I remember reading a study a few years ago where a boy and a girl were asked to sit on a bench in a public place and not smile. At different times. The reactions of people passing by to the non-smiling children were recorded. The boy received no reactions.

The girl was instructed by passers-by to smile. She was told it made her unattractive. She was told that "whatever it was couldn't be that bad." One boy threatened to hit her if she didn't smile.

Our culture has a huge problem with women who do not appear to be happy every hour of the day and night. I believe this is magnified with mothers, who are not only supposed to be Happy Smiling People constantly by virtue of their gender but also by virtue of their glorious state, the role of mother, which is supposed to be JOY. Right? Unhappy mother=bad mother.

Unfortunately this does not reflect reality, as Bernadine P Healy says in the Journal of Women's Health, Vol 7(4), pp. 393-394: ".... studies have shown that within family life, women with or without children are actually angrier than men. As children arrive, and their numbers increase, women's anger increases even more.... Anger management strategies for women are suggested including biological and rational responses to anger stimuli and turning free-floating anger to constructive purposes."

Yes, you read that right.

Women are angrier than men.

Women with children are angrier than women without children.

And the more children a woman has, the angrier she is.

Conclusion: Being a mom makes a woman mad.

Yet, at the same time this is happening, a woman is made to feel worse for her anger than she ever has before. Sicker. Psychologically less healthy. And as other research suggests, there is a possible link between anger unexpressed and depression: "A growing body of literature supports the link between anger suppression and depression, and females' greater likelihood of demonstrating both. Anger suppression has been asserted to be involved in gender socialization for girls. ... Results supported the hypothesis that girls suppress anger at higher rates than boys, but not the related hypothesis that such suppression relates to higher levels of depression in girls than in boys. ... However, qualitative interview data revealed girls' gender-specific behaviors and beliefs with regard to anger, including withdrawal and expectations of diminishment by significant adults."

From Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences & Engineering. Vol 57(12-B), Jun 1997, pp. 7756, Cox, Deborah Lynn

Of course being angry for women and girls is not sanctioned, in the way being depressed or anxious is, as Sandra P Thomas discusses in Perspectives in Psychiatric Care. Vol 37(4), Oct-Dec 2001, pp. 137-139: "First, the author discusses the small number of researchers of women's anger in contrast to the legions of researchers of anxiety and depression. Second, pejorative media depictions of angry women are addressed. Neither suppression nor ventilation promotes resolution of problems. ..."

In other words, neither keeping it in nor talking it out will resolve anger.

I actually did some research on this one because I think most people are so uncomfortable with the idea of angry women that my own beliefs would be inadequate to pursuade or mollify. I mean, what is the number one criticism levelled at feminists? They're angry.

Unfortunately this one is true: "Past literatures had suggested bivariate links between feminist identity development and psychological distress, feminist identity and anger, feminist identity and interpersonal conflict, plus anger and psychological distress. Putting the pieces together, the authors hypothesized that anger would mediate the associations between feminist identity and distress. Path analyses using data from 191 women indicated consistent links with distress only for the revelation dimension of feminist identity attitudes. All 9 links were mediated by anger, as predicted, while holding social desirability constant. The authors encourage continued attention to both the positive and painful effects of politicized consciousness."

OK, so, yes, feminists are angry. So what? What's the problem? All women are angry, whether they admit it or beat it down or talk it out with their girlfriends or take it out on dishes and punching bags. In a sexist culture, all women are angry.

Not all the time, no. But more than men.

As the very wise Ms. Di Franco put it:

"If you're not angry, then you're just stupid or you don't care.
How else can you react when you know that something's so unfair?"

Anger is fine. It's healthy. It's like pain; it tells us when something's wrong and needs fixing. Anger is only a problem when it isn't handled right, when it becomes depression or violence or apathy (I think apathy is a flip-side to anger: Something angers you so much but you are powerless to change it so you just shut down completely).

Here is my confession:

I am an angry woman.

Or, if you'd prefer: Yes, I'm quite mad.

A thousand things make me angry. That dumbass Dr. Smith who put parents in jail for the deaths of their children through malevolence or sheer incompetence. That most of our legislators are still wealthy white men. Most advertising. Advice columns in parenting magazines. How we can have a world where people die from over-eating and under-eating on a daily basis. The track record of the IMF and World Bank. And don't even get me started on the Iraq War.

Even people who tell me I'm a very angry person get me angry. For one thing: they think it's an insult! There is nothing wrong with being angry, and I would suggest that never being angry or never being aware of one's anger is at least as pathological as violent acting-out (which I don't do). For another: I'm not. I am very comfortable with my anger. I have no problem holding it in my hands, turning it over, examining it; I admit to it, I talk about it, I try to get others to participate in it when it's an issue that I care about deeply; I use it as a fuel, as a motivator to get me off my ass and act in the world for positive change. Anger can be hard to handle, but it can also be a very good friend.

It sure beats apathy and depression.

