ABSTRACT
Action in emergency situations calls for rational thinking in the face of potentiallyoverwhelming emotions. This chapter is about how male and female members of "Peak," a volunteer search and rescue group, "managed" their emotions (Hochschild 1983) before, during, and after their most dangerous, stressful, or gruesome rescues. At times their emotions and corresponding management techniques were consistent with broader gender stereotypes; at other times they were not. In this article, I explore these similarities and differences, showing how rescuers negotiated the (sometimes) conflicting demands of both gender and emotion norms in high-risk crisis situations. I also reveal how these negotiated courses of action resulted in power differences between the women and men in Peak.
