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I Used to Insist I Didn’t Get Angry. Not Anymore.
By Leslie Jamison
The phenomenon of female anger has often been turned against itself, the figure of the angry woman reframed as threat — not the one who has been harmed, but the one bent on harming.
The notion that female anger is unnatural or destructive is learned young; children report perceiving displays of anger as more acceptable from boys than from girls... People are more likely to use words like “bitchy” and “hostile” to describe female anger, while male anger is more likely to be described as “strong.” Men are more likely to express their anger by physically assaulting objects or verbally attacking other people, while women are more likely to cry when they get angry, as if their bodies are forcibly returning them to the appearance of the emotion — sadness — with which they are most commonly associated.
Good. Anger is an emotion everyone feels. Threatening is a behavior that should result from fear, not anger, because there is less of a chance to make the situation worse. When used with fear, it is used as defense rather than offense. I prefer not to use threatening behavior. Instead, I walk away from that particular person, but in American culture, we are often taught to do the opposite.
"Bitchy" and "hostile" is acting offensively can be tied to anger and can harm relationships. What I have wondered is whether or not people skip right over fear and go straight to anger and as a result choose behaviors that upset people.
I like to think of anger as a surface or masking emotion. Generally, if you talk it over and get to the heart of it there is another underlying emotion which is less comfortable to expose or admit.
I was never "allowed" to be angry as a young person. I had plenty of rage inside due to childhood sexual abuse, but I just pushed it down and pushed it down because it scared me to be angry. I think I still do this to a point. In the Midwest, it's expected, of females, especially, that we're "nice" and "polite," yada yada. (I'm generalizing and speaking from my own experience, of course.)
I still struggle with this, to be honest. I don't like the feeling of being angry. It feels unnatural and alien to me, although logically I realize it's conditioning to feel this way. I've worked on more constructive ways to channel my anger. One thing that still bothers me, however is that I cry almost immediately when I get angry. It's just how my body reacts. I'd like to be able to be angry without being tearful. I don't know if that's even possible, but it sure would be nice. I recently had an issue with a doctor calling in a prescription that was very dangerous for me (drug interaction) and he should have known better. I wanted to express my anger and irritation but instead ended up crying into the phone. And then you're not taken seriously. I get more angry then and it's a vicious cycle!
I like to think of anger as a surface or masking emotion. Generally, if you talk it over and get to the heart of it there is another underlying emotion which is less comfortable to expose or admit.
Yes. This. But sometimes I just admit that I am angry. That usually gets the investigative process going.
Even my daughter has accused me of being crazy or unreasonable when I've expressed reasonable anger. I've had to say, no, I'm not crazy, I'm angry at your unreasonable, unfair behavior.
I hope one day we will be able to stop apologizing for reasonable anger.
Yes. This. But sometimes I just admit that I am angry. That usually gets the investigative process going.
True, true. Feeling like you have permission to say you are angry might lead to more comfort in talking about the hurt.
It helps if you can say "I am angry now" without raising the voice or waterworks. That's been a trick to learn for me but I have noticed that even in dealing with customer service people or others I may not know that it gets their attention really well and isn't passive-aggressive or abusive.
It had been such a habit to wait until the tears or the rage started before I expressed anger. I've noticed with family members they tend to be a little tone deaf to a neutral sounding expression of anger.. Much like a child who's been conditioned that you don't have to obey until Mom is screaming we have to recondition those close to us to hear a "quiet" expression of anger.
I did that by requesting change, explaining what my course would be if change was not forthcoming and then following through.
At some point, perhaps after requesting change, I could feel relieved enough of the barrier of anger to be able to tell the other the deeper underlying and vulnerable feelings that told me a change was needed.
But it isn't always necessary to explain why. We have the right to reserve that information as private. We don't need to have an excuse for any feeling we have. We might be misinterpreting information but we still get to feel what we feel. (That's a whole can of worms by itself!)
I'll feel frustrated, annoyed, snarky, indignant, any of 100 other things but not angry. Not rage.
And it isn't because I worry that others will see me as threatening, it's more because they won't see me as threatening enough.
This is because there have been times in my life where I have truly felt righteous rage. As a little girl when a bully was torturing an animal in front of me, when a girl I knew in high school was gang raped by boys that I thought were decent people, that I thought were my friends, that I thought I could trust. And situations like that, I'm boiling with rage, just steaming with fury, but how does anyone react to a petite little powerless girl being angry? They just laugh.
Which makes it so much worse. It feels absolutely helpless. That when I see or hear about atrocities in the world, and I know I should feel angry but it does nothing to feel angry. Nothing. It only hurts me. And the bullies can just laugh, because there is nothing I can do. I'm not some kind of avenger or superhero from the movies. I can help you get your social karma, but that's about it.
But I'm far better off, more effective, less helpless, if rather than rage, rather than anger, I feel calm, cool, and in control. Able to calculate precisely what I can do about a situation, if anything. And in fact, if I do this, if I project to everyone that I am in absolute control of myself even if I had cause to be furious...somehow it scares people a lot more. They take me very much more seriously, than if I were having a screaming, spitting ragey tantrum.
To me, "anger" and "rage" are not interchangeable. Anger is a commonly enough experienced emotion for me. Rage is rare. I have experienced something I would define as being enraged once in recent memory (10+ years). I've certainly experienced anger more often than that, but not to the point of how I define rage, which includes impulses of physical aggression, inability to self-regulate emotion, etc. To me, rage indicates violently uncontrolled reactions. That isn't common for me, at all. That is a very specific subset of anger, for me. When I'm angry, I typically don't experience any sensation of loss of control.
I would agree that anger is fine, and that there is no reason to feel apologetic for anger or to treat it as the root emotion of maladaptive behavior across the board. Rage to me is different, and much more likely to be maladaptive. Being enraged is indicative of inability to self-regulate emotional response.
But, yes. It should be okay for people, and women, in particular, to express anger in a way that is safe and does not endanger themselves or others.
I would agree that anger is fine, and that there is no reason to feel apologetic for anger or to treat it as the root emotion of maladaptive behavior across the board. Rage to me is different, and much more likely to be maladaptive. Being enraged is indicative of inability to self-regulate emotional response.
Good distinction.
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