Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger

by Soraya Chemaly

women’s commitment to authoritarian leaders goes up the wider the gender equality gap in their community.

For many women in the United States, inequality is normalized by religious beliefs and the way those beliefs shape family structure.

Sexism in the home is the ordinal “othering” relied on by authoritarianism.

The most powerful effect is the division of women and men in such a way that it is “natural” for women to not want, seek, or hold power.

In the United States, American Protestant evangelicals and Catholics rank among the highest in acceptance of authoritarian behaviors in leaders. In

Notably, both groups are also very accepting of punitive policies, such as torture, policing women’s sexual and reproductive choices, and spanking children. They are also among the most punitive when it comes to attitudes about women, sexuality, and gender roles.

conservatives simply do not appear to believe women can or should be full participants in society. Women should do the work of caring, but not so much if that caring is expressed by public ambition or political power.

Republican women have made almost no gains as elected officials and continue to lose ground as elected representatives.

First Lady Michelle Obama, on the other hand, was constantly cast in conservative (and sometimes liberal) media as an angry black woman who dangerously exercised undue influence over her husband.

common trope that her husband was emasculated by her anger.

Black women are stereotyped in this way, but they are also disproportionately likely to be vocal leaders

they are often influential in positions that are resistant to the status quo.

the United States has a long history of expecting black women to be strong and to carry other people’s worries and weight. The risk here, she explains, is that these women are “mammy-fied” as saviors for helpless white people.

The anger and depression that so many people felt upon his election generated an unprecedented spike in activism

“This may be the first time in American history that an entire cohort of young women reports greater political engagement than their male peers.”

This spike in women’s political activism is driven almost entirely by progressive women, who are on the verge of forcing a serious national reassessment of women’s status.

Historically, during periods of heightened public distress, women have been the engines behind not only protests but also, even before they could vote or run for office, political policy.

One of the most successful adaptations that women make in light of stubborn biases regarding their “proper place” is to filter political ambition and anger through motherhood.

These organizations are, subversively, “nonthreatening” ways to marshal women’s rage-fueled political energy.

Women’s anger over Trump’s election has been the single greatest propellant of women’s multifocus activism.

Women started Safety Pin Box, a service created to help encourage white people to use race-based social and economic advantages to counter systemic racism.

Women founded Black Lives Matter, developing an innovative, distributed model of leadership and activism.

“absent hair on a woman’s head can be read as disruptive to the politics of the male gaze.”

protest on January 21, 2017, the day after Trump’s inauguration. That day’s Women’s March is thought to be the largest protest in history. An estimated five million people convened in more than six hundred cities to advocate for women’s human rights, workers’ rights, LGBTQ rights, racial justice, immigration reform,

Over and over again, during the day and over the following years, I’ve heard people saying that raising awareness of race in the context of women’s equality is “divisive.” Sexism is always mediated by other factors: race, class, sexual identity, disability, gender identity. If you are inclined to think that raising the issue of race when discussing gender inequality in America is counterproductive, it can mean only that you are not “seeing” your own privileges and are unwilling to sit with discomfort.

Powerlessness is one of the reasons women cry more.

Even at just eight to ten years old, young girls have been found in studies to think they will be made fun of or disciplined when they display anger. The culprits? Classmates—especially boys—but also, disturbingly, teachers.

Benevolent sexism is still sexism. Religious sexism is still sexism.

The more sexist individuals are, the more unequal the society.

Valerie Hudson conducted more than ten years’ worth of research definitively showing that the greatest predictor of a nation’s peacefulness and security is the way that girls are treated in their own homes.

Anger is an emotion. It is neither good nor bad. While uncomfortable, it’s not inherently undesirable. Most of the anger-related problems we encounter come from its social construction and how our emotions are filtered through our identities and social location relative to others. Anger should not be an entitlement.

This desire not to be disliked or seen as crazy, irrational, or dangerous, masks the lack of control that we already live with as the result of the silencing, sublimating, denying, and social opprobrium. It is still the case that gender-role expectations continue to make anger expression taboo for women.

Among men, status related to race, ethnicity, and class also limits the expression of rage and affects the perception of risk. Within like groups, however, meaning same class/ethnicity, for example, it is generally more appropriate for women to keep their anger to themselves.

appropriate—a sloppy, mushy word that purports to convey some important moral essence but in reality is just a policing term used to regulate our language, appearance, and demands. It’s a control word.

Anger is a moral emotion that hinges on our making judgments about the people and world around us.

work focuses on addressing the ways that women bypass their own awareness of the anger they feel and, instead, find diversions and coping mechanisms that impede meaningful change.

Some people benefit also from finding “their people,” the ones who will understand, listen, empathize and, often, are angered by the same issues or problems. Even if you can’t act immediately on how you feel, simply talking about anger is beneficial; other people often see solutions and alternatives that you don’t. Sharing is important for specific reasons. Naming, writing, and talking, known as affect labelling, is different from simply venting

Talking constructively also means listening, which serves the dual purpose of your being able to better understand other people’s anger, which makes it less threatening and less of a risk.

An adult relationship that can’t withstand your saying you feel angry is probably not a healthy one and, if that pattern is sustained, probably not worth continuing.

Assertiveness is simply the act of stating a position with confidence. It is a form of direct, clear, and honest communication

assertiveness and aggression, like anger, can be conflicting, because they suggest a woman’s lack of interest in yielding. To doing what she is told. And women are supposed to yield.

Anger, assertiveness, and aggression also all become entangled in the word “passionate.”

The word “passionate” always strikes me as a particularly gendered one, women being more likely to be described as passionate,

Anger is the emotion generated by feeling passionate about an issue or topic of serious interest or commitment.

Be brave enough to stop pleasing people, to be disliked, to rub people the wrong way.

you have to come to terms with not always being liked.

If someone does not care to consider why you are angry, or why anger is your approach to a specific event or problem, then that person is almost certainly part of the problem.

Demanding fairness and describing a problem doesn’t make you a “victim.”

Nice is something you do to please others, even if you have no interest, desire, or reason to. Kindness, on the other hand, assumes that you are true to yourself first.

It is no accident that the explosion of the self-help industry, one that to a great extent feeds off of women’s sense of inadequacy, coincided with the rise of choice feminism and neoliberal economics. Like choice feminism, self-help also reduced the need for social and state commitments to change by placing the blame for reduced circumstances on people who don’t have the time, money, or resources to “help themselves.”