Telling someone “how to feel” is a subtle but powerful act of control that erodes their autonomy and denies the legitimacy of their experience. At its core, it is a form of emotional violence. When a person—often a man, but not exclusively—tells someone (especially referred to a woman or to children) to “calm down” or “be patient,” it does more than just dismiss their emotions; it attempts to erase them. This is not a harmless gesture, but an assertion of dominance that is steeped in patriarchal values, even if unintentionally. It sends a clear message: your feelings are inconvenient, excessive, and something that should be altered to suit my comfort or standards.
The insistence on calmness, patience, or a pleasant demeanour has long been weaponised to silence women, forcing them into a mold of passivity that serves the comfort of others while denying their full humanity. This expectation that especially women must be calm, smiling, and endlessly understanding reflects an ingrained assumption that their emotions are somehow less valid, and even less rational, than men’s. It’s a patronizing and dehumanizing stance rooted in a history of viewing (women’s) emotions as “too much” or “overly sensitive.”
When someone says “be calm” in response to someone expressing anger or frustration, they’re not merely offering advice—they are dismissing their perspective, casting their as irrational, and attempting to derail the conversation.
This is not about helping them regulate their emotions; it’s about controlling them. What’s more, this behavior reveals a lack of emotional literacy and empathy, betraying an unwillingness to engage with someone else’s emotional reality. It reflects an emotional avoidance where real communication is feared, and challenging feelings are minimised rather than addressed.
The harm here is immense. Being told not to feel or express what you feel is isolating and invalidating. It’s a form of silencing that chips away at self-worth and can have long-lasting impacts on a person’s mental health and sense of self. This kind of emotional control is not something we should tolerate in any setting, and it is especially insidious when used to marginalize or diminish women’s voices.
The next time we hear someone tell another person to “calm down” or “relax,” we should see it for what it is: an attempt to control, silence, and discredit. Real emotional empathy doesn’t dictate how someone should feel; it listens (and validates) how they do feel. If we want a society that respects individuals and honours diverse emotional realities, we must actively reject and call out any attempt to deny someone the right to feel.
An excerpt from poem Meaning Seeking - The Whisper - to inspire you to feel and stop neglecting!
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Define violence please
Physical violence
Sexual violence
Emotional violence
Psychological violence
Spiritual violence
Cultural violence
Verbal violence
And neglect
Neglect that violence exists
What so many forms have in common
Control
The illusion of controlling the world
In the frustration of not being able to control ourselves
The craving for power we do not have
So we abuse
Neglecting is violence too
Neglecting our responsibility to say no
Neglecting the care we owe to the world
To ourselves
Turning our back
Numbing down
Excusing the abuse …
The opposite of neglect is agency. We all can take agency on our actions (or lack of actions). We all can start looking within and explore how status, affiliations, dominance benefit us. The opposite of neglect is care. Caring may start with appreciation, with listening, with embodying presence…
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