"I’m trying to learn how to hold red-hot anger without burning the people I love." YES! I adore this and everything you've been writing lately. Thank you for sharing so generously <3
"I hold my own anger at arm’s length. I can be angry on behalf of others, but not for myself. In my personal life, I suppress my rage until it leaks sideways." This has been my reality my whole life. Angry is not attractive. Angry is not acceptable. Angry is not who you are. Angry will only hurt you. It's all other people's ideas of how I am supposed to be and feel. As you said, I am on fire. And the people I love seem to take it the most personally because it is not how they are used to seeing me. That feels like a denial of self for the benefit of others. It feels suffocating. There is so much to be angry about. Women should be angry.
It absolutely feels suffocating. There's so little room in our social conscience for women to be dynamic creatures. What felt particularly upsetting about my conversation with my dietitian was when she asked why I though anger was unattractive, and I had to explain in the patriarchal sense, angry women are less attractive to men. It made me physically unwell becauseI push back against so many of the good girl social norms I grew up with, and still, accepting that I am angry feels Herculean. It's a part of myself I struggle to accept. It reminds me of how boys/men are taught it's more acceptable for them to be angry than sad. For us, it's the exact opposite. Those opposing expectations harm us all.
absolutely true. The standards for men and women are different but equally messed up, based on an outdated but firmly-embedded social construct. I don't think most of the world truly understands how deeply patriarchy runs in our social consciousness. Having to explain it is exhausting. As you said in your post, not the same, but similar to how exhausting it must be for Black women to constantly have to explain the nature of their oppression on so many fronts. Oof. I, too, am trying to give myself permission to be angry without apologizing. Have you read this piece by Celeste Davis? The part about communications struggles is particularly illuminating around how men perceive patriarchy and how women feel it. https://celestemdavis.substack.com/p/the-worlds-most-costly-allergy
Isn't this-- a denial of self for the benefit of others--what it means to live as a woman? This is why I fantasize about just leaving everything and everybody and never returning. It is the only way I will ever get to be alone.
I depend on my anger to protect me. And yes, I have unleashed it way too many times on people who did not deserve it, not physical anger, but in my voice and tone, which are way too destructive. Since anger to me is much safer than grief, I don't want to say no to it. But as you said, where to send that anger fire ball? Not to the ones we love. Grief does sit there below all of the anger. That grief is so deep and profound and centuries old. I don't know how to deal with it. Danielle, I did that smashing of glass thing, I was probably around your age when I did. For me, it did not help. And then I was left picking up the mess. We carry the anger and grief of all of our women ancestors and all women really. How to carry that with grace is a life long project. Thank you for your writing, here and your book of poems which bring me to tears of recognition every day.
I forget that sometimes Julie, that the grief and rage we're carrying isn't just ours, but our foremothers'. The grief and rage of our mothers and grandmothers is part of our DNA, and at times it feels all consuming. I find my anger can be a powerful source of inspiration and energy when I need it to me, but occasionally it scares me. We've been taught to be afraid of our own anger, and yet, an angry woman is formidable. In nature, angry female mammals are some of the fiercest creatures to behold.
I think you really explained this so well. Anger is not palatable (in women). Anger in men is often seen as justified. Think God’s (in his traditional western Christian depiction) righteous anger… then he promptly massacres an entire population for not knowing who he is. Perfectly justified of course.
I recently read a psychology today article that talks about “women entering their villain era.” How we are getting burned out on being pigeonholed into perfection, niceness, generosity, self sacrifice, and agreeableness … all those things constantly, for the sake of others, and at our own expense. And the moment we resist them, there’s so much push back. We are selfish, ANGRY women . Hence, our villain era. And maybe we are angry. Maybe we should be. At this point, anger seems very justified.
I love this! I'm going to start saying I'm in my villain era. I think what's interesting is how comfortable I am feeling angry on behalf of others, but how uncomfortable I am feeling angry on my own behalf. I feel like I need to be nice and agreeable to avoid rocking the boat, but quietly seething is its own form of detriment. I'm tired of pretending I'm not angry.
