Are girl emets more common or boys? yes for girl, no for boys

[chocolategirl]

Ive always wondered. It seems as if girls are more prone to emet than boys and i saw something about it once....

[orton99]

Just take a look at this forum and there's your answer! I'd estimate that the membership is around 90% female and maybe even more. Of course, that doesn't completely prove anything as any forum membership is self-selecting and won't include everyone. I think I've seen somewhere that the estimated actual split is skewed towards women but not as much as this board implies, around two-thirds/one-third female/male.

I suppose the reason for the discrepancy is that - generally - women are more likely to talk about their problems and feelings so a woman with this phobia is therefore more likely to find her way to a forum like this than a man and so giving the apparent 90% that this place suggests.

As to why that should be, I'm not sure and would be curious to see what anyone else thinks. I’m wondering if the answer partly lies in the heightened emotional intelligence and sensitivity that (generally speaking) women have compared to men, as the more sensitive someone is the more they would feel uncomfortable at being embarrassed and I’d say that’s what lies behind the fear of “losing control” (especially in public) which is frequently cited on here. Something else that may feed into it is body image and a feeling that you have to be “perfect”. I don’t think it’s controversial to say that women tend to have more issues with their bodies than men and this can lead to problems on those occasions when your body is letting you down, ie when you’re ill.

This was brought home to me by my therapist a few weeks ago, when we talked about how I’m hardly ever ill and keep myself very fit (I run four times a week, take part in 5ks, 10ks and half marathons on top of playing football once a week). While this is all very good from a health viewpoint, a possible drawback, she suggested, is that it’s setting up a mindset that my body is never meant to let me down so I can’t deal with it when it does. For example, I routinely walk up flights of stairs ( I work on the fourth floor) and ignore lifts, not as a fitness thing but more almost a default, inherent pride thing, as at 37 I damn well think I should still be walking up stairs! I might grudgingly accept it’s all getting a bit much at 77, but not 37! What’s more, I started taking running seriously about five years ago when I noticed I was started to put on a bit of weight. That’s not a problem now, but the point is that I remember looking in the mirror one time around then and reacting, not in the usual, practical male way by thinking “I need to get down the gym to sort that out” but in a much more emotional (dare I say, female?) way. As I noticed the beginnings of a spare tyre, the word that immediately sprang into my head was, “Yuck”. That isn’t to say that all the fitness is a bad thing as there are of course plenty of benefits, but that parts of my attitude towards it need a bit of adjusting, as they are probably unwittingly feeding this phobia.

Incidentally, I don’t have any dumbass macho pride issues that I’ve got this apparently “female” phobia at all; in fact, if is linked to a sharper emotional intelligence then I’ll take that as a very weird back-handed compliment!

Anyway, in summary, women do seem to have this phobia far more than men, which I think makes sense as it is rooted in both someone’s emotional awareness and their relationship with their own body. Discuss!