Day Seven

So maybe I’ve been writing about anger and rage too much lately. Maybe not…there is a lot to be angry about lately, and it does seem to be useful to some people. For some people, anger propels them into the White House. For others, anger seems to be a no-no. So I thought maybe it was time to write about that.

ANGER

Let’s talk about anger. It seems to be a topic I’m on quite a bit lately, but I can’t stop thinking about it. Something about the national situation…anger is everywhere. I want you to run these phrases through your mind. Angry white man. Angry black man. Angry woman. Note how they make you feel, your instinctive response. Most of us don’t mean to respond the way we do, it’s just…not instinct, not exactly. We’ve been conditioned.

I hear a lot about the angry white man these days, though not necessarily in those words. An angry white man is just an angry man. He is often a sympathetic figure. He is someone who has suffered, who is frustrated, who feels disappointed or disillusioned with life. He feels like he has been shut out, disenfranchised, emasculated. It bothers him, and he broods about it. He shouts at the TV, maybe at his wife and his neighbor, but people understand. It’s a tough world. His wife and kids don’t understand him. His boss is asking too much. There is simply too much pressure on him and he is bending under the strain.

I’ve heard all my life about the angry black man. The angry black man tends to evoke fear in people’s minds. His anger goes beyond the level of his suffering. He could snap at any moment. He is a ticking time bomb. He is living on top of a powder keg. He is fire and fury. His anger is to be feared, because he is just angry. There is no other aspect to him but anger.

The angry woman is perhaps the worst image you see. The creature from Alien has nothing on the angry woman. She is a harpy, a shrew, an emasculating bitch, a ballbuster, a nag, shrieky, shouty, hysterical…she is someone to be avoided, or might be a figure of fun. She is that most unacceptable of human females…unfeminine. Her features are distorted into ugliness, her hair becomes thin and like straw while she is angry, she grows more teeth…and longer…it is odd how anger transforms a woman. And she is angry for no reason. She is angry because she is not worthy, because she can’t get a man, because she hasn’t been laid…fill in your own words here, I’m sure they’re going through your head.

Wait a minute, you say. That is a bit…simplified, isn’t it? Some, perhaps, but not much. It is rare to see an image of an angry black man that isn’t presented as a figure of fear. Even in movies, if a black man is angry and is supposed to be a sympathetic character, he is restrained in his anger, or he is terrifying. The stereotype has been bashed into our heads for so long it’s hard to break. We can have sympathy for the black woman or the black child when they are angry; we can see some justification. But the black man kicks fear into overdrive.

I’ve never understood that; I’m afraid I often respond the opposite of what is expected to stereotypes. Just my perverse nature, I suppose. I like to look at things upside down at least for a while, to see if they might look different that way. Here’s a hint: circles don’t. Most other things do, but of course not all. I find many angry black men to be sympathetic figures, though if they are angry at me, they can be frightening. So can white men. To be honest, an angry man is often a figure of fear for a woman, simply because we have had bad experiences with angry men. Most of us still bear scars, physical or mental, from encounters with angry men. But I fear angry white men more, probably because in the place and time I live, they are more likely to be a threat to me. I haven’t had any painful encounters with angry black men, so my response is not one of fear.

As for angry white men? Why are we given the messages of sympathy about this angry group only? Why is their anger justified? If you listen to them, there are many times when their anger is not justified. They are angry because other groups now share the rights they once possessed an exclusive on…most of them not in their lifetime, so you wonder why they feel they lost something. When you listen to MAGA men, it becomes obvious they are not angry about the price of eggs or the price of gasoline (well, they may be, but that’s not the focus of their strongest anger). They are angry about equal rights. They are angry about having women in the workplace, especially since they are not supposed to behave like boorish thugs and take whatever they want from a woman (though some of them still do; if it isn’t properly punished, it will continue). They are angry about having to work with men of color. They are angry about having to work with immigrants. They are angry about being disenfranchised, though there is no evidence they are. Yes, there are women and people of color being elected to office; that doesn’t mean the white male voice is muted. It just means the voice of others is being allowed some time at the mic. So why are we told we need to ‘understand’ them? We need to recognize their ‘needs’? Why? I have no idea. I have never heard anyone telling them that they need to recognize our needs, or understand us.

Now to the angry woman. After all, this is Women’s History Month, and I’m writing about women. So let’s finish up by talking about women’s anger. A woman’s anger is viewed as somehow less feminine, and it isn’t seen as justified in most cases. It is seen as nagging. It is seen as whining. It is characterized as shrill, out of control, hysterical. It is used as a joke in stand up and in sit-coms. It is characterized by cartoonists in the most unpleasant images. It is dismissed. And yet women had, and still have, a lot to be angry about. Domestic violence, household duties, second shifts, callous husbands, sexual assault at work, in the supermarket, on the street, and sometimes at home. The names used to describe women. The ways women in some countries are repressed so badly they are not allowed to be seen in public. The fight we won for reproductive choice, only to have it taken away by a bunch of men who will never have to face that worry.

Why is woman’s anger so threatening? Because it is not nurturing. It is not thinking only of others, but actually considering one’s own needs. It is a demand for equality, a demand not to be beaten, a demand to be treated as a human, a demand to be seen. It breaks all the cardinal rules we are taught as girls. One of the first rules I learned as a child was not to be angry. It was difficult to learn, because my brother was allowed to be angry. If anger isn’t okay, how come he could be angry? It took me years to understand…and when I did, it made me angry. So much for my training.

For many years I did not express my anger. I held it inside. My ex, at a recent encounter, heard me talking about getting angry, and expressed surprise. “You, angry? You don’t get angry!” Yeah. You don’t know me. You never did. You knew the woman you molded and shaped to be the trophy wife you needed. I was angry…I didn’t know it. I expressed it as depression, because women are allowed to have emotional illness, as long as it isn’t anger.

Another reason women aren’t supposed to be angry is that anger is strong. Depression is weak; it is a giving in, a submission. Anger is born out of strength, and often gives us strength to act on our feelings, while depression saps our strength and keeps us hidden. I know that now, because I feel my anger now. The anger of a lifetime wells up, and I have to deal with it all at once, like a doppelganger that holds a vital part of who I am. That doppelganger is strong, stronger than I am.

Men fear women’s anger because they fear women’s success. A successful woman is a woman who is not controlled by a man, who has not submitted to a man. A successful woman is one who makes her own decisions, and her own choices. When that happens, they might not choose what the man wants them to, because they are individuals of their own, with their own hopes, their own fears, their own needs.

Women fear their anger because they have been taught to. They have been taught to control it, to keep it to themselves, or if they must express it, to do it when no one is there. I was raised by an angry woman, but her children were the ones who saw her anger. She had to keep a leash on it everywhere else. Her anger shaped us; her anger scarred us. Her anger frightened me enough that I vowed not to be angry. We fear our anger because we don’t want to become our mothers.

Women, embrace your anger. Don’t let it control you, but use it. Use the strength of anger to succeed, to push the limits and break the barriers. Anger is not a sin, it is not an aberration, it is a natural part of being treated like…well, like a woman. Insist on your rights, and if someone calls you an angry woman, thank them. They may not mean it as a compliment, but it is.