Emotion as a marginalizing factor

“...the perceived connection between emotionality and irrationality serves to silence groups who are outraged and angered by the injustices committed by people with power. Even when the marginalized are not expressing such anger, the characterization of them as emotional (and therefore irrational) serves to reinforce their marginalized status. Thus, when discourses describe women as more emotional than men, they appeal to a broader set of assumptions within Western society that reinforces the culturally inferior status of women.”— From Fratricide to Forgiveness: The Language and Ethics of Anger in Genesis , page 37

<idle musing>
It's the hidden assumption that he is getting at here: emotional = irrational = inferior because rational is what homo sapiens means. I question that we are rational beings! At least, when I look at the world, it doesn't seem like it...
</idle musing>