the sentiments in this story are right up there with efforts to sanitize the workplace for the supposed benefit of women. no one deserves to be harassed, sexually or otherwise, in the workplace, but beyond that, the sentiments in this article, coupled with current efforts to "protect" working women has had the effect of reinforcing the notion that women are fragile creatures easily given to offense and discomfort in the face of the icky realities of harsh world. it's demeaning, and it goes to a very old argument for keeping women locked up in the home, where they can exist in total safety and bliss, safely under the protection (and thumb) of a man...

i'd be all for public crying in the office, except that what i've noticed over the years is that nine times out of ten, at best, the people who do it aren't doing it because they feel remorse over something they screwed up and how it inconvenienced everyone else, they're crying because they feel bad having that brought to their attention, and it's method - unconscious or conscious - of comforting themselves and manipulating others into assisting in that effort. at worst, it's just a cold, hard, calculated attempt to curry inappropriate sympathy and deflect attention from poor performance.

need to cry? go to the washroom or go home.

An article this profoundly dumb makes any detailed analysis of its thesis utterly redundant. Instead, this article merits, not any comment from myself, but instead, a quotation from that classic of Western cinema, "Billy Madison," starring Adam Sandler.

Therefore:

"Mrs. Berry, what you have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent essay were you even close to anything resembling a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

I am sure that Mrs. Berry approves of this pointless email from me, since what I have just said is, after all, an honest expression of my inner emotions.

--Oliver

You're joking, right? Suggesting that women use their ability to cry to get their way in the workplace is tantamount to suggesting that men feel free to scream or just hit someone when something isn't going their way at the office. Crying to win is emotional abuse. Why, if I'm in the right over some office dispute, should I give in to you simply because you can easily telegraph pain and anguish? Why should reason and compromise take a back seat to emotional appeal? Ridiculous. You've trained us to scream and hit at the gym instead of the living room; do us a favor and cry in the bathroom instead of the meeting room.

Sometimes I want to cry. Especially at the office.

And since I work at a spiritually inclined business, it seems like it should be ok.

I totally agree with this article. In fact, I wrote a poem on this subject a few years ago:

LET US CRY

Middle-aged women�K

We cry for the world

In ways no others can.

For reasons no others understand.

For the pain, the fear,

The incredible beauty of life.

For all the goodbyes said,

Knowing they will be forever.

For hope, and despair.

For love, and anger.

For needs fulfilled at last,

And needs not understood.

Forgiveness and regret.

Searching, and only perhaps finding.

Fumbling and blinded,

Desperate for meaning.

Don��t tell us we need pills

So we can stay someone

We no longer are.

The world needs our tears.

Honor our role,

Our depth of feeling.

Who knows what wisdom

Our cronehood may bring?

�� Rose M. Berkowitz

April 19, 2001

I agree that everyone should be able to express emotion in the workplace however, I prefer to keep my breakdowns private. There are a lot of negative stereotypes that I'd prefer not to deal with.

I have had the worst week at work. A few tears and calls to my therapist have kept me from walking out with no place to go.

Ms. Berry's position that women should feel free to cry at work is the kind of advice that will ensure women continue to toil in lower-paying "female' positions where praise for having empathy and other 'soft' skills is a smokescreen for keeping them out of the highly rewarded management jobs they're too emotional to handle.

Emotional outbursts - crying, yelling, name-calling, slamming things, stomping - are not appropriate at work regardless of gender. Maintaining self-control is essential to being professional. Remaining calm keeps the focus on the issue and off yourself. It is true one cannot always control the rise of emotion, but if you find yourself near tears in the workplace there is only one correct response - excuse yourself until you have regained self-control. A person in the grip of emotion is unable to think or act in a rational, logical or productive way. Forcing peple to deal with you in that state is not acting like a professional - it's acting like the princess Ms. Berry's father apparently cherised her as.

Crying is not just a female thing. As a woman executive I have had the unpleasant experience of seeing both male and female employees cry. At best they came across as immature or otherwise unable to handle the adult stresses of the job; at worst they came across as manipulative, trying to move the focus off the issue at hand and onto their feelings in a childish bid for comfort over taking responsibility.

Are most of your subscribers single professional women? I'm a gay man, to be sure full of every emotion within permissible and many not so, and I still find it hard to relate to the watered-down feminism of your story by Cecelie Berry.

What's that about women's unique emotional capacities? What's with the wonderful college women's studies prose ("It seems that when it comes to assessing whether women's emotions are a hindrance or, simply, a difference, we are still as divided as Janus:)?

There is such a thing as dignity. One can cry with dignity, that's for sure. But in the face of humiliation, in front of others who compete for your position and resources (the corporate world or the real world outside vegan communities, and I don't believe even in those) and at the moment have the upper hand, holding up one's face is the very last resort. Been there, (not) done that. Berry, a professional writer much knowledged about the real world, just wonders why middle-class professional women, the most oppressed of them all, cannot cry in the office. Please.

This has been one more of a long series of college sophomore-grade fluffy feminist articles you have published in the last weeks. If my threats are any valid, if salon.com keeps the nicy-feely empowerment thing going on, at the very least I won't renew my subscription. I will endure the ads if I have to endure these articles.