In the women's final of the U.S. open, the world came face-to-face with the righteous rage of a woman on live television. What came next, however, proved that society and the media were more irked by Serena Williams' expression of anger and more interested in discussing her on-court decorum than interrogating the reasons behind the rage.
As a racist cartoon circulated, perpetuating the "angry black woman" trope, op-eds branded Williams' conduct as that of a "brat," "hysterical" and an "outburst," and people on Twitter opined that she behaved badly.
While the cartoon garnered a much-deserved backlash, and many people did come to Williams' defence after the final, there was a palpable message that lingered in the days immediately afterwards. The take-home message from the subsequent reaction to the incident was this: society doesn't trust angry women. Women aren't allowed to get angry. And, as for the reasons behind the anger, they don't want to hear it.
Days later, a book was published about the power of women's anger -- a book about embracing female rage and harnessing it to affect "lasting personal and societal change." At this moment in history, when women's anger is at boiling point, this text could not be more timely. Or, more needed. Soraya Chemaly — author of Rage Becomes Her — tells Mashable the Serena Williams incident and its aftermath was a "very good example of the way stereotypes and the legacy of history play out everyday in people's lives."
"These incidents don't happen without context, and they don't happen without a history," says Chemaly, who's also director of the Women's Media Center Speech Project. "Serena Williams as a black woman is exquisitely aware of how carefully she has to constantly calibrate her displays of emotion in ways that most people — particularly white men — don’t necessarily think about."
"Williams has to constantly calibrate her displays of emotion in ways that most people — particularly white men — don’t necessarily think about."
What has become patently clear is the disparity in the way our culture looks upon displays of anger in men and women.
"In the United States, an angry white man is associated with justified rage often and with citizenship — like the angry patriot, the one who fights against the government," says Chemaly. "A black man can’t express himself that way. His anger is associated with criminality and a black woman’s anger is associated with danger."
If we examine the reasons behind Williams' outrage on court, and put ourselves in her position, many of us might conclude that we'd react in a similar manner.
Williams was accused of — and penalised for — coaching, and her ability and professional integrity were thus called into question. "When someone accuses you of cheating it is a rational and logical response to feel indignant and angry," says Chemaly.
The problem with 'feelings'
Our problem with accepting the validity of women's anger stems from our culture's aversion to the idea of "feelings," according to Chemaly.
"The whole idea of feelings is disparaged, and it's often disparaged, frankly, because it’s a feminine quality in our culture," she explained. "When [Williams] spoke after the tournament, she was clear, methodical, logical. We're not supposed to express feelings because feelings are 'illogical' but, in fact, they’re really logical and rational."
"Over the course of her career, [Williams] has come to have to take this very reasoned and mature path to explaining to other people, which means, doing the work [for other people]," Chemaly continued.
Those who bore witness to the furore on social media can attest to the fact that men were not the sole critiques of Williams — women also censured her. Chemaly says that one thing she learned when she was writing the book was the quality in some people of being "inclined to justify the system."
"We see that in many women because admitting to the problems we face or the inequality that we live with is deeply threatening and scary, so people tend to systems-justify," says Chemaly. "They’ll say things like, 'well, men were punished the way Serena was punished too' or ‘she’s not being discriminated against in any way, it’s just she broke the rules.’" She describes this as a "systems-justifying response."
In the book, Chemaly urges people to consider their responses and ask themselves if they are systems-justifying, a response which stems from internalised misogyny. "Trust other women," she says. "We have to unlearn distrust of women and we have to unlearn the distrust of feminine qualities in our culture.
"When a friend tells you she is angry, do you ask why and listen? If you see a woman 'losing her shit,' do you make fun of her?"
"If another woman is getting angry, rather than castigate her by a knee-jerk response, pause for a minute and think about what is leading you to do that," says Chemaly. "Why are you unwilling to consider what she’s saying? And to respect the fact that in her anger she is actually expressing knowledge?"
There's a section in Chemaly's book entitled "Trust Other Women," which tackles precisely this issue, which doesn't just impact the way people regard the anger of high-profile women like Williams, but also the women we encounter in everyday life. "When a friend tells you she is angry, do you ask why and listen? If you see a woman 'losing her shit', do you make fun of her? If a girl is 'moody,' do you ask her not about what's wrong with her but about what's happening around her?" Chemaly queries in the book.
Acknowledging the validity of women's anger doesn't need to come hand in hand with turning a blind eye to objectively bad behaviour. "That doesn't mean blind denial of egregious behaviour or ignoring the ways in which another woman might be hurtful or hateful," writes Chemaly. Recognising those distinctions allows us to demarcate righteous anger from unjustifiable bad behaviour.
Dealing with rage in the workplace
In Rage Becomes Her, Chemaly lays out a framework for angry women outlining how to channel their rage as a productive force for change. Chemaly says women's "status in the world" means that it does "require us to do more work" and women have to strategise and be "methodical" about their anger.
"If you find yourself — and I think we all have — in a situation at work where you’re being castigated for your feelings or you’re being discouraged from expressing anger, it actually takes work to determine what to do about that. And then to change it," she says.
The articulation of personal anger at work comes with a risk — one that can be mitigated by finding allies to advocate for us, and seeking out other people who're feeling the very same way. "We need to find ways to identify allies because we can’t always advocate for ourselves. We understand from social science studies and research that actually advocating for yourself creates a backlash effect very often and that you’re penalised for doing this," says Chemaly.
By saying 'this is a problem for me, but it’s actually also a problem for all of these other people and that means we have a workplace issue' then this personal anger is turned into a community that's mobilised to improve the workplace.
The "extreme alternative" to this step is, according to Chemaly, that there are places where "nothing you do is going to change things." In which case, she says, "the anger you have can be channelled into having a new job."
Call out stereotypes
If we are to affect change with our anger, we also need to change the way people interpret anger. Chemaly says that talking to children "honestly and openly" about the stereotypes that surround angry women is an important way of doing this. "I personally think that a lot of children and teenagers are much better versed in understanding what’s going on and they need to mentor up," says Chemaly. "They live in much more diverse classrooms and i think they’re having harder conversations than many of the adults they know."
As adults, we too play a part in shutting down these tropes. "Call out stereotypes about 'angry black women,' 'fiery Latinas,' and 'sad Asian girls,'" writes Chemaly in her book.
Paying close attention to the language we use when talking about people's anger is a necessary step in validating women's anger, too. "If it’s a word you would never use with, for example, Serena’s male counterpart, it’s probably really gendered," says Chemaly. "So, she’s a witch, she’s a bitch, she’s deranged, she’s hysterical, she’s emotional, she’s unhinged." By contrast, Chemaly says Williams' male counterparts have been described as "high energy, charismatic, passionate about winning" which really illuminates the double standard at play.
Chemaly believes anger has the power to fuel "community and joy and action," and we need to move past the perception that anger is a bad thing. "We grow up hearing so much that anger is negative and destructive, but in fact it’s the lack of acknowledgement of anger that results in poor outcomes," she says.
As a society, we need to address the way we view and talk about women when they're expressing their rage. As women, we should believe and trust women who articulate anger.
"We need to learn resistance to a fundamental lesson of misogyny: that other women are untrustworthy and deficient and that, in anger, they are dangerous," says Chemaly.
'Rage Becomes Her' is available in the U.S. from Sept. 11 and in the UK from Sept. 20
Topics Activism
