As I sit with my ‘calming’ chamomile tea, I decide that I am emphatically not calm. In fact my entire body is drumming with anger at Piers Morgan’s recent tweets.
As a woman, how many times has someone said something wildly inappropriate, sexist, racist, homophobic or downright malicious to you in a passing comment? You sit there and your brain is screaming but you swallow your tongue, hide your pride and resentfully laugh.
Anger is a signalling emotion that warns us from threat, insult or harm. When I was a young(er) girl, I was afraid of my anger, that I would be viewed as unlikeable, rude or mocked if I expressed negative opinions. We as women have been told, in small and large ways throughout our lives, that passivity is desirable. Society teaches young girls to aspire to marriage, to go from a daughter to a wife. Anger is not compatible with passivity. “Boys will be boys”. I don’t know about you, but this phrase certainly raises my levels of anger. Boys are expected to be angry, even rewarded for it, whilst women are penalised. When we teach girls to be passive, we are teaching them to not respond to the emotion that protects us from threat.
A common trope I hear towards passionate women is that “it must be that time of the month”. This dismissal of feminine anger allows women to be ignored and spoken over. Menstruation is a time of power, however powerless you may feel in bed with a hot water bottle. The next time you get irritated at a petty thing; channel that emotion into something you genuinely care about, and it will bring hope.
Do not apologise for speaking or laughing loudly. Do not end every sentence with “Does that make sense?”. Stop apologising for taking up space in the world and make your space bigger, and brighter and louder. Speak with compassion and kindness, you can be kind and angry. Think about whether a joke was actually funny, before laughing. Start saying “I’m speaking” when someone interrupts you. Say “No.” unapologetically. “No.” is a full sentence.
The reason I am writing this article at 2am is this: feminine rage is powerful. Anger allows us to be passionate. When we see injustice, we can get angry; call that sh*t out. Start changing the world with yourself.
“Angry women care. Angry women speak and yell and sob their truths.”
― Roxane Gay, Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture
Naomi Balderson, Year 12
Comments