Rage Is Rational
Why Women Do Not Know How to Be Angry
I can count on one hand the number of times I saw my mom get really angry when I was a child. However, I have no way of knowing whether or not she was angry, because she would always say things like, “I’m not angry with you, but I frustrated with this,” or the ever popular, “I’m not angry, I’m disappointed.” Maybe she really was angry, but I will never know because she never expressed it. I believe my family is pretty progressive when it comes to gender norms. I was encouraged to try whatever sports I wanted, to climb trees, and to be competitive and my brothers were allowed to wear sparkles or take dance lessons. We were pretty much given leeway on whatever we wanted to pursue. However, I always got in trouble for expressing my anger, not because it was not ladylike but because it was not productive. Adversely, my brother often was allowed to express his anger as much as he wanted, warranted that he not become violent. Even now, when I get angry, there is a much more negative response to me than there has ever been to my brothers. My anger often invalidates my opinion, and therefore I have had to learn to tamp down on it in order to be heard and respected. Soraya Chemaly, in her article Does Your Daughter Know It’s OK To Be Angry?, states that girls are systemically taught that their anger is wrong and unfeminine. This way of thinking can get to the point that a woman does not recognize the signs of anger in herself as a rational or reasonable feeling and instead internalizes it, potentially leading to unhealthy behaviors. Contrary to popular belief, it is healthier in the long run to express anger than it is to bottle it up. In an article entitled I Used to Insist I Didn’t Get Angry. Not Anymore., by Leslie Jamison, she discusses her lifelong aversion to anger, society’s role in that, and the benefits that a woman can receive from expressing her anger. On the latter topic, she cites Audre Lorde, stating that anger can be used for “illumination, laughter, protection, fire in places where there was no light, no food, no sisters, no quarter.” Anger is useful, and a tool that women should not be afraid to use.
The media is also complicit in the societal impulse to shun anger in women, most evidently through the lack of representation of women expressing or even feeling anger. In instances when women choose to express their rage, they are more often than not villinized, chastised, or flat out dismissed. When a woman of color is expressing anger, it is frequently portrayed in a stereotypical, shallow manner (i.e. the “angry black woman” or the “hysterical latinx woman”). Whether it is a real life actress, like Winona Ryder, or a character in a film, women are punished and made to feel guilty over their anger. Ryder herself expressed how the media reinforces the image of women whose anger has either been muffled in lieu of more controlled emotions, who hardly ever experience the emotion in the first place, or who are dismissed as crazy. In an article written by Caroline Siede, she references the film Inside Out, whose representation of anger was portrayed by a man despite belonging to the brain of a young girl, as additional support that the media is uncomfortable addressing anger as a feminine emotion. Rather, women portrayed sadness, joy, and disgust, which are three more “believably feminine” emotions. Ryder also brings up recent examples of angry female characters that are represented in up-and-coming television shows (i.e. Jessica Jones from Jessica Jones, B’Elanna Torres from Star Trek: Voyager) and calls for the continuation of that trend. There must be more complex female characters who are allowed to explore and express anger without harmful stereotypes or stigmas.
Alternatively, like in the case of actress Uma Thurman, the lack or control of anger in women is lauded. In response to the the rising awareness of sexual assault as a systemic problem in Hollywood, Thurman chose not to comment. Rather, she stated that she was “waiting to feel less angry” before she chimed into the much needed discussion. Jamison notes that her decision to refrain was applauded as “a triumphant vision of female anger,” but points out that this is the exact type of anger society expects from women. Restrained. Out of the public eye. Jamison states that her own experiences with dismissing her own anger as hysteria or paranoia are similar to Thurman’s self-suppression. We as women are taught that our anger is poisonous to ourselves and others, and that by expressing it we are undermining ourselves. It is additionally important to note that Thurman is a white woman benefiting from privilege. While she is praised for demonstrating anger, women of color like Michelle Obama and Serena Williams do not receive the same praise. Instead they are labeled as “angry black women,” and dismissed. Jamison uses these examples as a way to remind us that “fierceness has always been more palatable from some women than from others.”
Even in the politics of the Unites States we are privy to a bias against women who elect to express their anger, despite the fact that politicians build their careers on the ability to argue. In the most recent presidential election, Hilary Clinton had to stifle any anger she felt and, while remaining composed, was still targeted as a “nasty woman” by her opponent. Clinton, whether or not you agree with her politics, was competing against men who had the freedom to be angry and volatile throughout the election. Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump built support for their respective platforms by expressing their rage at how the system was failing, but had Clinton done the same, she would have been vilified. Rebecca Traister, when writing about this phenomenon a year later stated that Clinton’s likely downfall was her calling the openly racist Trump supporters, “deplorables”. Traister goes further to claim, “Censorious anger from women is a liability; from men, it is often, simply, speech.” This response indicates the negative backlash women receive for expressing any anger on a larger, nationwide scale. Clinton also cited her rationale for avoiding anger over her loss of the election as being, “so that the rest of [Clinton’s] life wouldn’t be spent like Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens’s ‘Great Expectations.’” This reference, brought up in Jamison’s article, speaks to the harmful and long-held societal notion that angry women will end up as ranting, lonely, embittered women.
Without any examples for anger in women, I fear that society will never move away from condemning women who choose to express their anger. If mothers cannot express to their children when they are angry, their daughters will struggle to express their anger and their sons will not know how to respond to feminine anger. Women will continue to punish themselves for their feelings of anger, and their repression of the emotion will be largely damaging to their psyche. It is vital that we as a society begin to talk to our children about anger, and that includes film and television.
