Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger

by Soraya Chemaly

Anger is usually about saying “no” in a world where women are conditioned to say almost anything but “no.”

Anger is like water. No matter how hard a person tries to dam, divert, or deny it, it will find a way, usually along the path of least resistance.

This is the real danger of our anger: it makes it clear that we take ourselves seriously. This is true in our homes and in our public lives. By effectively severing anger from “good womanhood,” we chose to sever girls and women from the emotion that best protects us against danger and injustice.

We are so busy teaching girls to be likeable that we often forget to teach them, as we do boys, that they should be respected.

It is possible to be both assertive and aggressive without anger. You can also be filled with anger yet have a peaceful demeanor. Aggression is more hostile than assertion: the former suggesting less care for another’s needs or perspectives, the latter being a clear display of need expressed within understood constraints and norms of behavior.

Women feel shame more than men, who are more inclined to say they feel guilt. Guilt is the response of a person who feels he had some control but failed to exercise it properly. Shame, on the other hand, reflects no expectation of control. It is a feeling that you, your essence and being, are wrong.

Feminism isn’t ruining marriage—sexism and the persistent expectation of masculine entitlements are.

Sometimes we throw plates. What we should be throwing are people with retrograde ideas out of office.

Researchers at Virginia’s University of Mary Washington wanted to understand the effect of unwanted sexual advances and the increased self-surveillance that comes with sexualization. They looked at the relationship between harassment, objectification, body evaluation, and depression and shame, and discovered that a large number of women experience what the study’s authors called “insidious trauma” over time, leading to the development of symptoms associated

with post-traumatic stress disorder. If a woman had been sexually assaulted, the results were much stronger. These dynamics can also often leave the victim feeling disassociated from her own body. When I read this study I had a genuine aha! moment. It was not until I was well into my forties that I realized how, in response to learning to think of my body as a source of danger and vulnerability, I had come to feel it was not “mine.”

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.

If #MeToo has made men feel vulnerable, panicked, unsure, and fearful as a result of women finally, collectively, saying “Enough!” so be it. If they wonder how their every word and action will be judged and used against them, Welcome to our world. If they feel that everything they do will reflect on other men and be misrepresented and misunderstood, take a seat. You are now honorary women.

If you can’t focus on a woman’s hair, it is infinitely more difficult to ignore what comes out of her mouth.

Be angry. Be loud. Rage becomes you.

Your anger is a gift you give to yourself and the world that is yours. In anger, I have lived more fully, freely, intensely, sensitively, and politically. If ever there was a time not to silence yourself, to channel your anger into healthy places and choices, this is it.