Rage Becomes Her: The Power Of Women's Anger

Rage Becomes Her: The Power Of Women's Anger

Adult herstory
Anger is my friend. Some of the things it has done for me are:
*Empowered me to do something difficult as in when I testified in
court against a man who attempted to rape me, knowing that his lawyer
would try to make me out to be a seductive slut;
*Strengthened me to persevere in the face of challenge as in when I
wouldn't give up on being elected to school committee in a town where
I was considered trailor park trash;
*Gained me adequate medical treatment as the first doctor I saw after
I fractured my wrist didn't even bother to xray, claiming if I'd
really broken a bone I'd be in a lot more pain;
*Saved my life as in when I had the chutzpah to demand a nurse take my
vitals after the doctor on rounds after I'd given birth dismissed
symptoms I reported as the imagination of a first time mother;
and *Saved my sanity when society let me know that, as a woman who had
taken time out to raise three children, I deserved nothing better than
retail or fast food work. That amply fueled my search for better and
the tenacity with which I pursued that better when I discovered what
it was.
Seeing how powerful and useful anger is and how much we have to
be angry about, you'd think women and two spirits would be rocking
it. But no. We've been taught all our lives that it's a male
prerogative. It makes people uncomfortable. It's our duty to
reassure them when our anger makes them so uneasy or, better yet,
never display anger in the first place.
For these reasons I was thrilled when I read Soraya Chemaly's
Anger Becomes Her: The Power Of Women's Anger. Chemaly shows us that,
rather than impotent bitterness, anger is a powerful and hopeful
emotion, a catalyst for action toward a better world. The three
strands of her narrative are:
1) Women have a lot of things to be angry about. We (I am including
gender fluid folks like myself) live in a world that chooses to
instruct us to keep ourselves timidly safe rather than making it clear
to males that sexual predation and harassment are not acceptable. Our
symptoms are downplayed and disregarded by doctors to the point where
some of us pay the ultimate price for their ignorance. Educated and
credentialed women are seen by peers as being less credible. Job
discrimination is alive and well. And how about all those
microaggressions?
2) We are trained to suppress any signs of anger from earliest
childhood on while the anger of male peers is encouraged or at least
tolerated. Women who are angry are seen as bitter or humorless party
poopers. Amgry men are men's men. Recall during the 2016 election
Trump was all about anger while Clinton had to operate knowing that
any show of even the most legitimate anger on her part would make her
harshly criticized and seen by many as less electable?
3) The anger we suppress doesn't dissipate. It harms us both
physically and psychologically. "...By the time a woman reaches
midlife, the most significant predictors of her general health are her
level of stress and where she ranks in terms of keeping her 'anger in.'"
Fortunately there are ways to not only cultivate our anger, but
to put it to good use. Chemaly provides us with a wealth of options.
So I would recommend this most excellent book to all women, gender
nonconforming people, and the men who have potential to be allies.
After her grandmother who had no problem with expressing anger
died Chemaly wrote down everything positive she could think about
anger. I want to close this review with some of her thoughts:
"...Anger is an assertion of rights and worth. It is
communication, equality, and knowledge. It is intimacy, acceptance,
fearlessness, embodiment, revolt, and reconciliation. Anger is memory
and rage. It is rational thought and irrational pain. Anger is
freedom, independence, expansiveness, and entitlement. It is justice,
passion, clarity, and motivation...
Your anger is a gift you give to yourself and the world that is
yours. In anger, I have lived more fully, freely, intensely,
sensitively, and politically. If ever there was a time not to silence
yourself, to channel your anger into healthy places and choices, this
is it."
AMEN!!!!!!!
On a personal note, ironically very few people would use angry to
describe me. I'm usually described as a motivator, an encourager, a
ray of sunshine. I can use my anger creatively because I am familiar
and comfortable with it. I have written regular opinion pieces for
the Bangor Daily News for six years on topics that enrage me, for
example. Anger helps me express myself quite articulately and
convincingly.
A great big shout out goes out to Chemaly for reminding us that anger,
far from diminishing us, greatly becomes us.
jules hathaway


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