Hahahaha right?? Now I’m rethinking all the older ladies in Disney movies who are depicted as the “villains” (because who has the audacity to age?!) and now think “ahhhhhh same”
Yes I think so too. Anger on behalf of another person is justified more so than our own. So often we are expected to elevate, justify, and act upon the emotions of others before our own. Something a counselor told me that has stuck to me alot through my own recovery process is the idea to at anger is a very productive emotion. But it has, in women, been demonized as out of control. But really anger is a response against injustice
Yes! It's a response to injustice and often a mechanism of protection. We try to bury or discard it because we've been taught it's offensive and ugly, but in doing so, we're separating ourselves from vital information we need to process (and survive) our environments.
That’s a really good point. Anger articulates the information we need to survive. It tells us when something is really going wrong. I think it often gets misrepresented by its extremes. We often disregard it without consulting the cause
When I think of what it means to be a woman, to give birth, to bleed, to do all these things we do, I become enraged that there are still MALE politicians discussing our bodies. MEN contemplating our interiors. They just don't get it. Even men, like my wonderful husband, who do get it, still don't get it. I wonder if they ever will.
I think you say something so important here—even men who get it don’t really get it. While we can all develop empathy for others, it’s impossible to fully comprehend someone else’s lived experience.
It's a minor self-care thing - but since November I have, a few times a month, gone into an open space and screamed a few times. Just screamed. No one can hear. But I let the rage out.
This sounds incredibly cathartic. I need to find somewhere to do this. I've done it in my car a few times, and I always feel better after I do. I also love that you called it self-care. I want to rewire my brain to view it the same way <3
Always this is interesting to me. As someone born as a redhead, anger was expected from me. I was told and overheard the references from early on in my life. “Bet she’s got a temper!” - “Is she as hot-headed as that hair?” - “A spit-fire huh?!” And on and on. I suppose that that was on some levels a relief when I did need to express anger. What has become of that has been a panoply of oppositional experiences that stunted my feminine expression. ‘When in danger, don the armor and act defensively with getting mad.’ Yet I watch women around me hold their anger in check and, as you say, it comes out sideways. On one hand, I have a greater appreciation for men, who also have stunting expectations culturally around what is acceptable for them to express and on the other, for us as women who have long been denied healthy access to healthy anger. Thank you for bringing this. Let us look to the goddesses whose essential beingness is large enough to hold both anger and compassionate love. Kali/Durga for example.
Yes! It's been hard for me to accept that I can be both deeply empathetic AND enraged. When I was a child, I remember feeling overwhelmed by how angry I could feel. My only role models were people who either yelled or who completely shut down. It's hard to learn how to process and express anger when there's no one to teach you what it looks like. It's a journey I've been on for sometime, and even now, realizing that I have to have a relationship with my anger is difficult at times to accept because I don't want to be an "angry woman."
Danielle, What have I learned about anger? It is beautiful, powerful, transcendent. And it is also mostly just the tip of the iceberg. Because beneath it is, ultimately, just grief...as women. (Perhaps it is also just grief for men, too. I am not thinking about that here as I write, but perhaps it would serve us all if I would.)
I grew up with a father who could express anger. I don't recall if it was always healthy. I think he repressed a lot of it, but he did express a kind of collective anger for things that seemed just wrong. And I absorbed this. My dear mother could not express anger. She was abandoned by her parents and raised by grandparents, so to express anger would be difficult; she must have felt nothing but "oh, my god, someone loves me and is caring for me so I must be very good and very grateful." I love her. She is an angel of sorts, very non-judgmental, but she did not do anger. I do anger. Thanks to my father.
The trick with anger is this. YOU MUST OWN IT. If you don't, imagine it as a game of hot potato (I learned this from a Neo-Freudian) .... you are just tossing it to someone else to manage. Jung calls this projection - projecting your anger on someone else. It's a fool's game. And you will LOSE every time. So start with this: OWN YOUR ANGER. You likely have a right to it. Just fucking own it. Women have a very very very hard time with this for some stupid reason. But just do it. Don't try to figure out why you have a hard time with it . It will cost you thousands of dollars in therapy to do that and years of your life. Just fucking OWN YOUR ANGER. Consider it a lover. Have a roll in the sack with it. Claim it. Express it. But if you own it, you won't be DUMPING on someone else.