But perhaps my comfort with being angry and admitting to it publicly makes me seem angrier than the average woman. I'd be surprised if I were, though. And as some of the abstracts I've tagged onto the end of this essay reveal, women who are comfortable with their anger are more likely to be psychologically healthy than women who aren't. So there! I stick my tongue out at you.

I earnestly encourage you to be angry.

Try it out for a while. Shout. Yell. Shake your fists in the air, if you feel like it. Bang your hand on the table. Scowl. Anger can accomplish wonders. Those people who tell you anger "isn't healthy," who say you should be happy all the time--they're not your friends. They don't really want you to be happy. They just want you to look happy so they can be comfortable with their lives on top of the heap in the status quo. They just want you to be submissive, passive, to play out your role in the Great Hierarchy of Life.

Don't.

I tell you from experience, it is possible to live a full, healthy, even happy life with anger riding more or less permanently in one's shirt pocket. It doesn't consume me, it doesn't make me bitter, I'm not violent, I'm not even sad. I shout a lot. Well, not even that, really. I make sarcastic comments to the TV on a regular basis, but otherwise, I think if you met me you would quickly see I'm a shockingly normal person.

And I'm angry.

Mad as hell.

~~~~~

Abstracts:

In two studies, we examined women's anger expression and its instrumental function in relationships by addressing the following questions: What is the relationship between women's self-reports of instrumentality and their perceived styles of anger expression? In what ways and situations do women see their anger expression as instrumental or goal enhancing? In Study I, we expected that women's perceived styles of anger expression would be positively related to instrumentality, as measured with the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ; Spence, Helmreich, & Stapp, JSAS Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, 4, 43, 1974). Although our hypothesis was not supported, a positive relationship did emerge between assertiveness and instrumentality, as predicted. In Study II, we conducted three focus group discussions to elucidate women's experiences of anger and to provide clarification for the results of Study I. We identified group themes related to when women experienced their anger expression as instrumental as well as when women perceived themselves as noninstrumental in anger-arousing situations. In their narratives, women explained how they make decisions about expressing their anger based on relationship concerns. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved) (journal abstract )

Health Care for Women International. Vol 25(9), Oct 2004, pp. 813-834
Cox, Deborah L; Van Velsor, Patricia; Hulgus, Joseph F; Weatherman, Suzanne; Smenner, Marcia; Dickens, Denise; Davis, Carol

This within-gender study compared anger profiles and sex roles among three groups of women: nonclinical women, women in counseling and women in outpatient treatment for abuse of alcohol and other drugs. Testing the hypotheses that alcohol-abusing women were significantly angrier and more undifferentiated in sex role than non-alcohol-abusing women, the State-Trait Anger Inventory and the Bem Sex Role Inventory were administered to 263 women, The women, aged 18-72, a diverse socioeconomic and ethnic population from Central New Jersey, were compared in three groups: 85 women in treatment for alcohol and drug abuse, 87 women in counseling, and 91 nonclinical women, Administration of the Short Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test screened for alcohol abuse for everyone other than those specifically in treatment for that diagnosis. Discriminant Function Analysis on suppressed anger, expressed anger, trait anger and masculine and feminine sex role scores showed significant differences among the groups for suppressed anger, trait anger, and masculine scores but not for expressed anger or feminine scores, ANOVAs for impulsive and sensitive anger showed significant differences among the groups for impulsive anger but not sensitive anger. Results supported the hypotheses that alcohol-abusing women had significantly more impulsive anger and trait anger than other women. Both clinical groups (alcohol-abusing women and women in counseling), however, suppressed their anger more than nonclinical women did. In terms of sex role, results supported the hypothesis that alcohol-abusing women were significantly more undifferentiated than nonclinical women, but not women in counseling. Nonclinical women were significantly more androgynous and masculine in sex role typing than both clinical groups. Results resolved the apparent discrepancy between theory and research in anger and gender and point to the need for skill training in the reduction of impulsive anger for alcohol-abusing women, as (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2004 APA, all rights reserved)

Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences & Engineering. Vol 57(6-B), Dec 1996, pp. 4035
Mccrea, Carol S

From the jacket ) [This book confronts] rage head-on, explaining why it is epidemic among women, why women need to acknowledge it, and how they can use it to empower their lives. Drawing on examples from mythology . . . , literature, and film, as well as interviews with women and psychotherapists, Valentis and Devane let readers know that rage is a part of every woman's experience. The authors discuss the all-too-common dependency among women that leads to victimization in relationships. And they explain how innocence and gullibility sow the seeds of rage. The authors also discuss the physical and emotional problems, such as depression, anorexia, and bulimia, that result when rage is turned inward. They talk about the tendency to label enraged women as hysterical or crazy, about how women tend to direct their rage toward other women, and about the rage experienced by older women against a culture that deifies youth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2004 APA, all rights reserved)

Female rage: Unlocking its secrets, claiming its power
Valentis, Mary; Devane, Anne