Dr. Peggy Drexler

Author, research psychologist and gender scholar

An exasperated Tom Hanks, in A League of Their Own, told his sobbing female right fielder: “There’s no crying in baseball,” creating a catch phrase for the ages. He also raised a question. Does the same hold true for the office?

I’ve written about crying in the workplace in the past. But it occurred to me — what about emotion in general? Is it good? Is it bad? Should it be checked at the door? Or have the rules changed with the rising importance of emotional IQ — becoming more attuned to our emotions and those of others?

The answer was obvious in the days when the tough-guy workplace was organized by dominance and fueled by testosterone. Showing emotion — especially the weepy variety — was like wetting your pants in the school yard: a life-altering event.

If a workplace…