You say what you FEEL . You say, I am so angry right now. I feel so disrespected by what you just did or what you said. I want to fucking punch you in the face because I am so angry. Don't you ever ever ever treat me like this again. Because there may be consequences that I won't outline in the moment. But I can promise you won't like them. Because I am an intelligent human being with emotional intelligence, I will just tell you how I feel and trust that you are equally intelligent and emotionally mature and can take what I have to say when I feel like an active volcano that wants to destroy everything in my path. I am so fucking pissed!!!!!!
Then you might have to walk away from the scene of the crime to calm down. It's a powerful force.
But, at some point, we have to really get quiet - especially when the rage is collective and not personal....the shit from all time, for all women.... and we know, we know.... it is not just anger. Anger is the presenting emotion. Below that is fear. Because the things that can happen to us, to women, are terrifying. So much death. Let's be honest. Dead babies in childbirth and miscarriage, dead children in war and life , ourselves raped and murdered. Then.....below that....... what is left? Nothing but grief. Just fucking grief about it all. And it is much too much to carry as a single modern woman. This is why we have Aphrodite. This is why we have Mary. This is why we have Kali. We MUST , we MUST rely on the goddesses to help us carry this load. It is too much to carry as a human. But we can bear witness to each other's anger and pain.
I think the point here....yes, feel and express the anger. Anger is awesome for setting boundaries. Set boundaries! With kids, with partners, with colleagues, with the world. But don't be afraid to pack your bags for the real journey, which is to grief. Be sure to invite someone from the Otherworld ....Mary, Aphrodite, Kali, whomever resonates. You must have a helpmate to do grief. It can't be done alone.
Stay strong. Because we are. Godspeed. And thank you from the bottom on MY heart for raising this.
Alecia thank you for taking the time to write in so much depth around this. I'm still working on learning to own it. It's so engrained in me to hide my anger or to express is quietly or tidily that it's still extraordinarily difficult to accept it. I'm working on befriending it, recognizing it's an integral emotion that informs me on how I'm feeling. I love the references to the other world, I'll have to think on which of those resonate most for me.
My pleasure. Just off zoom with my Jungian analyst (of 5+ years now) and we were talking about the many gifts of aging - finally being able to own anger seems to be one of them. Then, oddly, it sort of just disappears like the mist without a lot of effort. Your work is really powerful. Keep writing for the benefit of all of us!
Danielle, I just posted a piece about being cornered, angry, on guard. It is a posture I fall into in lots of situations. I, like you, am afraid of my anger. Afraid I'll hurt someone, afraid I'll kill the damn cat, afraid I'll have a stroke, afraid I'll road rage my SUV into a line of cars just to spite my own face. Growing up in the church down here, anger was not okay, and at home we could "never let the sun go down on our anger," which was a way of shoving stuff under the rug. I also live a roller-coaster of emotions as a bipolar person, so I must say that at least my highs are great, even more extreme than my rage, if that's possible.
Hot irresponsible anger can be harmful regardless of which gender is spewing it. And anger is yet again a great example of the double standard of ok for men and not ok for women. Women have the right to angry at all we have endured
Thanks Danielle for your honesty. My impression is that women are programmed to feel ashamed of being angry....it's not nice to witness so keep it in check type of thing. But that leads to internalizing the issues and feelings making us angry. I know when I feel overwhelmed and stressed, or see no change in a repetitive destructive situation, I let it all build up within myself. Instead of speaking my mind I get obsessive and depressed, which is just not psychologically healthy. I am working on it by setting better boundaries, dropping the need for perfection and speaking my mind when I can rationalize the situation better. A life's work!
I love this Lucy, learning to set boundaries is such a difficult but vital way of learning to take care of ourselves. I also find this is all very much a life's work. I imagine I'll be working on it to the very end.
"I’m trying to learn how to hold red-hot anger without burning the people I love." YES! I adore this and everything you've been writing lately. Thank you for sharing so generously <3
Thank you friend!
"I hold my own anger at arm’s length. I can be angry on behalf of others, but not for myself. In my personal life, I suppress my rage until it leaks sideways." This has been my reality my whole life. Angry is not attractive. Angry is not acceptable. Angry is not who you are. Angry will only hurt you. It's all other people's ideas of how I am supposed to be and feel. As you said, I am on fire. And the people I love seem to take it the most personally because it is not how they are used to seeing me. That feels like a denial of self for the benefit of others. It feels suffocating. There is so much to be angry about. Women should be angry.
