A lot of times, it seems like women deal with stress by talking about their problems, while men shut down and keep quiet about what’s troubling them. In the police force, the opposite is kind of true. Don Kurtz, an assistant professor of social work at Kansas State University, studied gender differences in stress and burnout and found that men de-stress by exchanging war stories with one another. Women, on the other hand, don’t feel like they can take part in this. See, the men aren’t talking about their emotions — they’re largely exaggerating these stressful events and replacing feelings of fear with superhuman qualities. The women, who like to keep it real, don’t often participate, because they think they would be called out by colleagues if they told bullshit stories, like the men do.

Interestingly enough, women are often given the cases that men find the most stressful — usually those dealing with the deal or physical/sexual assault of a child. Too bad it’s not because their superiors think they’d be better qualified for this type of assignment. No, it’s because it’s often seen as lower police work. [Medical News Today] Keep reading »