Social life, the one we share with others, brings with it countless advantages, but it is not without its problems. However, when these little frictions with others appear, not everyone shows the same propensity to apologize.

In fact, you don’t even have to classify people according to the details of their personality traits to know if it’s more or less possible for them to say “sorry”: just go to the most basic division of all: men and women. The former are significantly more reluctant to apologize . But… why?

Why Many Women Apologize for Everything

It has been proven that women tend to apologize more than men, but the differences between the sexes on this issue do not end there. Women also tend to report more offenses or wrongdoing – is this because women are more likely to cross the line of moral correctness? Not really.

The difference is in what everyone considers to be crossing that line. In other words, women are more sensitive to those behaviours of their own that can be considered grounds for apology , while this threshold is higher in men, making more of these faults go unnoticed as such. Having committed the same attack, the woman will be more likely to apologize while the man, in many cases, will not even consider the option of doing so because he does not believe he has done anything wrong.

It is easy to conclude that this is because men are insensitive to the suffering they cause at times, perhaps as a result of their somewhat more aggressive character. However, there is no reason to think that this is the explanation for this phenomenon. It is possible that the cause is actually that many women apologize when they have no real reason to do so.

A gender-related problem?

Many gender studies coincide in pointing out that traditionally, and even today in most countries, the role of women has been explicitly linked to the care of the home and the care of the domestic needs of the rest of the family. Thus, beyond the husband’s work obligations, it is assumed that the woman takes care of everything else.

In this sense, any problem that occurs with any member of the family and that has to do with domestic chores will always be recognized as a lack of responsibility on the part of the woman.

If one day the husband is about to leave for work and realizes that he has no snack ready to take to the office, the wife will instantly recognize that she has made a mistake… even when he’s not really making one. Usually this kind of detail is not the result of a negotiation, but the result of automatic gender role assignment . If it is customary for the woman to prepare something to eat for the husband, on the day this is not done there is a reason to apologise.

The significance of this, however, is that this custom becomes so internalized by women that they can apply it to all areas of their lives that are beyond the domestic. This is why it is possible to find very young women, even single women living in a flat for themselves, who are more likely to ask for forgiveness even from people they have seen for the first time. The reason is that they have inherited the culture of “when in doubt, apologize”.

Parasitic Remorse

The problem with many women apologizing too much goes beyond reinforcing the idea that they have more reason to apologize by doing the same thing as men. In addition to this, they get used to taking the blame for things done by those who do not have to take responsibility , and seeing life through this prism is something very bitter.

On the one hand, very few people around him have reason to point out this mistake, since receiving an undeserved apology puts them in a position of power; it is easier not to contradict the version of the one who asks for forgiveness. On the other hand, getting used to apologizing for everything gradually convinces us that we don’t deserve anything.

Being aware many times a week that we have reason to apologize, whether it is true or not, undermines one’s self-esteem and perpetuates this vicious circle. With low self-esteem, it is easier to assume that in an ambiguous situation, if anyone should apologize it is oneself or, in this case, oneself.

So, to break this self-destructive dynamic of asking for permission to even breathe, one must first question gender roles and then cultivate self-esteem. The first thing requires a lot of work, and seeking solidarity from people in similar situations. For the second, a good start is simply to look back and reflect on those situations where we say “sorry” in vain.