Anger Issues
What makes you MAD? Like really mad - irate, furious, enraged? Do you need time because the list is so long? Can you even answer? Can you separate what makes you angry from the layers of socialization and lessons in etiquette muting that anger, labeling it a turn-off, an exaggeration, unproductive, ugly, not feminine?
Remember how your mom said, “bite your tongue?” Your teacher said, “that isn’t nice?” And your boss said “You need to learn to mask your expression if you don’t agree with him?” And in the next breath they said, “He didn’t mean it” And “Boys will be boys.”?
Double standards regarding expressions of anger make me mad. So do ubiquitous sexism, racism, pay inequity, workplace harassment, gender discrimination, lack of universal child care, slut shaming, fat shaming, racial profiling, sexual assault, sex trafficking, deliberately unattainable standards of beauty, misrepresentation, mischaracterization, Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, Rush Limbaugh, Ted Cruz…and all the other cultural BS women have to put up with on the daily.
artwork by Ed Ruscha
Women and Anger
As women we have a complicated relationship with our anger. We grow up learning that our emotional responses to wrongful behavior are shameful and problematic and we encounter reinforcing messaging to that effect in the media, our relationships and our workplaces throughout our lives.
This year during Women’s History Month I’ve been thinking a lot about women and anger. The appalling rise of anti-Asian hate crimes adds to an already inexcusable catalog of hate-inspired aggressions reported in this country. All this hate encouraged by selfish, reckless men makes me angry. But what am I going to do about it?
Hyper/toxic masculinity operating at the core of many current social and political movements means more attacks on women who voice opposition. Trump didn’t invent the strategy of pathologizing women’s anger with his “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her whatever” dismissals and “grab her by the pussy” aggressions, but he definitely turned it up a notch and cleared the way for other loud men to bully and demonize women who dare voice a response to a lie or injustice.
When Rush Limbaugh died I listened to the history of his racist, misogynistic, inflammatory and divisive viewpoints and the massive following those viewpoints generated. I started thinking about things through the lens of anger, a lens I normally avoid. I thought a lot about how our culture treats women’s anger versus men’s. I started paying closer attention to examples of women being punished for their anger.
Just look at the tsunami of international backlash Meghan Markle experienced when she dared to speak out against the royal family and describe the mistreatment she experienced because of her skin color to another black woman.
But I also recognized a groundswell of ways in which anger was creatively and strategically expressed and even when it broke cultural taboos, was embraced by the culture.
Even as we heal from the domestic terrorist attacks of January 6, even as we mourn the loss of eight lives in Atlanta, even as hate crimes against women continue, I’m convinced that we’re at a turning point, that thanks to the courageous women who came before, women are writing a new chapter in the history of our relationship with anger.
We are taking our anger back and converting it into fuel to power awareness, action and ultimately, change.
Artwork by Erin Gorden. Why are men “leaders” and women “bossy”? Why are men “patriotic” and women “hysterical”? Language is one of the most powerful tools used to dismiss and discount women’s anger.
Anger As a Catalyst for Change
On January 21, 2016 we witnessed a massively coordinated, peaceful and historic response fueled by rage. The Women’s March took place the day following Donald Trump’s inauguration drawing millions of women, not only to Washington DC, but across the U.S. and overseas. It was the largest single day protest in American’s history. But the march was never just a march, it was a community powered movement that continues to thrive three years later.
In October of that year, a tweet by Alyssa Milano brought worldwide attention to a hashtag that would empower and unite women who had been sexually abused, many of whom had never spoken out about their suffering before. The #metoo movement was another positive, empowering and uniting movement that took shape as a result of women owning their anger and refusing to remain silent. Workplace policies changed, many media outlets took women’s stories seriously and Harvey Weinstein went to prison. #metoo continues with #acttoo a crowd-sourced volunteer platform.
Times Up followed, launched by a group of women in Hollywood in early 2018 to recognize, support and advocate against sexual harassment in the workplace. Since launching the organization has connected thousands of sexual harassment victims with legal counsel. Times Up makes it their mission to “turn pain into action.”
Black Lives Matter was founded by three women - Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi - who overcame the oppressive taboos silencing black women’s anger to start a movement which changed, and continues to change, the world. Making headlines around the world in 2020 by organizing peaceful marches and protests fueled by the anger over George Floyd’s death, BLM is a comprehensive movement working towards change on many issues beyond police brutality including medicare for all, pay equity, the spread of disinformation and dismantling white supremacy.
