I relate very much to this essay and to the anger, which I also found came from the expectation and the praise for my being small and nice and letting other people have everything they wanted at the expense of me. Shut up and fulfill everyone else's dreams, be the perfect trophy and reflect glory back onto everyone else ...I guess women need to be the captains of their own ships, just like men! What a concept...
Yes! My version is that we all need to be in the driver’s seat of our own cars. That’s the only driving we should do. But I just kept sitting there in the passenger’s seat of my car, and being furious that the car didn’t go anywhere. Plus, I was trying to drive everyone else’s car, which you can’t really do, long term.
It’s rare to read an account of women’s rage that so accurately captures the experience—especially the shaming. Finished wanting to read more. Such a great piece.
Though it’s not for me to say, you have every right to your rage.
“A Town Called Normal” sounds like a perfect book title and brings to mind, with good-natured laughter, Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Called Susan”.
But it also brings to mind and heart a very painful and unnecessary ending to a recent and very promising romantic relationship with a woman who had a similarly repressive marital history.
Ours ended with her accusatory charge that I “wanted partnership” but she “wanted freedom”. I never saw the two as contradictory. To my enlightened mind and still grieving heart, she equated partnership with patriarchy.
I wrote a memoir entitled “Men as Friends”. Targeted to men, women like it too. I’d love to be able to write a companion “Women as Friends” but fear the backlash. Am I not “manly” enough?
The outsized male reaction to female anger always floors me. They forgive each other very easily for things said in anger, but if we speak up, we are considered irrational and emotional.
That powerlessness, that in-directed, muffled rage -- it's amazing it doesn't kill us before we even have a chance to recognize it. Actually, sometimes it does.
This essay has made so much so clear. I have been retired for seven years, allowing much needed time for reflection and introspection. I have learned so much about myself! However, I have also acknowledged a worsening anger that has been so far unexplainable, making me to doubt myself anew. And then, this essay. Here it is, in black and white. And the irony being the font of that anger causing me to subjugate myself even further, questioning the validity of my thoughts and feelings, wondering what could be wrong with me. Thank you for describing what’s in my soul. I’m going to lean further into this “no filter” age/time of my life, and re-engage the writer in me that I let lapse years ago.
When I was in high school in the early '60s, I was an outward ingenue whose inner rage sometimes bubbled up and out. Much of it was political. Same things then as now. Some of it clear-eyed and prescient in a time of sleeping feminism. I was sent to a therapist so I could "adjust." Righteous adolescent that I was, I said the world should adjust to me! I wanted to be left alone, so I faked being adjusted and felt like a sleeping volcano.
It's as if some want to put a woman in a box then chastise or castrate her for being in that box a no win situation. As a woman who's worn many hats some of my own making some put on me by others I can honestly say that I've never been one into the if you can't win or beat them join them so to speak speak. I've been chastised for simply being especially for being myself in a world clamoring to have one be someone or something else. As a stay at home of young children I've also been looked at and asked what I do for a living even with them along with me? If a look can be deadly please don't ignore my are you f'n serious oh nothing sitting around eating bon bons expression as I explain to you it's one of the hardest jobs I've ever done along with it's none of your business anyway and I will not forget your sex being a woman asking me this ridiculous question in the first place. Then fast forward everything and I mean everything broke causing my children and I to move in with my father or being homeless which ended up being a win win for all in the long run. Easy no did we get through it yes and better for it no matter all the innocent scars inflicted on us, life lessons are also great teachers. Working single mom (meaning only real caring participant of my mom title, call it a job if you want but I call it real love and duty to them whether they agree with or like it or not) as in having to get a paying job to support and keep things/them/me/dad moving forward effectively. Still that was not even enough or chastised also ie not a good enough job, not enough $, not educated enough the not enoughs of the not enoughs we're endless and ruthless by some of the their shit don't stink snobbery as if that defines who I really am, what I'm doing, the reasons and again you want that roll my eyes none of your g d damned business stare. If so I'm ready, willing and able to give it to you. Fast forward even farther past having a traumatic brain injury even though I was told only a concussion (yeah here comes that stare again) children grown and the outward breath of hi to myself again, pleased to meet you what will you do next. Art, write, explore, express along with welcoming all those dormant parts of me that had to not take front and center stage when others were more important to me while still again getting chastised by those same some others for doing so, as if I care because especially at this point in my life I don't and I never have and won't ever let anyone else define who or what I am or my worth. It's also really none of their nosey asses g d damned business anyway and never was. More often than not they're wrong anyway. Why stress about them that you can't win for losing with anyway a complete waste of time and energy.
I once moved to a town called "Normal" with my husband. Even though there was not a more beautiful place in the world, I had to leave when I was going on 50 because, as I described to my mother, it was like living with a hand tied behind my back. I think being told I had to stop writing letters to the editor because it might "become a problem" was one example of my experience.
