Is worry different for women and men?

I’ve been quiet recently because I’ve had a virus. One of those sneaky ones that, just when you think you’re getting better, comes back in a different guise to take you off your feet for a few days. Very frustrating, but it has given me time to read and think, time I didn’t know I needed, but that has proved valuable.

One of my main thinking topics has been How Women Worry. Of course, being female, I only know what it’s like to be a woman, and tend to assume that everyone’s mind works in the same way as mine does. We do know that men and women are different, and over the last few years there have been various experts trying to explain the differences in our brains and how they work. When my girlfriends and I are discussing the baffling behaviour or opinions of someone’s husband, we are apt to conclude, “well, men are different, aren’t they?” Yes, and that’s a good start. Just as it’s important for all of us to remember that our internal programming, in its subtler areas, is unique and different from everyone else’s, it helps to remember that men and women think differently. But I want to look at this a little more narrowly.

I’ve been doing some research. Not proper, academic research. I know how that works because I’ve done it, and I know about the importance of getting ethical clearance and having a thorough literature review. This isn’t what I’m talking about here. You may have seen me asking, on Twitter and Facebook, what people worry about. I’ve been noticing what people say about worry and what they comment when I write about worry in my blog. And then, this last week or so, I’ve been thinking about it.

These are my conclusions. Not academic ones; just What Harriet Thinks. Now, I used to think that we meant the same thing by worry, we girls and the boys. I’m not so sure, any more. When I talk about worry, I mean that uncontrollable inner voice that rushes, fuelled by anxiety, from one topic to another, all probably things that I can’t do anything about. It goes something like this:

“The Teenager hasn’t replied to my text; maybe there’s been an accident, I hope everything is OK, just imagine what it would be like if it wasn’t…or maybe he’s lost his phone or had it stolen; I’d better check the insurance has been paid; and what about my bank balance, oh and I haven’t paid that bill; talking of bills, I wonder if the bottled gas is going to run out, and if it does, I mustn’t forget to re-order it quickly; what if they come to deliver the gas and I’m not here and the Teenager has let the dog in the garden, and the delivery man leaves the gate open? Oh, the Teenager hasn’t replied to my text…”

Well, thankfully this doesn’t happen very often any more because I have spent a long time learning not to worry. I generally wouldn’t get past the non-existent text before taking myself in hand, applying some of my anti-worry principles and getting back into the now. But I know this is how my mind would like to work if I left it un-supervised.

And I thought that men worried in the same way. After several men (including the Teenager) told me that worry is absolutely essential to human existence, and referred to it mainly in connection with work, I drew some new conclusions. These are:

1. Men tend to know that worry is a choice. They understand that worrying about something outside your sphere of influence is illogical, and they know about switching off after work;
2. Men worry about work. I might call this constructive thinking, planning and analysis. As a lawyer, I’ve been trained to worry in this way and it can be extremely helpful; in fact many jobs cannot be done without it.
3. Men assume, much more than women, that they have a measure of control over their thinking, and that their minds are there to use rather than to control them.

These, I realise, are sweeping generalisations based on nothing more than my own observation and passionate interest in this subject. Nothing scientific about it. The important thing is that I am contrasting my findings with what I know about women and worry:

1 .Women do worry about work, but they also worry about everything else. The house, the car, the children, their partner, the future, the past, their weight, getting older, everything.
2. Many women believe they have no choice other than to worry. We don’t believe that we can control the amount we worry or stop altogether.
3. Women worry (I think we are trained to do this by family, society, peers etc) as a form of insurance. If the thought of something awful happening pops into our heads, we feel we have to worry about it in order to prevent it happening. Or we spend far, far more time worrying about an issue like money than is actually necessary to deal with the situation.

I know this is roughly the case for many women because I have been this compulsive, anxious over-thinker and I have spent my whole life talking with other women about the things we worry about.

So, what’s the point of all this? Well, it clarifies a lot for me, because I thought I needed to save the entire western world from worry. What a relief! I only have half of the western world to save because many men have got worry under control already, without the slightest bit of help from me.

If you are still with me (this is a long post for me, I like to keep ‘em short so you read the whole thing), here is my call to action. First, I’d like to know what you think. Am I way off the mark or does this make some kind of (unscientific, unacademic) sense? Secondly, if you are one of those girlfriends who really believes that worry is part of the package we are born with and have to live with, please listen to this: worry is not mandatory and it is possible to minimise or eliminate it. I used to be the world’s worst worrier and I learned not to do it. If I can do this anyone can. The first thing you have to do is believe that worry is optional, and we’ll take it from there. All you have to lose is misery, stress and exhaustion, and on the plus side, you get more time in your day and more peace of mind in your life.