It absolutely feels suffocating. There's so little room in our social conscience for women to be dynamic creatures. What felt particularly upsetting about my conversation with my dietitian was when she asked why I though anger was unattractive, and I had to explain in the patriarchal sense, angry women are less attractive to men. It made me physically unwell becauseI push back against so many of the good girl social norms I grew up with, and still, accepting that I am angry feels Herculean. It's a part of myself I struggle to accept. It reminds me of how boys/men are taught it's more acceptable for them to be angry than sad. For us, it's the exact opposite. Those opposing expectations harm us all.
absolutely true. The standards for men and women are different but equally messed up, based on an outdated but firmly-embedded social construct. I don't think most of the world truly understands how deeply patriarchy runs in our social consciousness. Having to explain it is exhausting. As you said in your post, not the same, but similar to how exhausting it must be for Black women to constantly have to explain the nature of their oppression on so many fronts. Oof. I, too, am trying to give myself permission to be angry without apologizing. Have you read this piece by Celeste Davis? The part about communications struggles is particularly illuminating around how men perceive patriarchy and how women feel it. https://celestemdavis.substack.com/p/the-worlds-most-costly-allergy
I haven't read this but I will! Thank you so much for sharing it with me.
Isn't this-- a denial of self for the benefit of others--what it means to live as a woman? This is why I fantasize about just leaving everything and everybody and never returning. It is the only way I will ever get to be alone.
I depend on my anger to protect me. And yes, I have unleashed it way too many times on people who did not deserve it, not physical anger, but in my voice and tone, which are way too destructive. Since anger to me is much safer than grief, I don't want to say no to it. But as you said, where to send that anger fire ball? Not to the ones we love. Grief does sit there below all of the anger. That grief is so deep and profound and centuries old. I don't know how to deal with it. Danielle, I did that smashing of glass thing, I was probably around your age when I did. For me, it did not help. And then I was left picking up the mess. We carry the anger and grief of all of our women ancestors and all women really. How to carry that with grace is a life long project. Thank you for your writing, here and your book of poems which bring me to tears of recognition every day.
I forget that sometimes Julie, that the grief and rage we're carrying isn't just ours, but our foremothers'. The grief and rage of our mothers and grandmothers is part of our DNA, and at times it feels all consuming. I find my anger can be a powerful source of inspiration and energy when I need it to me, but occasionally it scares me. We've been taught to be afraid of our own anger, and yet, an angry woman is formidable. In nature, angry female mammals are some of the fiercest creatures to behold.
Hence the very rise of patriarchy. Men knew the power of an angry woman. They knew they were no match. And yes, no one messes with a mother!
I had a therapist who said that you would by these really cheap saucers and smash them in her bathtub--easy cleanup. Worked for her.
Earlier today I was changing out the lightbulbs and I thought how fun it would be to smash them—I didn’t because I didn’t want to clean up the mess 😂
I think you really explained this so well. Anger is not palatable (in women). Anger in men is often seen as justified. Think God’s (in his traditional western Christian depiction) righteous anger… then he promptly massacres an entire population for not knowing who he is. Perfectly justified of course.
I recently read a psychology today article that talks about “women entering their villain era.” How we are getting burned out on being pigeonholed into perfection, niceness, generosity, self sacrifice, and agreeableness … all those things constantly, for the sake of others, and at our own expense. And the moment we resist them, there’s so much push back. We are selfish, ANGRY women . Hence, our villain era. And maybe we are angry. Maybe we should be. At this point, anger seems very justified.
I love this! I'm going to start saying I'm in my villain era. I think what's interesting is how comfortable I am feeling angry on behalf of others, but how uncomfortable I am feeling angry on my own behalf. I feel like I need to be nice and agreeable to avoid rocking the boat, but quietly seething is its own form of detriment. I'm tired of pretending I'm not angry.
Hahahaha right?? Now I’m rethinking all the older ladies in Disney movies who are depicted as the “villains” (because who has the audacity to age?!) and now think “ahhhhhh same”
Yes I think so too. Anger on behalf of another person is justified more so than our own. So often we are expected to elevate, justify, and act upon the emotions of others before our own. Something a counselor told me that has stuck to me alot through my own recovery process is the idea to at anger is a very productive emotion. But it has, in women, been demonized as out of control. But really anger is a response against injustice
Yes! It's a response to injustice and often a mechanism of protection. We try to bury or discard it because we've been taught it's offensive and ugly, but in doing so, we're separating ourselves from vital information we need to process (and survive) our environments.
