Righteous Rage: a reflection
Looking at anger and how we can collectively grapple with it in a healthy way
I am here to talk about anger. Violence and Judgement have been the forever dance partners of this emotion, but I dream of anger that can be equalled to that force that the radicle needs to push the seed out of the earth to become a plant. This is an anger that can coexist with love, joy, sadness and pain.
While I do recognise that this is an emotion that has been gendered, racialised and morally belongs to men, this is not what I am here to discuss. What I want to talk about, is our inability to process and feel anger, as a collective. I am not a psychologist or anthropologist, but I am a human, and I want to attempt to grapple with this emotion together with you. Anger, after all, is the main source of many of my works.
Anger is one of the primary sources of violence according to psychologists; when grappled with unhealthily, it leaves people embarrassed at best, and killed or injured at worst.
As a woman, I have many reasons to be angry. I am angry because I see old white men making decisions about women’s bodies, I am angry because my sisters in Latin America get killed like their life has no meaning, because women are still misdiagnosed and we don’t hear about it enough, I’m angry because sexism is rampant, because women are judged on whether they become mothers or not, amongst many other things, I’m angry at racism, at colonialist legacy, at homophobia. I am angry because we reached the highest peak of CO2 emissions last week and the news barely talked about it. Need I say more?
When I get angry, I have a few methods that I use to channel that anger. One of them involves putting Eminem full blast — yes, I have an Anger playlist- and punching a mattress with my forearms, in order not to injure myself, sometimes I through pillows at the wall with all the might I have, other times I stick my face in a pillow and scream bloody murder. One summer, I used the sea as my pillow and asked the water to take my screaming rage. It was so beautifully silent under there, and I felt unjudged. A few centuries ago, I probably would have ended up in a psychiatric institution with my arms tied in a straitjacket.
While I can express it today, I repressed my anger for many years, and it felt like I was burning from the inside. There are many reasons for this, but let’s consider the historical one; until recently, women’s anger was unacceptable, and often diagnosed as a mental disorder. For centuries we have been told to smile even when we did not want to, and the anger of a woman always provokes a societal reaction that leads to her shame (see Serena Williams).
“If and when rage becomes a dam to creative thought and action, then it must be softened or changed,” says Clarissa Pinkola Estes wisely.
Anger is an emotion that is innate in human beings, it comes out when we feel wronged, or see someone else being wronged, it has roots in injustice. Being unable to channel anger in a conscious and healthy way can be detrimental and lead to violence. We don’t honour anger because we don’t know its true name, its true colour. So, it’s time to get to know her and recognise her fire.
There are a few types of anger that I have experienced and observed and I hope you can relate too. Ancestral anger is an anger that comes from a collective trauma that goes back generations. The abuse witnessed by the people in my family, both women and men, has been carried down to me. This is an anger that is instinctual and comes from the injustices seen by myself and my ancestors, big and small.
Collective anger stems from systemic issues like white supremacy and sexism. It usually is an anger that is born from an event that reinforces a systemic injustice we all know about but tend to suppress. I can use the example of Harvey Weinstein's abuses that went public and sparked mass protests all over the US. Or the murder of Sarah Everard as she walked home at night, which sparked huge protests as well as incredible movements like DonnexStrada where women accompany each other home safely on Instagram lives.
This anger transforms into hope and is a driving force that brings people together. There is no way people would ever make the effort of taking the streets if they didn’t at least hope that things would change. This anger is a revolutionary tool, a silent rebellion. There is a lot of trauma and anger in political movements, mainly because many people who join collective movements have been victims of systemic issues. This anger is not to be ignored, it is to be constantly acknowledged and worked with. Something I say to men who come to me complaining about being scared to talk to feminists because they feel attacked is to simply ask them to recognize and accept that this anger exists.
There is no way people would ever make the effort of taking the streets if they didn’t at least hope that things would change.
To quote Clarissa Pinkola Estes again, “we have spoken about women’s rage often deriving from the situation in her family of origin, from the surrounding culture, and sometimes from adult trauma. But regardless of the source of the rage, something has to happen to recognize it, bless it, contain it and lease it”.
While incredible work has been written about reclaiming women’s rage, I believe the reclaim needs to be a collective. Everyone must do their part.
In fact, I will attempt to replace the word woman with a human in one of Pinkola’s reflections (my changes in italics). “In their instinctual psyche, a human has the power, when provoked, to be angry in a mindful way- and that is powerful. Anger is one of their innate ways to begin to reach out to create and preserve the balances that they hold dear, all they truly love. It is both our right and in certain circumstances, a moral duty”.
This emotion that roots its flowers in the soil of injustice can bloom into a life force. It is time that we reclaim this emotion in a healthy way, and that rage ceases to be the elephant in every room.
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