February 9, 2010
As the irascible Jimmy Dugan in 1992's "A League of Their Own," Tom Hanks shouts "Are you crying? There's no crying. There's no crying in baseball!"
In that scene, Hanks berates one of his players -- a woman -- who can't keep it together. The women of that film's World War II era were expected to be tough and to carry the burden for their absent husbands.
Today, as well, women are expected to be thick-skinned from the cubicle up to the boardroom. Mary Tyler Moore, in the early 1970s, may be the last known woman in America to cry unabashedly to her boss.
Once women began the big shift from the home sphere to the workplace, ideas about "ladylike" behavior began to shift as well. But what about our attitude toward men showing their softer side? ... (read more)
