116 Quotes by Soraya Chemaly

Age shame is also a problem primarily for women. As women approach and go through menopause, naturally gaining weight as fat-to-muscle ratios shift, they exhibit many of the same anxieties and symptoms that teenage girls do. The process of growing older makes women’s ‘flaws’ more visible and acute, thus, aging, a natural process, becomes frightening, disorienting, and difficult for many women.

We are called Sad Asian Girls, Hot-tempered Latinas, Crazy White Women, and Angry Black Women. It goes without saying that “angry women” are “ugly women,” the cardinal sin in a world where women’s worth, safety, and glory are reliant on their sexual and reproductive value to men around them.

A society that does not respect women’s anger is one that does not respect women; not as human beings, thinkers, knowers, active participants, or citizens.

The importance and visibility of women’s collective anger can’t be overstated. This anger takes determination, thoughtfulness, and work. It means respecting our own anger and being willing to respect the anger of other women.

In the classroom, it was almost certainly the case that the women were managing a double bind that we face constantly: conform to traditional gender expectations, stay quiet and be liked, or violate those expectations and risk the penalties, including the penalty of being called puritanical, aggressive, and”humorless.

Girls’ and women’s thinking is impaired by self-objectification. Sexualized pictures, for example, lead women to spend mental resources managing their body surveillance, shame, and self-esteem.

How many times does a woman say, “I’m so tired,” because she cannot say, “I am so angry!” How many times is women’s anger deliberately miscast as exhaustion?

Because the truth is that anger isn’t what gets in our way – it is our way. All we have to do is own it.