Fed Up & Female?

Linda Simmons, LCSW, MSW

Anger, an important and healthy emotion, is generally denied legitimate expression in women. Anger signals that something is going significantly wrong with the interaction between a woman and her environment and should therefore be considered a red flag.

Instead, women are well trained in the castigation and pejorative that they can expect will come their way should they dare to express anger. “Bitch”, “nag”, “man-hater”, etc., are words that make sure that we know that anger in a woman turns everyone off and makes us, at a minimum, unfeminine and definitely unattractive. However, just as physical pain serves as a warning to protect ourselves, so anger can preserve our very selves by motivating us to pay attention. It is a signal that perhaps we are not addressing an important emotional issue in our lives.

The strictures against feeling and expressing anger are so strong that even knowing when we are angry can become a real challenge. If we feel guilty or depressed or self doubting instead of anger the usual sanctions do not occur. Therefore it is safer to feel such forms of anger in disguise. Unfortunately it also means that we are not likely to change things. Under these circumstances we become very good at shutting down our anger, and essentially giving up with questions like, “what good would it do?” We wouldn’t dream of refusing to sleep when we are tired by asking what good would it do, or not eating when we are hungry with the same irrelevant question in response to an identified state of being. We even begin to fear our anger because of the very fact that it is a sign that change is necessary.

While feeling anger signals a problem, just venting it rarely solves the problem. Venting often just serves as a way of letting off steam, all the while maintaining the patterns in a relationship. This has the end result of merely ensuring that change does not occur. Feelings of depression and self betrayal are inevitable when we complain about a situation, but then continue to live in a way that denies what we want and need. Those who find themselves locked into such an ineffective way of expressing their anger suffer just as much as those who dare not get angry at all. Whether we end up identified as a bitch and a nag or a really nice “girl”, both approaches can end up protecting others, maintaining the status quo, and obscuring our sense of self.

When we are taught, however, that our worth is only found in loving and being loved, we all tend to maintain relationships, such as they are, as if our very lives depended upon it. It is not easy to find the courage to express our anger and have our womanliness, our worth, our very identity as human beings questioned. It is very tempting to return to or never leave our “proper” places and be rewarded with approval. Despite the rewards, the costs are very high since the amount of energy required to repress anger and remain unaware of it depletes all the creativity we could be using to take care of ourselves and effect significant change in our lives.

We also need to remember that those closest to us have the greatest investment in our staying the same. If we are to begin to learn about our anger we also need to learn to anticipate change back reactions as well as strong anxiety being aroused. We don’t always get our way in any relationship and differences must be negotiated. However, the partner doing the most sacrificing of self stores the most repressed anger and is very vulnerable to depression and physical illness.

When we can interrupt non-productive patterns of interaction by listening to our anger and using it effectively, we can increase our responsibility, i.e., our ability to respond in a new and different way, saying “No” to definitions of ourselves by others and “Yes” to who we really are. The idea that we should be in touch with our pain and anger goes against some powerful taboos. However, the consequence of dampening our anger is that we dampen our capacity to love, both love and anger being vital expressions of our life energy. Anger is an emotion that everyone feels and it deserves our respect and attention. We all have a right to everything we feel….. and anger is no exception.

In beginning to examine our anger in an effective way the following questions may be helpful:

1) What is the problem and whose problem is it?

2) What risks might I face if I become clearer and more assertive?

3) What specifically do I want to change? (remembering that the only person I can change is myself)

4) If getting angry is not working for me what can I do differently?

5) How can I learn to express my anger in a way that won’t leave me powerless, defensive or attacking? And perhaps most importantly, what is it that I will and will not do…….. what is my bottom line?

Change is a process that requires us to hang in there as best we can, learning as we go with much trial and error. However, we all do better when we have a clear bottom line and can process issues, taking a clear and assertive position on our own behalf. This definitely takes some energy, but is such a more effective use of energy than repression of anger. Let anger be the source of such necessary energy, so that it can serve its true function in our lives.

© 2008 by Linda Simmons, LCSW, MSW. All rights reserved.