I have cried in the work place before. However, my old office was mostly women and when I cried once while at my company's head quarters in October it was in front of a woman colleague. I also cried in front of a couple male professors and advisor types while in college. Most of them were sensitive to what was making me upset and tried to be sympathic.
I do, however, think it's different in a more high stress, cut-throat type place. Crying is seen as a weakness which only makes a woman look less competent when she does it in front of men who should be her equals.
I also think that even in a more competitive environment some men may want to reach out and be sympathetic when a woman is upset but aren't really sure what to do because of the harrassment issue you raised.
All in all an interesting post. I'm sorry you're upset and frustrated. I can't imagine going through that day after day. (((Jenny F.)))
I have cried infront of my PhD advisor twice, and in front of my lab manager (postdoc) once.
I think I generally project a very hard exterior and don't let people in easily. Suddenly I burst into tears and people realize I do need them, I need their help and all that. Each time (this was not the purpose of the tears, I was angry, frustrated, completely stressed) they literally dropped everything and came running and were wonderful (male) human beings. They were supportive and it helped, because I had to explain all that was wrong. I have my pride, I don't do tears often (that would be 3 times in 5 years).
On the whole, I think that crying may be seen as negative because it is a classic 'bitch manipulation tool'. Some women seem to exploit male discomfort at crying or fears over harrassment to get what they want.
I'm sorry your frustrations took you to this point. Crying is good though, sort of pressing a reset button, making you focus and consider and perhaps make improvements.
Good luck.
I cried some during and a bunch after my PhD oral preliminary exam, when I blanked out totally on a simple question. In hindsight, I didn't eat properly that day, which was kind of dumb and I think the low blood sugar played into it. Anyway, one of the (male!) profs on my committee took me out for a beer afterwards and told me that he was "a crier" too, and that was incredibly reassuring to me.
Plus crying is physiologically useful for dumping excess stress chemicals, right? 
I cried in a class I was taking on gender and teaching. We had to write in a journal about our thoughts on the topic, and read the journal entry out loud to the class 3 times during the semester. I wrote an early entry after meeting a new engineering student I was supposed to mentor and who was having a tough time; I wrote all my frustrations with my engineering undergrad experience in this entry totally dispassionately, but when it came to reading it out loud, I completely lost it, I was so frustrated. But the class was mostly women, which made it better, and the faculty member (a woman) was wonderful.
I cried after my first prelim practice (our prelims are the defense of our research plans), because I was torn to shreds by friends and my advisor, and felt like I was stupidly underprepared. But only my mentor (a dean) was there to see it, and she was great. I then rewrote my entire presentation, made it much more detailed and well structured.
Of course, I didn't pass it anyway. So I cried after that too. I was SO ANGRY that I was dumb enough not to pass this thing that everyone told me I would be fine at. I held it together until people left; Unfortunately, one faculty member came back to check on me, and I had already dissolved in tears. She took me to my dean friend's office, and on the way we saw another faculty member on my committee, who is also a woman. So they both saw me crying, as did my dean friend, but they're all women. I would have felt MUCH worse if some of the men on my committee had seen me.
I passed the damn prelim the second time around, and technically the first one didn't count as a "fail" - we just "ran out of time..."
I think one problem is that many men don't know how to interpret tears - they think it's something about sadness, grief, hormones, or general un-hingedness, and not ANGER or FRUSTRATION. If only I knew how to stopper up the tears and start yelling instead...
I keep a box of tissues in a prominent position on my desk, within reach of the visitor chair. This is because I advise a lot of students and residents, and about 20% cry when I talk to them. Not because I'm telling them something upsetting, but because I have a way of saying, "How are you doing?" that just turns on the spigot. It's only the women who cry, though, and I'm pretty sure none of them cries in front of men -- the men are always like, "Really? People cry when you talk to them?" and assume I must be abusing people. It's a complicated issue, for sure. Most women respond differently to crying than most men. (I read an interesting article on women who take testosterone while undergoing gender reassignment, and I remember one speaking specifically about finding her/himself unable to cry when she/he wanted to.) And although I think it's perfectly natural and fine when women cry alone with me, I'm alarmed when someone does so in public -- like there's a time and place for that, and you should be able to control it.
The only time I cried in a professional setting was when I had watched another doctor do something horrendous to a patient, and I felt guilty that I hadn't done enough to stop her. I was telling the attending what had happened, and I just lost it. He was FREAKED. OUT. Had NO idea what to do with me. He made a half-gesture like he was about to pat my shoulder, then just backed away.
I think it's an under-explored topic. It's not as simple as "men should accept the full range of emotions people express" or "women should control themselves." (Not that you were implying that.)
JFS,
Just this week I watched one of my favorite coworkers (student) just about burst. I was pressing her a little about something I thought she needed to clean up for a publication and I didn't realize that her advisor (my boss) and another student had already given her the equivalent of a little sister science-not-good-enough noogie over the same topic. By the time I came on the seen she was pretty sore and felt rather embattled and I would have too.
I backed off and we discussed it later and it was okay, but I did have that typically male feeling of discomfort when I thought she was going to burst into tears. There are a whole bunch of mixed messages around this: 1. be passionate about your work but only let it show by busting your ass, not by leaking fluid or getting angry (something that is really frowned upon in my institution). 2. Women have a place in academics and we acknowledge them as equals but only so long as they don't make us too uncomfortable or show any of the traits (like being a little more emotional) that make them different from men. More or less, the men got their first and get to set the standards.
