Hysteria, originating from the greek word for uterus. Coincidence? I think not.

It is true that women get judged much harsher than our male counterparts on our behavior. What is a well-behaved woman? A word that comes to mind is obedient, whereas when I ask myself the same question replacing woman with a man I find myself saying “A rarity, not to be expected”. Throughout history, men have made women feel crazy in everything they do, finding excuses to lock them away. As little girls, we learn of princesses being locked in towers since the beginning of time girls are taught if they misbehave they will be locked away and the only way to free them is to be saved by a man.

Even today we see this concept throughout social media, literature and most importantly through social interactions. Multiple times while working I have heard slurs towards women, I have been told to smile merely because “I was too pretty to look so sad” (or just focused on the task at hand?). I have been told if a female does not look her best she's probably not worth talking to and my most recent example, when I raised my voice so a co-worker who was far away would hear me, I was told (by a customer) “calm down, god why do women always have to be so hysterical.”

This caught me off guard, considering what I had said was “Don’t worry about it I already got the paper towels”, I was not annoyed and I spoke to the co-worker later to make sure I didn't come off rude. He said I hadn’t, he was just far away so my volume was appropriate. This interaction really didn't make any sense to me but that fact is, it’s not the first time something of this nature has happened, so since then I have been contemplating, “Why do women always have to be so hysterical?” I have come to the conclusion, we’re not.

Women often get written off as overly emotional by men merely because they don't want to deal with it. Women have become infamous for overreacting to situations yet, men haven’t. I mean have you seen the progression of unanswered tinder messages where one second he’d like to take you out on the date, then you either don’t answer or you decline politely, next thing you know you're fat or a “hoe” and he's threatening your life. I do realize that not all men do this, but thats exactly the point. Not all men do this just like not all women are constantly overly emotional, ready to overreact at the flip of a switch.

People in general, don’t want to deal with the repercussions of their actions, especially when someone else’s emotions got damaged in the process. When a woman is the culprit, she should apologize and try to see things from his point of view, but when a man hurts a woman’s feelings, he should “brush it off she's over reacting and she will get over it on her own”. Quite frankly, I am sick and tired of people telling me to smile, or of men thinking its okay to write me off as crazy when I make valid points. Hysteria is a myth, a disease invented to make women feel bad about having opinions and emotions about things.

Hysteria does not exist, you are not crazy for having opinions or emotions that differ from men or anyone really who wants to say your emotions are invalid and if anyone ever tries to tell you that you're being hysterical, or overly emotional and you should behave, remember that well behaved women seldom make history.