by: Michelle Carr
We should smile more. Women aren’t supposed to get mad. We are supposed to remain kind and calm at all times. No matter if someone is screaming in our face. No matter if we are being yelled at from across the room. No matter if someone just attempted or succeeded in inappropriate actions or behaviors towards us. No matter if legislators are taking away our rights. No matter the injustice. No matter …. what.
I was told from a young age that I had a bad temper. I was told that I shouldn’t get so angry. I was told that I needed to work on my anger. I was taught that I wouldn’t be listened to if I was angry. But it’s really hard to remain calm when you are punished for another sibling’s deeds. It’s really hard to remain level headed when the seventeen- year old you left the house for an hour without notifying the parents at work and you were grounded for two weeks. Then your fifteen- year old brother doesn’t come home all night without telling your parents and nothing happens to him. Growing up, I was taught that anger didn’t win arguments that you must remain cool and logical. This was something that I worked hard to do for a really long time.
Then I began reflecting. I realized real change doesn’t happen when people are calm about an issue. Real change often happens when people are angry. Often when WOMEN are angry. That yes there are still times that require more logic than anger but you know nothing says you can’t be stern. There are definitely times when anger is required. Anger is required when laws are used to impose the religious beliefs of some onto others in order to control their actions. Anger is required when legislators start a witch hunt for those who are literally enacting on their civil rights that are guaranteed by the federal government. Anger is required in instances of oppression and injustice.
I felt such anger when I heard about Texas’s newest abortion ban law. I still feel anger regarding it. I, as a mother of two, have reached a point in my life that I don’t want another baby. How in the world, knowing what I do as a mother, could I force another to carry a pregnancy to term and give birth? I can’t. Nor do I want to be told when I must be a mother. So I did what I feel I do well. I sat down and wrote a letter. I wrote a letter to my local newspaper and called out the hypocrisy of the leaders who express their “distress” for the women in Afghanistan while working and cheering on the oppression of the women here. I unleashed a bit of my anger in the argument as I added in the facts of what this bill means. It felt amazing.
A couple of weeks later, I was approached on social media on a thank you post I had written. A male acquaintance said my letter was a gross over-reaction. That I do not realize how unreasoned and unbalanced reactions are poisoning civil discourse. My anger and sharing of the truth is poisoning civil discourse. So is it civil to hunt down women and doctors for doing what the law has granted them to do? Is it civil to treat people as “hosts” for the forming cells in their body? After chuckling for a few minutes at his comment, I responded in so many words that I didn’t care about his opinion of me or my actions. He continued on as though I should care what his opinion of me is and that the variety of things that I post could only mean that I think that I know it all. (Sorry I really had to take a few moments and laugh heartedly at this clearly wrong assumption) There is a giant difference between wanting to learn as much as you can and sharing what you have learned and thinking that you know all there is to know. If one fails to understand that difference, the problem lies with them. The best part of the whole conversation came when a male friend came over and told him he was wrong. Then in order to defend his stance, the acquaintance, refers to the first ten words of my letter and underlines the five words he says are extreme. Trying to say that in the first line itself half of my words were trigger words. The first line of my letter, those first ten words, were a quote from a male Republican Senator of Texas. He had somehow failed to see that this was a quote even though it was fonted differently, and attributed to the person that said it. Because of this and I’m sure the other descriptors that I placed in the letter, he deemed it to be an extreme over-reaction and “quite distinct from the regular thoughtful letter.” (I feel like I should win an award for this.)
My letter, in his opinion, wasn’t thoughtful because I had used expressive adjectives to display my anger at the ridiculousness that is this Texas law. But it was thoughtful. One doesn’t come up with such vivid word usages without having given it some thought. I mean one can only use the word GREAT so many times before everything sounds the same and nothing is given a sense of urgency or higher level of importance. In the end, it was my anger that he didn’t know how to understand. So his only recourse was to tell me that I shouldn’t be angry. That may have worked on me before, but I have now witnessed strong women wield their anger into mighty weapons of change. Now, I am no longer afraid to allow my anger to become visible. I refuse to be told that I need to remain calm no matter what. I will not be complacent. I encourage other women to do the same. Together, we will bring change. For all of those who fall into the reaction that anger at oppression and injustice are extreme and divisive, may I suggest that you should probably try smiling more.