That’s a really good point. Anger articulates the information we need to survive. It tells us when something is really going wrong. I think it often gets misrepresented by its extremes. We often disregard it without consulting the cause
When I think of what it means to be a woman, to give birth, to bleed, to do all these things we do, I become enraged that there are still MALE politicians discussing our bodies. MEN contemplating our interiors. They just don't get it. Even men, like my wonderful husband, who do get it, still don't get it. I wonder if they ever will.
I think you say something so important here—even men who get it don’t really get it. While we can all develop empathy for others, it’s impossible to fully comprehend someone else’s lived experience.
It's a minor self-care thing - but since November I have, a few times a month, gone into an open space and screamed a few times. Just screamed. No one can hear. But I let the rage out.
And then sometimes I howl.
This sounds incredibly cathartic. I need to find somewhere to do this. I've done it in my car a few times, and I always feel better after I do. I also love that you called it self-care. I want to rewire my brain to view it the same way <3
Oh! I LOVE this idea of howling!! Most excellent. Lots start a howling retreat for women.
I LOVE the idea of a howling retreat.
Right on! Write on!
Thank you <3
Always this is interesting to me. As someone born as a redhead, anger was expected from me. I was told and overheard the references from early on in my life. “Bet she’s got a temper!” - “Is she as hot-headed as that hair?” - “A spit-fire huh?!” And on and on. I suppose that that was on some levels a relief when I did need to express anger. What has become of that has been a panoply of oppositional experiences that stunted my feminine expression. ‘When in danger, don the armor and act defensively with getting mad.’ Yet I watch women around me hold their anger in check and, as you say, it comes out sideways. On one hand, I have a greater appreciation for men, who also have stunting expectations culturally around what is acceptable for them to express and on the other, for us as women who have long been denied healthy access to healthy anger. Thank you for bringing this. Let us look to the goddesses whose essential beingness is large enough to hold both anger and compassionate love. Kali/Durga for example.
Yes! It's been hard for me to accept that I can be both deeply empathetic AND enraged. When I was a child, I remember feeling overwhelmed by how angry I could feel. My only role models were people who either yelled or who completely shut down. It's hard to learn how to process and express anger when there's no one to teach you what it looks like. It's a journey I've been on for sometime, and even now, realizing that I have to have a relationship with my anger is difficult at times to accept because I don't want to be an "angry woman."
I'll write as soon as I process this. I'm old enough to be a crone and have lived with a lifetime of beautiful anger.
Alecia I can't wait to hear what you have to say. I'm looking forward to my crone years and would love to learn from your wisdom <3
Awww...the pressure is on now! 😂 Thank you.
Danielle, What have I learned about anger? It is beautiful, powerful, transcendent. And it is also mostly just the tip of the iceberg. Because beneath it is, ultimately, just grief...as women. (Perhaps it is also just grief for men, too. I am not thinking about that here as I write, but perhaps it would serve us all if I would.)
I grew up with a father who could express anger. I don't recall if it was always healthy. I think he repressed a lot of it, but he did express a kind of collective anger for things that seemed just wrong. And I absorbed this. My dear mother could not express anger. She was abandoned by her parents and raised by grandparents, so to express anger would be difficult; she must have felt nothing but "oh, my god, someone loves me and is caring for me so I must be very good and very grateful." I love her. She is an angel of sorts, very non-judgmental, but she did not do anger. I do anger. Thanks to my father.
The trick with anger is this. YOU MUST OWN IT. If you don't, imagine it as a game of hot potato (I learned this from a Neo-Freudian) .... you are just tossing it to someone else to manage. Jung calls this projection - projecting your anger on someone else. It's a fool's game. And you will LOSE every time. So start with this: OWN YOUR ANGER. You likely have a right to it. Just fucking own it. Women have a very very very hard time with this for some stupid reason. But just do it. Don't try to figure out why you have a hard time with it . It will cost you thousands of dollars in therapy to do that and years of your life. Just fucking OWN YOUR ANGER. Consider it a lover. Have a roll in the sack with it. Claim it. Express it. But if you own it, you won't be DUMPING on someone else.