I admire the boldness of the anger in this writing, I have always been one to moderate my feelings, but from a young age I understood that the militant thinkers and doers were the frontline for much of humanity. Even if I shrank back from them, I respected and admired them. I could seed my own thinking and allow time for those seedlings to grow until I fully owned my own anger, disappointments and desire.
Thank you, it took me my whole life to dare embrace my boldness. I was so timid, so careful, so afraid. But I'm glad I'm finally here, living in my boldness, and I'm getting bolder. Watch out!
Wow. I feel this to my core. I have been overtaken by rage over big things (the election) and small (he left the bread out again). The latest round I resolved by screaming and crying alone in my car. My God, I needed it. Thank you for writing your rage. And I have to say, the short hair looks badass.
Ps even had all my early writings, art and other things stolen from me literally car broken into and everything stolen from me sadly not that's not even the only, what so they can falsely claim it as theirs, something more sinister or merely another robbery statistic. Thankfully that won't even or doesn't stop me from trying to learn, grow, contribute, evolve,do better and be my most authentic self either that's all the chastisers problems not mine and it never was.
Have you read Mom Rage: The Everyday Crisis of Modern Motherhood by Minna Dubin? It started as an article in the NY Times, which got such a response she expanded it into a book.
I see Courtney H my editor at Viking my first and only editor who knew story like a writer who knew the mechanics backward sideways unlike the literary acquisitions reps so many are at the big houses, she guided when I needed it backed off when needed and never didn't hear what I was saying, she fought for kiss me, judas for me for my sanity she fought for my favorite surely most iconic cover art she fought for Phineas and she fought particularly for Jude.. all when we were both still under thirty and rookies at the whole of it, she was a fierce tiny cool brilliant gangster and when she got poached by Random she fought to take me and Jude and the half finished second phineas book with her and when shot down it broke both our hearts but she’s still a friend and ally for life and half the force the reason the phineas poe trilogy exists still has fire and finds new readers 25 years later.. I hope like hell all of you my brothers yeah but my sisters in the stacks my wish for you all of you may find and work with and editor with half Courtney’s talent vision unflinching fortitude.. okay will peace out now before before the app the window times out before diving down the complex intangible dynamics of male female writer author relationships as that dear velvet family is a can of worms best saved for a future post long overdue on my home stack or rule 35 and the gunslinger’s bible.
I relate very much to this essay and to the anger, which I also found came from the expectation and the praise for my being small and nice and letting other people have everything they wanted at the expense of me. Shut up and fulfill everyone else's dreams, be the perfect trophy and reflect glory back onto everyone else ...I guess women need to be the captains of their own ships, just like men! What a concept...
Yes! My version is that we all need to be in the driver’s seat of our own cars. That’s the only driving we should do. But I just kept sitting there in the passenger’s seat of my car, and being furious that the car didn’t go anywhere. Plus, I was trying to drive everyone else’s car, which you can’t really do, long term.
It’s rare to read an account of women’s rage that so accurately captures the experience—especially the shaming. Finished wanting to read more. Such a great piece.
So glad, Jill.
Though it’s not for me to say, you have every right to your rage.
“A Town Called Normal” sounds like a perfect book title and brings to mind, with good-natured laughter, Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Called Susan”.
But it also brings to mind and heart a very painful and unnecessary ending to a recent and very promising romantic relationship with a woman who had a similarly repressive marital history.
Ours ended with her accusatory charge that I “wanted partnership” but she “wanted freedom”. I never saw the two as contradictory. To my enlightened mind and still grieving heart, she equated partnership with patriarchy.
I wrote a memoir entitled “Men as Friends”. Targeted to men, women like it too. I’d love to be able to write a companion “Women as Friends” but fear the backlash. Am I not “manly” enough?
The outsized male reaction to female anger always floors me. They forgive each other very easily for things said in anger, but if we speak up, we are considered irrational and emotional.
It’s maddening!
That powerlessness, that in-directed, muffled rage -- it's amazing it doesn't kill us before we even have a chance to recognize it. Actually, sometimes it does.
I think our health—mental and physical—can suffer from repressed rage, no question.
Hmmm, I know that anger intimately.
This essay has made so much so clear. I have been retired for seven years, allowing much needed time for reflection and introspection. I have learned so much about myself! However, I have also acknowledged a worsening anger that has been so far unexplainable, making me to doubt myself anew. And then, this essay. Here it is, in black and white. And the irony being the font of that anger causing me to subjugate myself even further, questioning the validity of my thoughts and feelings, wondering what could be wrong with me. Thank you for describing what’s in my soul. I’m going to lean further into this “no filter” age/time of my life, and re-engage the writer in me that I let lapse years ago.
Go!!!
When I was in high school in the early '60s, I was an outward ingenue whose inner rage sometimes bubbled up and out. Much of it was political. Same things then as now. Some of it clear-eyed and prescient in a time of sleeping feminism. I was sent to a therapist so I could "adjust." Righteous adolescent that I was, I said the world should adjust to me! I wanted to be left alone, so I faked being adjusted and felt like a sleeping volcano.
