April 18, 2012 - I'm generally not a huge fan of the belief that men and women handle emotions differently, or that it's okay for one gender to display an emotion and not the other. No one seems to have much of a negative reaction to a woman getting sad, but a man expressing sadness is often viewed as pathetic. Likewise men seem to get much more leniency if they get angry or aggressive, while women must be crazy if they show the same emotion. In addition to expectations regarding expressing emotions differently men and women also have expectations regarding how to react to others expressing emotions. Women become stereotyped as being better at comforting people as they're "stereotypically" better at handling sadness. Men are supposedly better fighters because it's "socially more acceptable" for them to get aggressive in arguments or business dealings. I haven't done research determining if men and women experience emotions that differently, but I have a very hard time believing that men and women are that different emotionally.

Jennifer's father obviously doesn't share my opinion, but I tried to have Ellie convey my point by not just taking his crap and angrily hanging up on him.

Meanwhile, Emily's friend, Naomi, started her own comic that seems to feature Emily as a character. I don't have many details on the comic or what Naomi's plans with it are. Heck, I don't think I've ever actually met Naomi myself, but she's clearly a very talented and much better artist than me, so check out her comic, domestic animal, and other links at domestic-animal.com.

-D