You say what you FEEL . You say, I am so angry right now. I feel so disrespected by what you just did or what you said. I want to fucking punch you in the face because I am so angry. Don't you ever ever ever treat me like this again. Because there may be consequences that I won't outline in the moment. But I can promise you won't like them. Because I am an intelligent human being with emotional intelligence, I will just tell you how I feel and trust that you are equally intelligent and emotionally mature and can take what I have to say when I feel like an active volcano that wants to destroy everything in my path. I am so fucking pissed!!!!!!
Then you might have to walk away from the scene of the crime to calm down. It's a powerful force.
But, at some point, we have to really get quiet - especially when the rage is collective and not personal....the shit from all time, for all women.... and we know, we know.... it is not just anger. Anger is the presenting emotion. Below that is fear. Because the things that can happen to us, to women, are terrifying. So much death. Let's be honest. Dead babies in childbirth and miscarriage, dead children in war and life , ourselves raped and murdered. Then.....below that....... what is left? Nothing but grief. Just fucking grief about it all. And it is much too much to carry as a single modern woman. This is why we have Aphrodite. This is why we have Mary. This is why we have Kali. We MUST , we MUST rely on the goddesses to help us carry this load. It is too much to carry as a human. But we can bear witness to each other's anger and pain.
I think the point here....yes, feel and express the anger. Anger is awesome for setting boundaries. Set boundaries! With kids, with partners, with colleagues, with the world. But don't be afraid to pack your bags for the real journey, which is to grief. Be sure to invite someone from the Otherworld ....Mary, Aphrodite, Kali, whomever resonates. You must have a helpmate to do grief. It can't be done alone.
Stay strong. Because we are. Godspeed. And thank you from the bottom on MY heart for raising this.
Alecia thank you for taking the time to write in so much depth around this. I'm still working on learning to own it. It's so engrained in me to hide my anger or to express is quietly or tidily that it's still extraordinarily difficult to accept it. I'm working on befriending it, recognizing it's an integral emotion that informs me on how I'm feeling. I love the references to the other world, I'll have to think on which of those resonate most for me.
My pleasure. Just off zoom with my Jungian analyst (of 5+ years now) and we were talking about the many gifts of aging - finally being able to own anger seems to be one of them. Then, oddly, it sort of just disappears like the mist without a lot of effort. Your work is really powerful. Keep writing for the benefit of all of us!
Danielle, I just posted a piece about being cornered, angry, on guard. It is a posture I fall into in lots of situations. I, like you, am afraid of my anger. Afraid I'll hurt someone, afraid I'll kill the damn cat, afraid I'll have a stroke, afraid I'll road rage my SUV into a line of cars just to spite my own face. Growing up in the church down here, anger was not okay, and at home we could "never let the sun go down on our anger," which was a way of shoving stuff under the rug. I also live a roller-coaster of emotions as a bipolar person, so I must say that at least my highs are great, even more extreme than my rage, if that's possible.
Rebecca I've added reading your piece to my to do list. Is it your most recent Substack essay?
Hot irresponsible anger can be harmful regardless of which gender is spewing it. And anger is yet again a great example of the double standard of ok for men and not ok for women. Women have the right to angry at all we have endured
Absolutely, we have the right to be angry AND we need to find ways of expressing it that aren't harmful/detrimental to others.
Let’s get a dialog going about how to do that
The biggest thing for me has been learning to say " I am angry, I need some space right now to process." Just naming it is a start.
Naming anger is a good place to start as well saying i need and am taking some space away to process.
Thanks Danielle for your honesty. My impression is that women are programmed to feel ashamed of being angry....it's not nice to witness so keep it in check type of thing. But that leads to internalizing the issues and feelings making us angry. I know when I feel overwhelmed and stressed, or see no change in a repetitive destructive situation, I let it all build up within myself. Instead of speaking my mind I get obsessive and depressed, which is just not psychologically healthy. I am working on it by setting better boundaries, dropping the need for perfection and speaking my mind when I can rationalize the situation better. A life's work!
I love this Lucy, learning to set boundaries is such a difficult but vital way of learning to take care of ourselves. I also find this is all very much a life's work. I imagine I'll be working on it to the very end.