Demanding Civility in Times of Cascading Calamity

Rarely are women given license to express righteous anger.

Even if the catalyst for a woman’s anger is viewed by many as valid (child murder, genocide, sexual assault, etcetera), she will only ever really be afforded as much license for expressing anger as those around her will grant her. And in my 32 years of watching women become righteously angry, I’ve witnessed very little clearance made for such expression. Instead, what I mostly see way more often is women apologizing to everyone around them for the social crime of losing composure.

Very few people are willing to make the space necessary to receive a woman’s anger in a caring way and to hold it and work with it so that she feels heard and seen and can begin healing.

Instead women are more often told to tone it down. Much heard are phrases like these:

“He didn’t mean that.”

“He’s not usually like that. He’s a good guy. He means well.”

“He’s not a bad guy, he just really doesn’t know how to talk to women.”

“Can you just lighten up for one night? Does it have to be this feminist shit all the time? Can’t…