# Gender differences in anger (and what surprises people)

- **Episode:** [163](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/163.md) (2025-01-16)
- **Type:** other
- **Tags:** anger, gender, differences
- **Time:** 20:47–22:57 (start 1247s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/163?t=1247](https://truthliesandwork.com/163?t=1247)

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[20:47] Al Elliott: Yeah, I think one of the things that probably surprises people the most is the nature of gender differences when it comes to anger, because people have, I think, a myth about anger. A pretty prominent myth is the idea that men are angrier than women. And while there's tons of evidence that says that men tend to express their anger in particular ways that are different from how women express their anger, there isn't necessarily a difference in who's getting angry. That what we see is that they get angry at approximately the same frequency. Men and women also experience anger in a similar intensity, but men tend to express it outwardly. Um, yelling, screaming, hitting things. Women tend to express it inwardly, um, you know, uh, social withdrawal, uh, suppression, maybe even crying, uh, things like that. And so that— and that's, that's rooted also in upbringing and modeling in those display rules that I mentioned, that, uh, women tend to get messages about how they should internalize their emotions. They shouldn't express them outwardly. Men tend to get messages, or boys and men tend to get messages about expressing their anger outwardly. So I think that's a pretty common myth surrounding anger. But probably the most common myth surrounding anger is the idea that catharsis, or like the aggressive expression of anger, punching a pillow, punching a punching bag, breaking things, the idea that that's a good way to let anger out. There's zero evidence that that's a good, healthy way to let anger out. In fact, all the evidence we have says that that's bad for you. It leads to more aggression later on. It leads to more intense anger later on. And we should find other ways of dealing with anger than that
[22:44] Leanne Elliott: How does that get into the popular realm then? Because it's such a thing, isn't it? With the axe throwing or smashing up glasses, or how does that get so mistranslated from literature to practice?