GENDERED EMOTIONALITY: ASPECTS OF POWER, GENDER AND EMOTION AS IN RICH LIKE US AND WILD SWANS

Abstract

Despite the extensive research on Emotion and Emotional Intelligence, little is known about the social perspective of gendered emotionality. Though plenty of research has been conducted, which studies the emotional differences between men and women, the role of emotional regulation of the genders in societal integrity is hardly studied. Thus, fore-grounded in the emotion and gender theories, this paper derives an overall image from the literature that discusses the possibility of rational gender emotions in acquiring an integrated individual self. Rediscovering some of the stereotyped perspective of emotionexpressions with respect to gender, the paper is further an examination of the analysis and critique of the characters from the novels ‘Rich Like Us’ by Nayantara Sahgal and ‘Wild Swans’ by Jung Chang. As the stories add nuance to our understanding of an experience during a political crisis, the violence at the nations’ yields to the complicated self of the public and their social relationships. To illustrate their emotional function, the paper studies six characters from the novels in specific, analysing the stronger gender emotions. The unconscious dimensions of felt emotional experience thereby determine if the ‘weaker sex’ is weak or strong in establishing an integrated self and society