We want to see safe spaces for black women to express our justifiable anger.

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The stigma around female rage was, buried in the middle of a long paragraph, ‘too angry’.

A few days ago, as part of a promotion conversation, my boss was giving me feedback and reading out a list of things that would become my new job description. He was reading it out loud from a document on his screen which we could both see.

“Hang on a second. Explain what you mean by too angry.” I asked.

“You wear your heart on your sleeve,” he spent the next hour explaining how emotional I am. How sensitive I am.

How I am always angry.

I was taken aback and stunned into silence. I felt my face burning and my eyes filling up with tears. I could not speak a single word for fear of furthering the label of ‘too angry’.

I was floored by how broken his logic was.

I have strong opinions. My boss saw my passion for speaking my mind as “trouble-making”.

The message was crystal clear:

I can be hurt but I cannot be angry. My anger is justified but I cannot express my anger. I cannot demand change.

Anger in women is still seen as a sign of mental or hormonal imbalance.

There were so many instances, at multiple workplaces, where people would call me too angry and aggressive. They accuse me of having a tantrum or a meltdown – where the same emotion, anger, is seen as a positive quality – indicating passion – in my male colleagues.

Being loud is a positive quality in a man.

It’s a sign of leadership and creative disruption. It’s a sign of authority. Competence.

When a man expresses anger, he is passionate. Assertive. Strong-willed. Confident. Remarkable. Making his presence known.

Being loud in a woman is another story.

When a woman expresses anger, she is rude. Unreasonable. Too emotional. Unladylike. Uncooperative. Obnoxious. Attention seeking. Childish. Belligerent. Confrontational.

Our emotions are still used as a weapon against us. We are discouraged from even recognizing our own anger.

When we raise important issues, we’re quickly written off as overreacting. We’re hysterical. Our wombs are roaming all around our bodies. We must be on our periods. When we convey our thoughts passionately, we are too sensitive. We’re judged to be too ‘mouthy’ or we are interrupted and shut down while a man takes our ideas and runs forth with them.

When we’re talking about serious issues, we are seen as petulant and childlike.

Women’s anger is still used to discredit us.

When I posted about my recent experience on Twitter, several women (including many black women) tweeted they are still judged harshly for being emotional. For expressing their anger.

We’re in 2022.

Still…

The stigma around female rage is alive more than ever. It continues discrediting our thoughts and opinions.

In team meetings, I tell colleagues and supervisors clearly and calmly what’s not acceptable, and what they need to stop doing or change.

On more times than I care to admit my perspective is dismissed.

When I say I’m angry, I don’t mean I’ve exploded. I haven’t shouted. I haven’t put my hand on my hips and snapped my fingers.

When I say I’m angry I mean that I tell people clearly, calmly what’s not acceptable. What they need to stop or change in what they’re saying or doing.

And people don’t always like that – not at all.

When we voice our frustrations on social injustice and racial discrimination. When we speak on the thousand cuts of microaggressions. When we try to be diplomatic and clear like, “This is what I’m saying,” we have to speak with a flat tone. And even then – we’re met with a bit of friction. Even then.

Even then we’re labeled as an ‘angry black woman’.

While they are putting the pervasive stereotype on our shoulders, no one is legitimizing our thoughts, opinions, and perspectives.

Black women have a lot to be angry about.

In the United States, black girls have no time to be children.

They have no time because they’re picking up and carrying their families’ hardships, taking the weight off their shoulders. Read ‘No Time to Be a Child’ article by the New York Times.

I think about these black girls and wonder how they can claw out of the dark abyss they’re spending their teenage years in. I’m filled with righteous anger for these black girls. It’s like they are invisible and this perceived invisibility of black girls is fatal.

We’re angry about social injustice that still prevails. Race and gender pay gaps are still getting black women short-changed. Race and gender continue keeping black women away from professional success.

And yet.

When we express our anger, we’re called hysterical. Crazy. Bitch. Patriarchal society continues teaching us to suppress our anger. We’re discouraged from expressing the full depth of our emotions. 

Black women are tired of the stigma around female rage.

“For me, the stigma around female rage – I see it as a centuries-year-old stigma that continues stomping on women’s hearts.”

Imagine a woman lying on the floor on her back. The stigma around female rage puts its centuries-year-old foot on her chest, suppressing her emotions. Her blood-red, beating heart feels and hurts and bleeds. There’s social injustice. There’s sexism. There’s racial discrimination. There’s inequality. These injustices barge in through her door. She’s justifiably angry. She wants to express her anger. She wants to shout out to the world, “I’m angry!”

But the stigma around female rage shoves its ugly foot on her heart.

She cannot express her anger.

So she puts her hands on her mouth and muffles her cries. Her frustrations.

Her anger.

The stigma around female rage continues standing in our way of resisting and challenging racism.

And we’re tired of it. We’re tired of suppressing our emotions for fear of fueling centuries-year-old stereotype.

We’re tired of the double standard.

Anger is seen as a sign of being passionate in a man. That same emotion is seen as a weakness in a woman. When we express our anger, it is seen as a sign of nonbelonging, of not fitting in, of “otherness”.

We have to be allowed to deal with anger in response to systematic oppression.

Anger tells us when something isn’t right. It motivates us to fight for our rights and demand more.

Anger is a notification system in our body that something is out of balance.

It’s a validation of our humanity.

For me, the stigma around female rage – I see it as a centuries-year-old stigma that continues stomping on women’s hearts. We’re angry. Because we live in this world and because it’s a tiring, beautiful, complicated thing to be a black woman in this world.

We can break down the stigma around female rage.

We want to see more safe spaces for black women to express our justifiable anger.

When you see tears on a black woman’s face or her eyes sparking fire, her nostrils wide, her mouth open, her bright teeth glaring, the right thing to do is let her express her emotions – whatever they are.

Don’t say you stand for women’s equality and with that same breath tell a woman she is “too emotional” for expressing her feelings. You’re using our anger as a weapon to take away all forms of access to the power needed to make a change.

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