Wednesday, January 17, 2018

On female anger

The New York Times has an interesting piece on this. In part:

If an angry woman makes people uneasy, then her more palatable counterpart, the sad woman, summons sympathy more readily. She often looks beautiful in her suffering: ennobled, transfigured, elegant. Angry women are messier. Their pain threatens to cause more collateral damage. It’s as if the prospect of a woman’s anger harming other people threatens to rob her of the social capital she has gained by being wronged. We are most comfortable with female anger when it promises to regulate itself, to refrain from recklessness, to stay civilized.
As usual, I'm not your typical woman. People have been drawn to me for the anger. Repulsed too, probably. It's gotten more nuanced over the years, but it is and always will be there.

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