Men’s Fears of Women’s Anger

Some reasons why.

The New York Times Sunday magazine published a piece entitled “I Used to Insist I Didn’t Get Angry: Not Anymore.” The author, a woman, courageously explores the topic of societal and internalized prohibitions against women experiencing, much less expressing, anger and talks about growing up believing that she didn’t get angry and only got sad. She thought that sadness was “more refined and also more selfless” than anger, “as if you were holding the pain inside yourself, rather than making someone else deal with this blunt-force trauma.”

Men have always had a problem with anger in women; boys are conditioned to be that way from a very young age. The author cites research that suggests that young boys and girls both get angry as frequently, but that boys are socialized to feel OK about their anger, while women are taught to feel ashamed.

Angry women make men feel uncomfortable, even threatened. Sad women make men feel gallant and protective.

In my work as a psychotherapist, I often witness these social prohibitions against women feeling angry. It’s not unusual for women to cry while talking about feeling angry. This can be very frustrating, both because their tears often make it difficult for other people to know when they are angry and because they sometimes feel that their tears get in the way of feeling their own anger.

While women are often largely unaware of their own anger, men are acutely aware of women’s underlying anger…