I'm an angry woman and that's just fine

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been called an angry feminist (or some variation on the same theme). It’s happened with renewed intensity lately because I dared criticise a number of well-liked men publicly. I didn’t like Quentin Tarantino’s new film? Someone wishes I would just “suspend [my] tunnel-vision feminist views” long enough to enjoy the movie (sorry, that film is almost three hours long, can’t do it). I feel so-so about the upcoming Joker movie? Clearly, I’m delivering a “militant feminist rant” or I'm the embodiment of “toxic feminism gone too far”. I don’t enjoy Dave Chappelle’s new Netflix special? Wow, I must "think I’m so woke".

It’s a natural reaction, when someone calls you something in order to discredit you, to feel defensive. What? Me? I’m not an angry feminist! Feminist, sure, but angry? I’m not angry. I’m too cool for angry. I’m too composed for angry. Angry is for children. It’s for people who can’t keep a lid on their emotions. Angry is disgraceful. Angry is bad.

But you know what? I am an angry feminist. I am so, so very angry about so many things, and I’m done feeling embarrassed about that. How could I not be angry? Have you heard about… literally anything happening in the world right now? I wake up angry. My anger rides the subway with me. It sits with me at work. It’s here when I go home at night and sometimes it even lets me sleep for a few hours.

I’m angry that 101 women have been killed in France, where I’m from, since January, and that the government is only offering a measly €5m (less than £4m and just about $5.5m) to finance efforts against domestic violence. I’m angry that Megan Rapinoe can’t campaign for equal pay in peace because rich men don’t find her likeable enough. I’m angry that, according to two studies released in 2011 and 2019 respectively, women are more likely to die in a car crash than their male counterparts because of a lack of research on how to best protect the female body in the event of a crash.

I’m still not over that moment (it sticks out in my mind, but it’s one example among many) during the 2016 presidential campaign, when then-president-elect Donald Trump very casually and calmly stated that if Roe v. Wade is ever overturned, people who want an abortion will just “have to go to another state” – a suggestion delivered in such a blatantly detached tone that it became evident that the president of the United States had never once begun to even entertain the thought that maybe, maybe travelling to another state can be hard when you have limited financial resources and a work schedule and are not about to trade in your private plane for Air Force One. I’m angry that, no matter what happens in 2020, in 2024, in 2028 and the years after that, the Supreme Court of the United States (where I live) will be conservative for the majority of, if not all, my adult life.

Female anger gets a bad rap. In fact, add that to the list of things I’m angry about: I’m furious that (white) male anger gets elevated to the sublime, by way of brooding love interests and tortured geniuses and misunderstood artists, while female anger is routinely ridiculed. Male anger gets you Joker, a film that has generated Oscar chatter and whose protagonist, as noted by movie critic and Pulitzer finalist Stephanie Zacharek, “could easily be adopted as the patron saint of incels”. Male anger is an indignant Brett Kavanaugh choking up while defending himself against accusations of sexual assault in front of the Senate – and being rewarded for his behaviour while Hillary Clinton was criticised for daring to sound “shrill”.

Female anger, meanwhile, is Allison Reynolds in The Breakfast Club getting treated like a weirdo because she’s a teenager dealing with stuff at home and chooses to express her angst by wearing “black s***” under her eyes – which gets wiped off during a completely unnecessary makeover.

Male anger is righteous. Female anger has to be repackaged and redirected into something more palatable, more convenient, more cute.

Whenever the term “outrage culture” is uttered these days, it’s usually with an ironic eye-roll. And sure, it can be exhausting to live in a reactive society in which it sometimes feels that no one can ever get anything completely right.

But outrage can be good. Anger can be great. Anger is what happens when you look at the world and decide that what you see isn’t good enough. It’s what drives you to enact the changes you want to see.

There is immense potential in anger. That’s why people who think that MeToo is a "witch hunt" or that feminism has "gone too far" like to mock it and, ultimately, neutralise it: if they start taking that anger seriously, then they might have to start listening. Worse, they might have to start doing things. And doing things is scary and tiring and messy and there is literally no incentive to do it if you don’t feel as though you will personally benefit from it.

Anger is how you make noise, and noise is how you end up being heard. Anger is how you demand to be seen and ask for what you deserve. Use it accordingly. Use it especially, and unapologetically, if you're a woman.