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logic and emotion: a tale as old as the patriarchy

Dear Reader, I’d appreciate it if you read this blog post in the same cadence of Phaedra Parks checking Kenya Moore. It’s more fun. Or maybe Superman talking to Lex Luthor? 

Anyway.

Here I come with another think piece that I keep hearing about, and I’m so tired, exhausted, and incredibly fatigued of hearing about it. You see, there’s a subspecies of human beings that wholeheartedly believe that logic and emotion might as well be oil and water. 

Mind you, basing your argument on simply sounding like the Terminator doesn’t really change anything. You’re just robotic and wrong, possibly even a weirdo.

I remember back in my first year of university, our group chat was on fire. Someone had the audacity to say, “This is why women don’t belong in the noble profession; they’re too emotional to argue with logic.”

I had a laugh. As I’m having one now. The way men think sometimes—it’s so obtuse and primitive, like evolution took a lunch break and forgot to clock back in.

And before the “Not All Men” brigade leaps into action: stand down. If you know this isn’t about you, then… congratulations. Your services of yappanomics are not needed today. They never are, but it doesn’t hurt to be polite.

Let’s get into it.

Emotion and logic are not mutually exclusive. But society has been peddling that myth for centuries, especially when it comes to women.To be emotional is seen as weak, to be logical is seen as strong; and to be a woman is to be emotional by default—therefore, unfit for leadership, argument, reason, or power.

How convenient.

But really, it’s a tool of misogyny, and a lazy one at that.

“Rationality is not a disembodied activity, it is intimately connected with feeling and emotion.”

— Bell Hooks

Patriarchy, and those who benefit from it, love binaries. They divide the world into reason vs. emotion, man vs. woman, strong vs. soft. But what if these were never opposites to begin with? What if they were codependent, working together like muscle and bone?

Contrary to popular belief (and red-pill Reddit threads), emotion is not chaos. Emotion is data.

You feel anger when a boundary is crossed. You feel fear when something threatens your safety. You feel sadness when you’ve lost something valuable. That’s not weakness. That’s your brain and body flagging something important.


“Feelings are facts.”

— Audre Lorde

Those facts? They guide your logic. Emotion tells you what matters. Logic tells you what to do about it. One without the other is either aimless or heartless. This isn’t just a casual misunderstanding. Right? Right. This myth benefits people—mostly men—who want to gatekeep power.

Because if you can paint emotional people (read: women, femmes, queer folks, anyone neurodivergent or deeply intuitive) as “irrational,” then you don’t have to listen to them. You can dismiss their critiques, ignore their pain, and write off their insight. At the end of the day, the day must end: it’s not logic. It’s gaslighting dressed in a suit. Douchebaggery, if you will.

It’s not that emotion clouds judgment. It’s that patriarchy fears what happens when emotion and logic are fused—when someone can feel deeply and think clearly. That’s not irrational. That’s unstoppable.


“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”

— Audre Lorde, again, because she ate.


If you’ve ever been called “too sensitive” or told to “be rational” in moments of pain, you know what I’m talking about. If you’ve swallowed your feelings to appear “strong” in the workplace or classroom, you know the cost of pretending logic and emotion don’t mix.

And if you’re someone who prides yourself on being cold and unfeeling—congrats, but you’re not wise. You’re emotionally underdeveloped. Get help.

No seriously, the next person to open their mouth in my direction to talk about the mutual exclusivity of logic and emotion is getting nothing out of me. Congratulations on giving us nothing but a tired and illogical argument.

Grow up. Evolve. Integrate. Hug a tree, kiss a squirrel.

Because in the real world—the one where people live and feel and choose and heal—logic and emotion are not enemies.They are co-authors, they write with both. 

Maybe that’s the real punk rock. (sorry, I couldn’t help but sneak in that line!) 






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