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A review by booksinblossom
Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger by Soraya Chemaly
4.5
'Women are angry, and it isn’t hard to figure out why. We are underpaid and overworked. Too sensitive, or not sensitive enough. Too dowdy or too made-up. Too big or too thin. Sluts or prudes. We are harassed, told we are asking for it, and asked if it would kill us to smile.'
From an intersectional perspective, Soraya Chemaly discusses the societal norms that shapes and maintains the gendered views on anger: anger expressed by women is undesirable, uncomfortable, while angry men are accepted because it's seen as 'natural masculinity'. Thereby the author connects the dots with how the suppression of anger harms women physically, emotionally, professionally and politically.
Women are so often told to resist their rage or are being punished for justifiably expressing it. Yet how many remarkable achievements in this world would never have gotten off the ground without the kernel of anger that fueled them? Rage Becomes Her makes the case that anger is not what gets in our way, it is our way. This is a bold, transformative book, urging women* to embrace their anger and harness it as a tool for lasting personal and societal change.
This book contains an incredible amount of research and examples. All extremely interesting and well written, but as well a bit overwhelming. For me, the chapters are too large and dragged me out of my reading speed. It almost took me a year to finish this book, which is not at all my habit - especially not for a theme that interests me a lot. But overall, an amazing and important book that i highly recommend!
'How much anger is too much? Certainly not the anger that, for many of us, is a remembering of a self we learned to hide and quiet. It is willful and disobedient. It is survival, liberation, creativity, urgency, and vibrancy. It is a statement of need. An insistence of acknowledgment. Anger is a boundary. Anger is boundless. An opportunity for contemplation and self-awareness. It is commitment. Empathy. Self-love. Social responsibility. If it is poison, it is also the antidote. The anger we have as women is an act of radical imagination. Angry women burn brighter than the sun.'
From an intersectional perspective, Soraya Chemaly discusses the societal norms that shapes and maintains the gendered views on anger: anger expressed by women is undesirable, uncomfortable, while angry men are accepted because it's seen as 'natural masculinity'. Thereby the author connects the dots with how the suppression of anger harms women physically, emotionally, professionally and politically.
Women are so often told to resist their rage or are being punished for justifiably expressing it. Yet how many remarkable achievements in this world would never have gotten off the ground without the kernel of anger that fueled them? Rage Becomes Her makes the case that anger is not what gets in our way, it is our way. This is a bold, transformative book, urging women* to embrace their anger and harness it as a tool for lasting personal and societal change.
This book contains an incredible amount of research and examples. All extremely interesting and well written, but as well a bit overwhelming. For me, the chapters are too large and dragged me out of my reading speed. It almost took me a year to finish this book, which is not at all my habit - especially not for a theme that interests me a lot. But overall, an amazing and important book that i highly recommend!
'How much anger is too much? Certainly not the anger that, for many of us, is a remembering of a self we learned to hide and quiet. It is willful and disobedient. It is survival, liberation, creativity, urgency, and vibrancy. It is a statement of need. An insistence of acknowledgment. Anger is a boundary. Anger is boundless. An opportunity for contemplation and self-awareness. It is commitment. Empathy. Self-love. Social responsibility. If it is poison, it is also the antidote. The anger we have as women is an act of radical imagination. Angry women burn brighter than the sun.'