Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger by
Soraya Chemaly
My rating:
5 of 5 stars
Lots of salient and interesting essays about feminism.
I had a lot of favorite quotes. This, for example, describes my high school (class of 1997) experience pretty well: "In the classroom, it was almost certainly the case that the women were managing a double bind that we face constantly: conform to traditional gender expectations, stay quiet and be liked, or violate those expectations and risk the penalties, including the penalty of being called puritanical, aggressive, and 'humorless.'" Though I think there were many more and worse names we were called. "Puritanical" would have been a relief by comparison.
And this describes my internal fears almost everytime I go for a walk by myself: "Men learn to regard rape as a moment in time; a discreet episode with a beginning, middle, and end. But for women, rape is thousands of moments that we fold into ourselves over a lifetime. Its' the day that you realize you can't walk to a friend's house anymore or the time when your aunt tells you to be nice because the boy was just 'stealing a kiss.' It's the evening you stop going to the corner store because, the night before, a stranger followed you home. [...]. It's the time it takes you to write an email explaining that you're changing your major, even though you don't really want to, in order to avoid a particular professor. It's when you're racing to catch a bus, hear a person demand a blow job, [...]. It's the second your teacher tells you to cover your shoulders because you'll 'distract the boys, and what will your male teachers do?' It's the minute you decide not to travel to a place you've always dreamed about visiting and are accused of being 'unadventurous.' It's the sting of knowing that exactly as the world starts expanding for most boys, it begins to shrink for you. All of this goes on all day, every day, without anyone really uttering the word rape in a way that grandfathers, fathers, brothers, uncles, teachers, and friends will hear it, let alone seriously reflect on what it means."
There is certainly a lot more that can be said on the topic of anger in particular though. One thing that I thought was missing from these discussions is that shutting down anger is a political tactic that extends beyond sexism. Even male Democrats are told not to be angry, and "just accept" the results of multiple stolen elections, gerrymandered districts, Democratic governors stripped of power, etc. "A society that does not respect women's anger is one that does not respect women; not as human beings, thinkers, knowers, active participants, or citizens." Perhaps the problem is that increasingly there is less respect for the concept of democracy or human rights in general.
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