Now, if you think men get uncomfortable when a woman cries at work, you should see what happens when a man cries in front of coworkers. I watched a guy have a real full on breakdown once and their was a panic.
I am constantly telling myself, "There is no crying in science." Kind of like that quote in A League of their Own, where the coach says that there's no crying in baseball. But let's face it, there IS crying in science. It bothers me that I see my own tears as weak and a lack of control. But I don't hold others to the same standard. I had a colleague who would turn on the water works in front of our boss every time she wanted something. Made me so angry, because she essentially proved the stereotype. In the few moments I have cried in front of my advisor, it had nothing to do with science though. My advisor is one of my best friends and so I trust that he will take my emotions seriously. Sadly, I would never cry in front of any other scientist or law professor for that matter. I feel so vulnerable and it offends my tough exterior. But deep down, I am an emotional wreck most of the time. Always on the verge of tears.
I teared up during my oral exam, and one of the profs on my committee (a woman) called for a 10 minute break. She came and found me in the bathroom during the break and told me that I was doing fine, that she knew it was all nerves and to just get back in there and finish. I also cried during a couple of post-thesis committee meetings with the chair of my committee...he totally did not know how to react.
There was also a male grad student in my thesis lab who was prone to a crying jag every 6 months or so, like clockwork. He would usually start in our advisor's office, and then she didn't know what to do, so she would abruptly end the meeting and kick him out and then close her door (presumably to keep him from returning?). Then he would usually show up at my bench to finish venting.
Basically, I think that a person's empathy toward other humans (grad students included) depends more on how much they buy into the "science must be your entire existence" zombie-mantra. Both female and male mentors that allow and encourage their advisees to have fill lives tend to be more empathetic, and those who have no life outside of the lab tend to expect others to be science zombies, too.
Thanks for weighing in, y'all. I think the message overall is 1) my lab/ dept is extra-awful about this, and yes, NSLS, they are very cut-throat; 2) some of y'all, scientists and otherwise, have cried without total professional-credence-melting, so it is possible; 3) in this small sample, many of us would be horrified to cry, or see someone crying, but on the other hand, sometimes profs/ colleagues are surprisingly helpful about it.
Henry, when my husband cries, I know something's REALLY REALLY wrong! Freaks me out too.
FlyGrrl, that's an excellent point; I'll have to put the all-is-science mantra into my modelling equation for this problem.
In grad school it became a joke...how long can you hold out before crying in front of your advisor. I made it to the last month or so of writing - then he asked me to do something minor and that was the straw that broke this camel's back. He was very nice about it - suggested we get some air and take a break as I was just working too hard. We spent the afternoon having a wonderful chat about my research at the local park! No papers...no figures..no stress. Just what I needed.
On the other side of things, I totally freaked out when I had my first student sitting in my office crying. We both survived and I thought I was over the hurdle until... one day it was a male student - you think men panic when women are crying...nothing compared to me and this student.
All in all crying is not a deal breaker - unless you are a weepy one. I find that most of the time it is stress that is causing the problem.
Katron- Yeah, the one time I *almost* cried in front of my advisor, it was because I was mad enough to spit nails, worried about my project, and at the end of my rope! Yours sounds remarkably understanding.
I suppose I hadn't considered it's hard on the faculty too!
I fully agree with this post. There is no place for crying in academia. Women are definitely disrespected if they do cry. I think men are, too, but maybe they're less likely to cry in the first place, so it is ultimately stacked against the women. I would not feel comfortable crying around any of the faculty here, even though some are quite nice, and I'd only feel comfortable crying around a very small number of students who are my close friends.
I tend to cry after meetings - I get damp eyed in my advisor's office or, most notably, in my thesis proposal meeting, but manage to make it out to my car before it turns into full-fledged weeping.
I defend my thesis at the end of this week, and am hoping I can keep that habt up - crying in front of this committee or my advisor would not be good.
I cry in front of my students quite regularly. (This, of course, is in the humanities, where the rules may be different.) I cry when I teach the elegy; I cry when I teach Charlotte's Web and Anne of Green Gables. On one occasion, I got a snide remark about it in a student evaluation, but I've had many, many positive responses. Students really love it when I cry.
It's a bit harder to cry about personal matters, but I've done that too, once - and came home from that class to an in-box full of prayers and support from my lovely students. (Those were some unusually lovely students, though.)
(I'm here from Dani's blog. Hi!)
Hi, Bub (and Pie)! Is everything better in Canada???
I wonder if the gender ratios do make some difference, and I suspect the 'culture' of a field has something to do with it. Crying in CNM school: probably okay.
As a PhD student, I cried once when talking to my advisor, and he clapped me on the back so hard and so many times that he jolted me out of it and I vowed never to do it again. Another time I was hiding out in an empty lab for a good cry when a male member of my committee came in. He got the hell out of there as fast as possible.
Now that I'm an Asst. Prof., I routinely have crying grad students in my office--all women unless they are men caught cheating on something. Frankly, I'm glad to have them here--we all need an outlet. As an aside, every female student thinking about juggling family and work comes to see me too, since I am the ONLY ONE who's had a baby without a stay-at-home wife.
I was just at a faculty retreat and one of the older male participants shared his reaction to crying. He said he gets the heebie jeebies and sometimes yells at crying females. He got the most expressive sneer on his face as he said this. Yikes.
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