It’s time for righteous rage

Each morning in preschool, my daughter constructed a tall and elaborate castle out of blocks, ribbons, and paper, only to have the same classmate, a little boy, gleefully destroy it.

This is the opening line of chapter 1 in “” by Soraya Chemaly, an in-depth look at women’s rage—why we’re angry, how we show it, how we handle it, how society sees an angry woman and, most importantly, how we flex it. Perhaps I was just extra over it as I read this introductory story, but I was ready to defend that castle, medieval-style.

Let’s continue that story:

Over a period of several weeks, one or the other of the boy’s parents, both invariably pleasant, would step forward after the fact and repeat any number of well-worn platitudes as my daughter fumed: ‘He’s just going through a phase!” “He’s such a boy! He loves destroying things,’ and, my personal favorite, ‘He. Just. Can’t. Help Himself!” Over time, my daughter grew increasingly frustrated and angry.

But my daughter didn’t yell, kick, throw a tantrum, or strike out at him. First, she asked him politely to stop. Then she stood in his way, body blocking him, but gently. She built a stronger foundation, so that her castles would be less likely to topple. She moved to another part of the classroom. She behaved exactly how you would want someone to behave if she was following all the rules about how to be a nice person. It didn’t work (emphasis mine).

I don’t interact with pre-K boys ever, so I don’t have that experience. But reading it immediately set off a montage of moments from my past church life—moments when I or other women politely said, “please stop hurting me” and the church, or the men in it, continued to gleefully knock down the castle, and the church, or the men leading it, repeat the churchy version of shrugging and saying, “boys will be boys.”

I thought of pioneer women coming up with their idea for a women’s organization, and Joseph Smith saying no, do it my way—making it by definition a men’s organization for women. The Brigham Young shut the organization down when the women became too defiant for leadership. Read more in this Exponent II article. I thought of the original Exponent II magazine, whose leaders drew attention—not the good kind—from members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and how editor Claudia Bushman was told her involvement as the wife of a stake president was unseemly. I thought of how Relief Society had its own budget, its own curriculum, its own leadership, and how priesthood correlation destroyed all of that like a glittery tower under the fist of an entitled 4-year-old.

And I thought about the time a man who was my peer told the women in sacrament meeting that he felt prompted to tell us all that if a man walked past us when passing the sacrament and became unworthy, we needed to repent. And how women weren’t allowed to sit on the stand because … well, the stories are all different depending on which stake you were in. Or how, the year the bishopric was in charge of the ward Christmas party, there was money in the budget for catering, but when the Relief Society was in charge, not only was there no money for that but the bishop didn’t want to ask people to bring food. I thought about the time I went to a temple dedication and heard six general authorities introduced with full bios and then “and their wives.” I thought about how the church taught that women had equal access to the rites and blessings of the priesthood, and then 2020 happened and I as a single woman had to choose between the sacrament and my health.

Continuing with Soraya’s story:

In the interest of classroom relations, I politely talked to the boy’s parents. They sympathized with my daughter’s frustration but only to the extent that they sincerely hoped she found a way to feel better. They didn’t seem to ‘see’ that she was angry, nor did they understand that her anger was a demand on their son in direct relation to their own inaction. They were perfectly content to rely on her cooperation in his working through what he wanted to work through, yet they felt no obligation to ask him to do the same.

Oh, the “I’m sorry you feel that way” of it all—who hasn’t heard some variation of that at church? I’m sorry you don’t feel equal—my wife feels totally equal. Maybe you should stop reading those feminist websites. I’m sorry you don’t feel heard, but your voice is too shrill. And you’re making other people uncomfortable. No one should feel uncomfortable at church. I’m sorry you don’t like polygamy, but I wouldn’t worry too much about it—I, a man, never do. I’m sorry someone said something you found hurtful, but have you tried not being offended? I’m sorry you’re having a hard time in church; you should pray more and read your scriptures. I’m sorry you feel bad that there is almost no meaningful representation of women or people of color in major leadership positions, councils where decisions are made, speaking in General Conference, but that’s how God set it up. Are you disagreeing with God?

We have seen women get angry in recent years. We have seen women demand more. And more often than not, church leaders have not seen women’s anger. They have brushed it aside; they have declined to take it seriously; they have said that women are important and needed and to keep the faith but have not backed up those words with any actions. They’re sorry we feel this way; they hope we can feel better about the situation, which will remain unchanged. This is from God. He never changes. Here’s an opportunity to be a witness to temple baptisms—now stop talking about Heavenly Mother. Maybe stop talking altogether unless you’re ready to toe the party line.

Soraya barely touches on religion (at least so far—I’m halfway through), but her words repeatedly brought to mind my experiences in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For example: women are more likely to show big feelings of sadness than anger. Whether correlation or causation, this often means women are more generous or empathetic. But. “On the downside, sadness can easily turn into paralyzing rumination, lowered expectations, and costly impatience. Sad people expect and are satisfied with less (p. 5, emphasis mine).

How many times did I settle for crumbs—or less than crumbs—simply because that’s the way it’s always been done? Or because God said so? Or because the prophet said so? Or because no one said so and thus nothing can change?

And then there was this: “Girls learn to smile early, and many cultures teach girls explicitly to ‘put on a pretty face.’ It is a way of soothing the people around us, a facial adaptation to the expectation that we put others first, preserve social connections, and hide our disappointment, frustration, anger, of fear. We are expected to be more accommodating …” (p. 7). That brought to mind the last time I went the temple, when a female temple worker—a stranger—patted my stomach and asked when I was due. I froze, but not before pasting a smile on my face because heaven forbid I make her sit with the rudeness and discomfort of what she’d just done. Or the time on my mission when a less-active member my companions and I visited told me if I got any fatter I’d never find a husband. Or the time a temple worker interrupted my prayer in the celestial room because a couple needed somewhere to sit and I, a single person, could be moved. Or the time a sealer insisted I do a couple’s sealing with an older man whose wife was there because “I want you to experience it.” Or the laughter that followed President Oaks saying in general conference that a woman he knew shouldn’t worry about polygamy in eternity.

And finally, there is this from the one section (so far) that has discussed religion; Soraya, a former Catholic, notes that Mormonism, Christianity, Judaism and Islam practice complementarianism, a “separate but equal” system that isn’t actually equal. That section finishes with this thought: “It is possible to have faith in the divine in ways that don’t demand that women trade their freedom and power in return for protection from male-perpetrated violence and predation. Any woman interested in her own equality would do well to avoid men and institutions that claim to want nothing more than to protect her” (p. 171-2).

All of this to say—we should be angry. There are lot of things in the world worth being angry about. Be angry, be loud, be heard. And read this book. But fair warning—it will make you angrier. And if you’re ever worried the rage is bad, remember you’re in good company—the story of Jesus getting angry and flipping tables in the temple is repeated in all four Gospels. Clearly, it’s a message someone wanted readers to internalize.

For more reading on a related subject, see Soraya Chemaly’s 2014 essay, “10 Simple Words Every Girl Should Learn.”

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash