Womens Anger

“That is, to be ourselves causes us to be exiled by many others, and yet to comply with what others want causes us to be exiled from ourselves.”

―Clarissa Pinkola Estés,Women Who Run With the Wolves

A close and dear friend of mine asked me to write about the expression of anger in women - particularly how anger is often viewed as "inappropriate” in women, reinforcing a stereotypically acceptable societal view that women need to be "soft and gentle," and generally highly agreeable for the benefit of everyone around them.

The expression of anger in women has been a topic that I find frequently surfaces, as women begin to push against societal boundaries and reclaim their voices.

I was immediately intrigued by my friends request, and began reflecting on this nuanced topic, drawing from the books I’ve read, my own lived experiences, as well as conversations with other women and insights from well-known sources of which I have personally resonated with.

This is a vast and deeply personal topic. From my own experience, especially stepping into the role of being a single mum, and the experiences of some of my closest friends, I have come to understand that anger arises when boundaries are either crossed or have been too permeable, such as when trust is broken repeatedly, when one doesn’t feel heard or understood, or as a result of trauma and its compounded effects. We must also consider a person’s disposition, societal pressures, cultural norms, and assumed gender expectations.

Another very important factor is the societal conditioning of women that has happened over hundreds (if not thousands) of years, which I see many women becoming aware of and breaking out of.

I see, hear and feel, the general frustration amongst women around me for feeling unheard, unseen, misunderstood, and really pissed off about it.

The anger I will be discussing in my post today is not the kind of anger that comes from a place of wanting to dominate, bully, or manipulate. Neither is it the vindictive kind of anger, or the kind of anger used as a mask for other emotions flowing beneath the surface.

The anger I’m speaking of is righteous anger, or anger that enables a person to reclaim their own power and use that power for change. I’m talking about anger born from overstimulation, from feeling misunderstood, from societal pressures placed on women, and from the way girls are conditioned to believe that anger isn’t “nice.”

Some anger is justified and necessary, and it must be worked with compassionately and intelligently.

As it stands for the female experience, anger has long been labeled by society and the patriarchy, as “bad,” which is misinformative and unhelpful. Anger is not an emotion to be suppressed. When channeled correctly, it can catalyze a powerful sense of agency, leading to much-needed change, whether that change is for ourselves or the world we live in.

Gabor Maté, a Canadian physician and author of the groundbreaking book When the Body Says No, (I highly recommend this book) argues that women bear a disproportionate burden of physical and emotional stress, manifesting in illnesses such as autoimmune diseases, cancers, and neurological disorders.

According to Maté, 80% of autoimmune sufferers are women. This is due to their roles as primary caregivers, societal expectations, higher levels of stress, higher levels of isolation (I see you mums out there, I get it), as well as the suppression of healthy anger. Women also tend to absorb the emotional weight of their partners and children, with women of colour carrying even more of the weight due to social, economic, and racial exclusion and oppression. [Link]

Given this information, it’s no surprise that women, in general, experience valid feelings of frustration and anger. While progress has been made in recent decades, we still have a long way to go as a society.

We need to learn to listen. Women need and want to feel understood.

This is best that Wix could come up with when I searched for 'anger' images. I suppose soggy cocopops aren't that much fun for most of us. Anyway - back to it..

What is actually wrong with feeling angry?

For too long, I’ve witnessed toxic and gaslighting behaviours within some parts of the “love and light” spiritual community, when it comes to anger and boundaries, suggesting that anger be avoided altogether. This harmful approach has led me, as well as other women I have spoken to, to learnt behaviours of physically and emotionally disconnecting from certain emotions, simply because they were labeled as “bad” or as part of the ego that must be “overcome.” This can lead to deeply buried cognitive dissociation and incongruences between the internal and external worlds.

Not only is this approach incorrect and unhelpful, but it also carries a dangerous message, putting vulnerable individuals at risk of having their physical and emotional boundaries violated. This can lead to traumatic events and a deep distrust in a person’s own sense of moral right and wrong. Who benefits from this kind of conditioning I wonder?

It’s one thing to harbor anger, fostering resentment and distrust in the world, that rarely leads to anything constructive and can even become destructive over time, but it’s another thing to give anger a voice in pursuit of much-needed change, and for that voice to be genuinely heard.

As I said earlier, anger can serve as a catalyst for assertiveness and purpose, also helping define the boundary between you and the world around you, and ultimately what you will put up with from it, and from others.

While anger can drive positive transformation, it’s important to consider taking some time to reflect before acting on it if possible. There’s a time and a place, so not all scenarios suit this, so discernment is important. However, rather than reacting immediately, it can be more useful to explore what lies beneath the anger. Easier said than done, it can take some restraint and training, and sometimes in certain situations, acute anger can be an extremely necessary emotion to use, to either assert a boundary that has been crossed or to ensure the safety of oneself or loved ones.

By understanding the root cause of feeling angry, we may gain valuable insights into why it’s there in the first place and find possible ways to express it more efficiently. Anger, when used in a healthy way, can become a vital tool in establishing necessary boundaries, boundaries for what is acceptable in society, at work, and in relationships.

One main key is how we choose to direct our anger.

As a Menstruality Mentor, I’ve noticed that toward the end of a woman’s cycle, a "no-fucks-given" attitude often emerges. This “fuck off” mentality can play an important role in assessing what (or who) is and what (who) isn’t working in life. Women cycle through the pattern of life, death, and rebirth every month, whether they are bleeding or not, with each experience being unique. It’s the female biology.

When used with awareness, this introspection and the practice of interoception can be used as a golden compass, revealing hidden truths and gifts. These are some of the practices I use with clients, and for myself – when I’m not drowning in laundry, chores, demands.. Again, it isn’t always easy.

Women have the potential to be the oracles which society has long ignored and suppressed. Through our cycles, women can tap into a deep well of intuition, accessing the intangible to bring in a much needed voice into the tangible world, a voice that longs to be heard by both our deeper innermost selves and those around us. This includes the voice of anger when channeled into wisdom.

When tuning into the menstrual cycle during this particular phase, the practice here is to avoid acting on anger immediately, but to give it time and space to go deeper. What we are trying to do is allow the feeling of anger to reveal what it’s trying to communicate. Perhaps the anger is signaling that change is needed, or maybe it’s a sign that a limit has been reached. These are important clues that can point to what needs to be expressed or changed, either privately or publicly.

Anger is also an emotion that deserves to be heard.

Like I mentioned earlier, anger used for aggression, domination, or bullying rarely leads to anything that benefits the whole. But anger that’s transformed into assertiveness, wisdom, and a push for positive change, that’s what we need more of.

In the past two years, one of the facts I’ve learned from Maisie Hill, a TCM practitioner and author of Period Power, is that most biological research has historically been conducted on men, by men. As a result, there is still so much we need to learn about female biology. We are getting there slowly, as the conversation in community is creating more awareness around this.

Women are, more often than not, expected to perform according to a male-biological model. Furthermore, the structures in society today aren’t really supportive of anyone, regardless of gender. People are increasingly becoming unwell in a stress-inducing society that celebrates productivity and milestones over rest and reflection. This is mainly because the feminine experience and expression, and the much needed balance it brings, has largely been ignored and suppressed in our society. Another valid reason for feeling “slightly” pissed off.

Fuck Off.

Also, when it comes to societal expectations of mothers, a few women I’ve spoken to feel like they were never asked, heard, or even considered when it came to what was expected of them on the home front when children came into the picture. The lack of proper communication, deeper understanding, and flexibility to change routines and remain open to making changes also plays a key part in women feeling unheard and angry, with boundaries being overstepped and feeling pushed far beyond capacity with extremely little support. I can absolutely relate to this myself as well, being a single mother to a nearly 5-year-old.

So when working with anger in a healthy way – I question this: If any given person feels angry, and that individual has been suppressed (or oppressed) in expressing the anger when it has arisen in the past, how is that person going to know what to do with that anger, when it arises again? Without being able to experience anger with non-judgement in a safe setting, an individual runs the risk of burying very important messages that are trying to be communicated. This is where a variety of responses might mask what is actually going on beneath the surface. A few of these could look like avoidance, dismissal, explosive reactions, or freezing. Usually, these kinds of patterns begin in childhood, through trauma or compound trauma.

We need to reconsider how we are dealing with anger as a society, with the aim of attaining a greater understanding of each individual case.

According to another friend of mine, when I asked if she felt that other women supported her expression of anger, her answer was that, in her experience, other women tend to want to 'soften' and 'calm' the emotion. In my opinion, if this happens, the feeling of anger may still not have been fully acknowledged and given the space to move. Something to consider.

Another unhelpful method I’ve found in spiritual communities is that if someone is angry, it has sometimes been deemed that they must have manifested the experience upon themselves. If they continue to express anger around a situation or experience, they are considered to be manifesting more anger.

This belief system can create unhealthy masks like avoidance, when it comes to emotions like anger in the community. This, too, is very unhelpful, especially when there is then social exclusion of individuals who display any 'challenging emotions,' as they are considered 'toxic energy.' I had heard this all before.

All unique experiences require discernment, though, as emotions need to move in order to transform.

For a very long time, it was hard for me to express emotions like anger, or to establish boundaries even, due to a few factors being mainly my upbringing, poor choices in partners, and my own dispositional makeup. The main game changer for me was a deeper understanding of my own inner world, the power of understanding my menstrual cycle, and acknowledging how much shame I felt about expressing certain emotions like anger or other emotions that were deemed “too much” or as “being too sensitive.”. The judgement I have carried around voicing my own genuine feelings or concerns, I have come to understand, has been rooted in years of feeling misunderstood, judged or suppressed.

Once I started working with my mentor, I began to recognize particular incongruencies within and around me in my external world, as well as tracking my menstrual cycle. I can still find it challenging to this day, but I have come a long way, and I am working on it. In the beginning, I remember apologizing profusely to my mentor for expressing anger and saying 'fuck!' a lot about certain situations I had experienced in my life. He didn’t bat an eyelid and told me that I needn’t apologize – in fact, he was glad that I felt safe enough to express myself authentically with him. It was healthy for me to be allowed to just be me.

If we are able to learn to sit with our anger and feel it, rather than suppress it, we might learn something truly valuable to our growth. In some cases, after anger has been verbalized, there may no longer be a need to feel angry anymore. Expressing it, may have been enough all along.

I personally can’t help but feel frustrated and even angry at times when my emotions are dismissed or labelled as “too much”, or when I hear of women enduring physical, verbal, or mental abuse. Over time, I have come to understand that these are not just isolated incidents, they reflect a systemic issue that desperately needs urgent attention.

Anger, when used in a healthy way, can be a powerful tool for self-empowerment and societal change.

Anger, when channelled into assertiveness, wisdom, and meaningful action can bring about positive transformation.

It’s not enough to simply feel anger, it’s about understanding it, using it as a catalyst for growth, and ensuring it leads to constructive change and not destruction.

Takeaways

The takeaway from this, I hope, is to create a deeper understanding for the general female experience. My desire is for women to feel heard and validated in their experiences as well as the collective female experience, thus enabling much-needed change by voicing our emotions with strength, wisdom, community, and compassion.

Disclaimer:The information provided on this blog is for general informational purposes only. I am not a trained or qualified mental health professional or doctor. The content shared is based on personal experiences, research, and observations and should not be considered a substitute for professional advice or treatment.If you or someone you know is in an emergency situation, dealing with domestic violence, or experiencing thoughts of self-harm or suicide, I urge you to seek immediate help from a qualified professional. In Australia, the following hotlines are available for support:• Lifeline (24/7 Crisis Support): 13 11 14• 1800RESPECT (National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service): 1800 737 732• Suicide Call Back Service: 1300 659 467Please remember, seeking help is a brave and important step toward your well-being. You are not alone—please reach out.