feel pressure all round (divorce, bereavement, etc) or because you are subject to blatantly unfair treatment in your workplace.

@ttcpatronisers well let's see, you say lots of women cry at your current workplace and you've observed the same thing happening at your previous work too. Yet most people here are saying they don't observe the same thing at their work. And you say it's definitely not a workplace thing... so... gosh, could it be a YOU thing? You do seem to be the common denominator in all this crying at work... 🤔

I welled up at work last week over a tender moment. A colleague said something lovely to me. How unprofessional of me

In a world where we are all corporate robots, nobody would cry, be unreasonable, everybody would leave home life at home and not bring work home and we might have emotions but we'd all wear our carefully curated face with only Corporate ApprovedTM emotions at appropriate levels and appropriate times.

Unfortunately for capitalism (and perhaps for the OP ) we aren't robots, we are humans, fallible, messy humans who sometimes can't hold tears in.

My goodness, what a crime it is to be a fallible human at an inconvenient time

I've cried at work, most of my colleagues have cried at work - mostly in situations where it is safe to cry, for example in supervision. It's usually for personal reasons and not about work - though managing work while handling outside stress can be a factor.

It's perfectly fine to cry at my work. We actually need to know if something is going on in people's private life because it will often mean they will need extra support to do the work (Social workers).

I cried at work when I was being horribly bullied by a sexist misogynistic boss. Up until that day I had stood up to him every single time he had crossed the line. I was isolated, exhausted and trapped because of my contract and he pushed me so far I lost my temper and burst into tears through anger and frustration. I’m sure lots of women cry crocodile tears, but lots of women don’t and a workplace where people are routinely in tears would ring a lot of alarm bells for me.

I can't except this is not a company thing, I have cried when I have been in the wrong or let's be polite... perceived to be wrong (scapegoat) when I have been in the wrong in companies where the culture is supportive and mistakes are dealt with in an adult manner, I am fine, but the calling into an office and told off in a company where The culture is toxic or just badly managed, I have cried out of frustration and upset about my treatment not because I have done something wrong. I rarely cry and my current employer is able to convey their needs and any errors without causing me to breakdown. Also when people are under stress they make more mistakes.
On the other note,
Men biologically find it difficult to cry, woman's hormones can increase frequency of crying, and judging women on a scale of men v women is not constructive and is sexist.

I worked in a really stressful job in finance when a company was failing and losing contracts.
Lots of redundancies and international parent company pressure for reporting etc
It was awful.

Tears are often a stress relief which is better than anger.
We joked it was an inefficient use of time to cry in the loos.

It’s a bigger issue if that so many people cry. Wtf is wrong with the culture and environment of the company?

What? I’ve never seen this happen. What sort of workplace are you in where people are constantly crying?

Maybe something else is going on but come on most people are sensible and won’t cry about silly things in public let alone the workplace

Also adding if a colleague cried to me I would support and find out what was happening

I don’t think people are going around performance crying

When I've made mistakes at work I've gone to my line manager and told them. I haven't ended up in tears. The fact that so many at your workplace do is concerning. You might not think it's not a workplace issue but over the years I've only see a handful of colleagues (out of hundreds) cry.

Why do you think crying over legitimately sad life circumstances is bad? In the company of people you like and spend a lot of time with (you excepted, probably, as you sound like a barrel of laughs).

Also, dunno about you, but when I'm going to cry there's literally nothing in the world I could do to stop it!

YABU and judgmental.

@Mouseonmychair

You aren't going to get a sensible answer on here. But I agree where I see massively more women crying than men I think it is weaponisation of tears normally and an attempt to make people feel sorry for them. Even if the workplace is crap (which the op assures isn't) then the absence of men crying shows they are handling the situation better.

How is the absence of crying an indication of handling the situation better?

Women cry more in the home as well as the workplace. Because women cry more than men. Men may not be crying at home, but they are expressing their emotions in other ways - hence the fact that approx 90% of domestic abuse is committed by men.

That's not exactly "handling the situation better" is it?
Unless you'd rather be abused than cried at ...

The men debate is for another thread

I disagree. I don't think it's necessarily that women express emotion more often than men on a huge scale like you're implying, I think men just express it in a different way usually.

All this "we never see men crying at work", well yes we probably don't as often, but we do tend to see them more often expressing that another way i.e. anger, shouting ect... It's the same thing just expressed differently.

@ttcpatronisers

Img this thread is already getting ridiculous. I've explained the reasons why people are crying. These people are generally happy in their jobs and for example - one has an alcoholic husband so cried because of it. Another had a knee that was hurting. It is NOT company related can we just accept that.

Now you either believe me - or continue to switch the narrative to suit.

Lol. You are still wayyyyy too aggressive! Calm down! Crikey...

I think you need to look at this differently. If most people on here are shocked at the fact that a lot of people in your workplace cry then it is to do with the workplace!! Perhaps not the work they are doing but the environment where they feel it is accepted to cry. It's in the culture. You see it as a bad thing and others might not.

I can see why it annoys you. I would be too. Move to a place where this isn't common. I'm in the Fire Service. Try there coz we don't cry all the time.

I agree it shouldn't be common place but we also need to accept the reality that we're all human and sometimes people will cry. I don't think we should lose our humanity at the office doors.

I've had people cry for various reasons (men more than women in my personal experience) including fertility issues, deaths in the family etc ..and I've been sympathetic to each.

I could go a whole year without crying once. But I did keep crying around the time I had a miscarriage. People have lives. Get over it!

And it's your concern because?

You sound very uncaring and cold.

Get over it.

There are bigger and more important things in the world than this .

I cried once because my team was going on a volunteering day i couldnt go as was pg but noone knew including boss. So i was covering all my teams work. Then they started saying i akso needed to do my old teams work too!
(I cry when angry)

But pp also fits i got most annoyed working for a psycho woman who had made several people leave including me, and when i was trying to change departments ticked the box to say they didnt think i couod do the new job. Which she 100% knew was an outright lie.
Other reasons for annoyance for me were during mergers doubling our workload.
And other half of team going on sick leave for several months just leaving me to do all the work (impossible).
So basically absolutely poor management issues and then im actually so traumatised that i think i panic when thinking about returning after mat leave.
But noone cried (some did go off on stress and not come back) lots left. Very stressful holding all the anger in every day.
Overall more woemn might cry because if you have kids you might be getting literally no sleep. And doing all the housework. And doing all the school related stuff. (I cried when i realised dc1 hadnt done homework so she got upset at not getting 'values time'