It's as if some want to put a woman in a box then chastise or castrate her for being in that box a no win situation. As a woman who's worn many hats some of my own making some put on me by others I can honestly say that I've never been one into the if you can't win or beat them join them so to speak speak. I've been chastised for simply being especially for being myself in a world clamoring to have one be someone or something else. As a stay at home of young children I've also been looked at and asked what I do for a living even with them along with me? If a look can be deadly please don't ignore my are you f'n serious oh nothing sitting around eating bon bons expression as I explain to you it's one of the hardest jobs I've ever done along with it's none of your business anyway and I will not forget your sex being a woman asking me this ridiculous question in the first place. Then fast forward everything and I mean everything broke causing my children and I to move in with my father or being homeless which ended up being a win win for all in the long run. Easy no did we get through it yes and better for it no matter all the innocent scars inflicted on us, life lessons are also great teachers. Working single mom (meaning only real caring participant of my mom title, call it a job if you want but I call it real love and duty to them whether they agree with or like it or not) as in having to get a paying job to support and keep things/them/me/dad moving forward effectively. Still that was not even enough or chastised also ie not a good enough job, not enough $, not educated enough the not enoughs of the not enoughs we're endless and ruthless by some of the their shit don't stink snobbery as if that defines who I really am, what I'm doing, the reasons and again you want that roll my eyes none of your g d damned business stare. If so I'm ready, willing and able to give it to you. Fast forward even farther past having a traumatic brain injury even though I was told only a concussion (yeah here comes that stare again) children grown and the outward breath of hi to myself again, pleased to meet you what will you do next. Art, write, explore, express along with welcoming all those dormant parts of me that had to not take front and center stage when others were more important to me while still again getting chastised by those same some others for doing so, as if I care because especially at this point in my life I don't and I never have and won't ever let anyone else define who or what I am or my worth. It's also really none of their nosey asses g d damned business anyway and never was. More often than not they're wrong anyway. Why stress about them that you can't win for losing with anyway a complete waste of time and energy.
I once moved to a town called "Normal" with my husband. Even though there was not a more beautiful place in the world, I had to leave when I was going on 50 because, as I described to my mother, it was like living with a hand tied behind my back. I think being told I had to stop writing letters to the editor because it might "become a problem" was one example of my experience.
I admire the boldness of the anger in this writing, I have always been one to moderate my feelings, but from a young age I understood that the militant thinkers and doers were the frontline for much of humanity. Even if I shrank back from them, I respected and admired them. I could seed my own thinking and allow time for those seedlings to grow until I fully owned my own anger, disappointments and desire.
Thank you, it took me my whole life to dare embrace my boldness. I was so timid, so careful, so afraid. But I'm glad I'm finally here, living in my boldness, and I'm getting bolder. Watch out!
Resonating hard with the feelings of anger. Thank you for putting it into words.
Wow. I feel this to my core. I have been overtaken by rage over big things (the election) and small (he left the bread out again). The latest round I resolved by screaming and crying alone in my car. My God, I needed it. Thank you for writing your rage. And I have to say, the short hair looks badass.
Lovely rage!
Ps even had all my early writings, art and other things stolen from me literally car broken into and everything stolen from me sadly not that's not even the only, what so they can falsely claim it as theirs, something more sinister or merely another robbery statistic. Thankfully that won't even or doesn't stop me from trying to learn, grow, contribute, evolve,do better and be my most authentic self either that's all the chastisers problems not mine and it never was.
Have you read Mom Rage: The Everyday Crisis of Modern Motherhood by Minna Dubin? It started as an article in the NY Times, which got such a response she expanded it into a book.
I see Courtney H my editor at Viking my first and only editor who knew story like a writer who knew the mechanics backward sideways unlike the literary acquisitions reps so many are at the big houses, she guided when I needed it backed off when needed and never didn't hear what I was saying, she fought for kiss me, judas for me for my sanity she fought for my favorite surely most iconic cover art she fought for Phineas and she fought particularly for Jude.. all when we were both still under thirty and rookies at the whole of it, she was a fierce tiny cool brilliant gangster and when she got poached by Random she fought to take me and Jude and the half finished second phineas book with her and when shot down it broke both our hearts but she’s still a friend and ally for life and half the force the reason the phineas poe trilogy exists still has fire and finds new readers 25 years later.. I hope like hell all of you my brothers yeah but my sisters in the stacks my wish for you all of you may find and work with and editor with half Courtney’s talent vision unflinching fortitude.. okay will peace out now before before the app the window times out before diving down the complex intangible dynamics of male female writer author relationships as that dear velvet family is a can of worms best saved for a future post long overdue on my home stack or rule 35 and the gunslinger’s bible.
above and below I see Lauren K.
peace.