4/5 stars.
ebook, 256 page.
Read from May 20, 2020 to June 2, 2020.
I don’t get angry. At least, not by what would you define as anger. I don’t even really know how to identify anger in my self as it automatically turns inner shame, guilt, and tears after many years of repressing it. What’s sad is that I’m not alone in this. So many women find themselves in adulthood without the ability to properly acknowledge, manage, and deal with anger that they’ve been quietly but forcibly told to subdue their whole lives.
“Why are angry women so threatening to others? If we are guilty, depressed, or self-doubting, we stay in place. We do not take action except against our own selves and we are unlikely to be agents of personal and social change. “
Angry women are bitches, unapproachable, threatening, and above all, never taken seriously, at least this is the message we are taught from a very young age. Our anger is shaped internally so that it doesn’t come out and eats at our insides. I never thought a book published in the 80s would still be so relevant to today.
“Nothing, but nothing, will block the awareness of anger so effectively as guilt and self-doubt. Our society cultivates guilt feelings in women such that many of us still feel guilty if we are anything less than an emotional service station to others.”
This book is still in print for a reason as women are still grappling with societal norms in a changing world. What I enjoyed about this book is that the author gives a variety of examples of women dealing with anger and how it is affecting their relationships, either with a spouse, family member, child, or in a work setting. The author details how women often express their anger and the disservice that it does and how to change that dynamic.
The author talks about over and under-functioning dynamics in relationships and how identifying that can help you determine where your energy needs to be directed. For example, oftentimes women are the overfunctioners in relationships and may carry the emotional weight in a marriage. When the woman recognizes that the worry is not her’s to carry in a given situation with her spouse, as the choices of her spouse are out of her control, the shift of worry is given back to the spouse. These shifts can be tumultuous as people are resistant to change, even if its change that is desired. The spouse may become anxious and stressed because the spouse was doing all the worrying for him about this given issue and that pressure caused him to previously distance or defend himself. Now, since the woman has backed off, he must deal with that given anxiety himself.
“We cannot make another person change his or her steps to an old dance, but if we change our own steps, the dance no longer can continue in the same predictable pattern.”
This is just a very simple example, as the author goes into specifics about a variety of relationship dynamics and how often times the anger we feel and the blame we try to place is often our own. We are angry but the other person we’re angry at is comfortable with the arrangement, so who is truly responsible for our anger and who is the person that’s really able to bring about change? It’s a simple concept but often one we’re not able to recognise when we’re involved in it. Recognising relationship dynamics such as these allows women to acknowledge their anger by putting the energy back into themselves instead of being overly emotionally involved in others.
The book itself is concise and details relationships in a balanced manner that portrays both genders perspectives appropriately and in a variety of different family dynamics. It’s not a self-righteous book by any means but it is able to identify the unique position that women often find themselves in. Now that I’ve read this book, does this mean that I’ll able to get angry in a healthy manner now? Not necessarily but this book has provided me with some understanding that will help me acknowledge the roots of my anger, in whatever form that it appears in, and the central part that I play in it when it comes to my personal relationships.
I would recommend this book to women who find themselves full of self-doubt when it comes to decisions and conflicts so that they can turn that guilt into what it really is, anger, and learn to find a healthier approach and create more balanced relationships with yourself and others.
The Pluviophile Writer 