There’s so much for women to be angry about … Discrimination because of your sexuality, race, ability, gender. The treatment of asylum seekers. Climate change. The inaction of politicians on any number of issues. People refusing to hear you or take you seriously because you’re a woman.
Yet, as women, it’s likely we grew up internalising our anger, swallowing it down, because to be visibly angry is not considered feminine. When we did speak up, our voices were silenced, our experiences minimised, our reality dismissed. Is it any wonder we’re angry?
Even though I’ve been an adult for longer than I was a child, I’ve yet to become comfortable with anger. Anger, when I was growing up, equalled violence and that’s not the manifestation I’m looking for. I want anger to spur me on to action, to propel me to right wrongs, not cause destruction.
In this collection, twenty women write about rage. Among them are writers, teachers, activists and medical professionals, and they range in age from 20’s to 80’s. They have diverse backgrounds but they’re all Australian.
Like other anthologies, some contributions spoke to me more than others. Reneé Pettitt-Schipp’s description of a young asylum seeker’s hope brought tears to my eyes. Goldie Goldbloom’s recollections of Max made me wish I knew him personally. Carly Findlay’s words hurt, as I imagined each scenario she described, but they also left me with hope because there are women like Carly who speak truth into the lives of others.
Rather than tell you what I thought of each contribution I’m going to instead share quotes with you.
Introduction by Liz Byrski
Let us go forth with fear and courage and rage to save the world. – Grace Paley
A Door, Opening by Victoria Midwinter Pitt
Anger is a state of opposition.
It is not merely intellectual, or philosophical. It’s personal.
It is the direct, visceral, spiritual experience of being at odds with something.
Quarantine by Reneé Pettitt-Schipp
Time and time again, it has been proven to me that we either honour the depth of each human emotion, maintaining the fullness of our capacity to feel, or we cut ourselves off and, in walking away from anger and heartbreak, turn our backs on the possibility of our most expansive expression of being a human in this world.
Waiting on the Saviour by Nadine Browne
I wouldn’t be the person I am, nor would I have had the resilience I have, without these women. But nothing we thought or did was ever any good unless it was certified by a man. The path to God itself was through a man. I’m still shocked by how these women can negate their own power, simply by the fact of their gender.
My Father’s Daughter by Jay Martin
I’m still sad, though, that the world that shaped my dad – and still shapes so many men – to believe that their value is in being providers, teachers, knowers of things. It meant I never got to know all of the vulnerabilities, dreams, passions and fears he must have harboured that made him who he was.
Regardless of Decorum: A Response to Seneca’s ‘Of Anger’ by Julienne van Loon
One of the things that makes me angry about Seneca’s ‘Of Anger’ is how bloody reasonable he is throughout.
The Girl Who Never Smiled by Anne Aly
Rage creeps up on you. It’s stealthy like that. Rage has to beat you down first and then, when you’re exhausted and you think you can’t possibly rage any more, it lingers beneath the surface, ready to pounce again. You can see it simmering behind the eyes of the downtrodden, the oppressed and the frustrated – but only if you look hard enough. Rage shadows you.
The Club by Sarah Drummond
The white road markers are plastic and so, instead of a row of smashed wooden posts where he ploughed them down, they flipped back into upright position after the accident like nothing had happened. For some reason, I found this inanimate insouciance disturbing. How dare those posts stand up again. Didn’t they know what had happened here?
Stuck in the Middle by Carrie Cox
Mark Twain, a man who apparently spent his whole life tossing pithy sayings at a sea of scribes, has been credited with comparing anger to an acid, one that can do far more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured. This is how I feel about anger today.
To Scream or Not to Scream by Olivia Muscat
What makes me most upset is that I know where most people’s ignorance is coming from. It’s fear.
Fear of the unknown.
Fear that they may end up like me.
To the Max by Goldie Goldbloom
Goldie remembers how Max would introduce her to them as ‘the love of my life’. Whenever she sold a story, he would grip her forearms and say, ‘The cream always rises to the top.’
The Thief by Nandi Chinna
I found it impossible to articulate the magnitude and intensity of my inner experience and carried it around in my body like a ball of barbed wire that scratched and tore at my insides.
Write-ful Fury by Claire G. Coleman
Fury. It can flow hot and fast like fire dancing along a trail of petrol; it can flow cold, slow and relentless like a glacier; or as cold and breathtakingly fast as an avalanche, leaving me breathless and dying. Either way, when fury passes it’s hard to imagine anything in its path surviving.
Love More by Jane Underwood
Rage sits, like a bulky body part, ready to detonate, able to cause maximum damage. It’s not like the white-hot adrenal flash we call fury, that’s here and gone: you can relieve fury with an upraised middle finger. It’s not like anger – curl up the corner of anger – only sadness and fear there. If you can shift the bulk of a rage – find some squashed high-grade injustice there.
#AustraliaBurns: Rage, a Climate for Change by Margo Kingston
Rage begets action.
The Body Remembers: The Architecture of Pain by Rafeif Ismail
We cannot negotiate with our oppressors without relinquishing part of our own existence.
Everything is Awesome! by Mihaela Nicolescu
The notion of a ‘fair go’ disguises the reality of an unfair system and places the blame on the individual when that system fails them. A genuine ‘mate’ does not judge you for going through a hard time. And an evolved society places more value on the rights of all citizens to have their basic needs met than on the rights of a few citizens to accumulate ridiculous wealth (while one in six children live in poverty).
Uluru Statement from the Heart by Fiona Stanley
I think that in today’s world of corporate, political, bureaucratic and individual corruption and lack of care, we need to convert our anger to action more than ever.
Vicarious trauma: I Was You and You Will Be Me by Carly Findlay
Ableism starts with you.
And it can stop with you, too.
Seen and Not Heard by Meg McKinlay
And what is buried, of course, doesn’t always remain so; when conditions are right – or wrong? – it will vent, even erupt.
Women of a Certain Rage? by Eva Cox
Angry. Cranky. Mad. Can you think of any context when applying these words to a woman would be positive?
Content warnings include ableism, attempted suicide, death by suicide, domestic violence, eating disorders, homophobia, medical negligence, mental health, racism, self harm, sexism, sexual assault, xenophobia and war.
Once Upon a Blurb
This book is the result of what happened when Liz Byrski asked twenty Australian women from widely different backgrounds, races, beliefs and identities to take up the challenge of writing about rage.
The honesty, passion, courage and humour of their very personal stories is engergising and inspiring. If you have ever felt the full force of anger and wondered at its power, then this book is for you.
Schizanthus Nerd 