And these are just the internationally recognized movements. Injustice fighting, community-organized advocacy groups have launched all over the world inspired by women’s recognition that their anger is not only justified, but can be a match which, when touched down to the trail of gasoline left by the history of injustice against women, can power positive change.
A still from Beyonce’s Hold Up video
Sing it Speak it Say it
Nothing makes me feel more empowered than powerful women channeling and expressing their anger in solidarity with other women.
In her “Hold Up” video which she released as part of her “Lemonade” album, Beyonce smashes car windows and a security camera and knocks the top off a fire hydrant with a wooden baseball bat. Cruising the neighborhood wielding the bat in heels and a yellow goddess dress, Beyonce dares anyone to question her right to her anger.
Billie Eilish, Megan Thee Stallion and Lily Allen are other artists channeling their anger into empowering messages for women and girls.
Lily Allen’s song “Fuck You” is a message to racists and homophobes. She often dedicates the song, written in 2009, to Donald Trump. Her unapologetic lyrics are set to a quippy, girlie, upbeat melody, making the message even more powerful. Oh you don’t like my anger? Well fuck you.
So you say it's not okay to be gay, well, I think you're just evil
You're just some racist who can't tie my laces
Your point of view is medieval
Fuck you (Fuck you), fuck you very, very much
'Cause we hate what you do
And we hate your whole crew
So, please don't stay in touch
“In the public eye, girls and women with strong perspectives are hated. If you’re a girl with an opinion, people just hate you. There are still people who are afraid of successful women, and that’s so lame.”
Think about how far women have come in the way we tell stories. Kate Chopin’s groundbreaking, early feminist novel The Awakening published in 1899 saw her protagonist Edna Pontellier drown herself in the ocean rather than continue her fight against society’s restrictive norms.
In 1991 Thelma and Louise may have been flipping the bird to those restrictive norms, but they ultimately drove off a cliff rather than face the indifferent male police force pursuing them.
Now we have Michaela Coel kicking down an ex lover’s door and ultimately beating the hell out of her rapist in “I May Destroy You,” one of the most powerful shows ever made for television, in the category of women’s honest storytelling.
Michaela Coel in “I May Destroy You”
Greta Thunberg shook with passion and outrage when she spoke directly to world leaders at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in 2019. “How dare you?” she scolded. “You have stolen my childhood and my dreams with your empty words… You’re failing us but the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say we will never forgive you.”
“The importance and visibility of women’s collective anger can’t be overstated. This anger takes determination, thoughtfulness, and work. It means respecting our own anger and being willing to respect the anger of other women.”
Here might be a good place to state the obvious. Women’s rage is JUSTIFIED.
A day after eight people, including seven Asian women were gunned down in Atlanta the House voted to reinstate the Violence Against Women Act. 172 Republican s who voted against renewing the act.
Sue Williams Abstract Painter, 2002. Williams, a survivor of sexual abuse, channels her anger into her abstract paintings.
It’s Women’s History Month. That doesn’t mean only that we look back and honor great women who came before. It also means we find inspiration.
Women’s History Month is our call to action - a call to reimagine, reconstruct and reframe our present with all we have learned from the women of the past. We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, whether ages ago or last week.
And when it comes to our anger, we OWN it. We rewrite the rules so that we honor of all of our emotions, whether (powerful white) men like it or not.
Maya Angelou wrote: “You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats up the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use that anger. You write it. You paint it. You dance it. You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it. Never stop talking it.”
That’s what Amanda Gorman did recently after she was racially profiled by a security guard outside her apartment. The former National Youth Poet Laureate who made the world hold its breath when she spoke at President Biden’s inauguration shot back when the security guard called her a threat.
"In a sense, he was right," Gorman said. "I AM A THREAT: a threat to injustice, to inequality, to ignorance. Anyone who speaks the truth and walks with hope is an obvious and fatal danger to the powers that be."
By refusing to discount women’s anger we can join Gorman as threats to injustice and ignorance.
We must follow the path set out by Maya Angelou: we must use our anger, write it, paint it, dance it, march it, vote it and never stop talking it.
Cover image by Roya Anne Miller
