You wait–and wait–for him to pick up his dirty socks from the bedroom floor. You labor at your desk long after others have gone home, only to watch as your boss heaps praise on a less-deserving colleague. You put your fascinating, seductive career on hold to raise your preschooler, then attend a cocktail party where you’re introduced as “a stay-at-home mom.”
You fall into a rancorous argument with your spouse over something trivial, then explode into a snarling, cursing rage, hurling accusations and invective. Or you quietly stuff it all down, trying your best to “be nice” while smoldering inside.
Sound familiar? If so, you’re not alone. Women are mad these days and looking for ways to deal with their emotions, according to two recently published books about women and anger. In the provocatively titled “The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood and Marriage (William Morrow, $24), edited by Cathi Hanauer, women, ages 24 to retirement, write with brutal honesty about their private lives.
One of the essayists, Kristin von Ogtrop, executive editor of Glamour magazine, writes, “Here are things members of my family have said about me at home: ‘Mommy is always grumpy.’ ‘Why are you so tense?’ ‘You’re too mean to live in this house and I want you to go back to work for the rest of your life.'”
Hanauer asks: Why are women so angry? Most, she concludes, are juggling family and work; they have too much to do and too little time to do it in. As Hanauer said in a recent phone interview, “We followed our careers but all the domestic duties are still ours as well. Our lives are overcrammed.”
Another book, “The Anger Advantage: The Surprising Benefits of Anger and How it Can Change a Woman’s Life,” (Broadway Books, $24) was written by three therapists–Deborah Cox, Karin H. Bruckner and Sally Stabb. They argue that when women try to avoid their anger, they lose valuable information that could help them make decisions, and risk harm to themselves and others. They say women who address their anger can learn from it, grow through it and make important changes in their lives because of it.
“If a woman is angry, the answer is not for her to `adjust’ or `let it go,'” Bruckner said in a phone interview. “We’re saying she’s got to stop, not shy away, but be honest about that feeling, sit down and figure out the problem with the person who is making her angry.”
Hanauer, Bruckner, and experts on anger agree that a woman’s position in society can often leave her feeling powerless and unappreciated–and that frequently triggers anger.
Lori Keenan of Evanston says she often feels that way. Long ago, she says, in what seems like a previous lifetime, Keenan was a full-time advertising executive. Now she is a freelance writer and at-home mother of three children, ages 7, 5 and 22 months. She watches enviously as her husband, Peter, loads their two older children into their sporty red convertible for a weekend spin down Lake Shore Drive–leaving her at home to sort laundry and care for their toddler.
“You can’t help but resent that freedom and autonomy,” Keenan says.
Her husband works out at a health club, reads a newspaper and orders a large latte at Starbucks almost everyday.
“Those little things are what I resent,” she says. “I have no free time.”
Keenan reasons with herself that raising their children is now her full-time job. “Women can multitask and deal with more things all at once. We’re better equipped to do that, but that doesn’t mean it’s more fun for us to do it.”
She calls herself “a blower-upper.” Keenan explains, “I need 24 hours to apologize, because I have to think about it, process it.”
Keenan says her husband, more than most men, understands the frustrations and thanklessness of raising children. He returns home from his job as a commodities trader everyday at 4 p.m., spends time with their children, enjoys cooking dinners and is actively involved in volunteer work at their school. He also packs the children’s lunches.
“Resentment is not where I want to end up,” Keenan says. “My mood often dictates the mood of the whole family … I have to keep myself in check. I’m not really angry at my husband–it’s being in the situation of motherhood that makes me mad.”
Hanauer says that mad-as-can-be feeling prompted her to launch “The Bitch in the House.” An editor and writer, Hanauer, 40, moved in 2000 from Manhattan to a small town in rural Massachusetts with her husband and two small children. Ideally, they would both work from home and share the child care and housework. In practice, Hanauer worked full time but also was responsible for the kids, grocery shopping, cooking, laundry, schools and social engagements. “My days were nonstop at high speed, my brain flooded with lists and obligations,” she writes.
She asked herself, “Two healthy children, a nice home, an interesting job … what could I possibly be mad about? And yet, mad I was.” She fired off e-mails to friends and discovered, lo and behold, many of them also were angry, resentful, stressed out. That’s when she decided to ask a variety of women to write essays about their anger. But her book is no Johnnie–or Jeannie–One-Note dwelling only on the complaints of motherhood. There is an essay by a woman who decides to accept herself as one of those “supersized chicks” instead of trying yet another faddish diet. Another essay by a young, successful career woman tells of resenting her live-in artist boyfriend and his freeloading ways, and finally asking him to pack up his shaving kit and move on.
That is the kind of anger, says Bruckner, co-author of “The Anger Advantage,” that can lead women to newfound resolve and self-awareness. In writing their book, the authors talked with more than 1,000 women, exploring how they experienced anger and expressed it.
“Even though gender roles have changed in our country, women still feel anger is not OK if you are a woman,” Bruckner says. “Women still think a woman who is angry is crazy or going through PMS.”
Bruckner believes anger “gets a bad rap as an emotion” because it’s closely associated with aggression, especially in the United States. But anger is just like any other emotion, including sadness or elation. Hiding anger or ignoring it can lead to health problems, including headaches, depression, heart disease or even cancer, she says.
Blowing up also carries its own risks, she says. “A woman who spews anger, who uses anger like a baseball bat, swinging it around and bashing people, is pushing that anger away from herself and not getting in touch with her feelings,” Bruckner says.
Instead, Bruckner and her co-authors call upon women to “find the part of anger that is constructive. If you blow up in a non-aggressive way, using words like, `I feel so angry,’ `I’m totally hurt,’ `I’m furious,’ or `I can’t trust anymore,’ that’s a lot different than swearing and cursing,” she says. “We can have explosive discussions without blowing up at the other person. If you start out by blaming and saying, `You did this,’ your spouse will be defensive and won’t listen to you.”
Many psychologists agree that some of the best ways a woman can defuse anger is to do what Keenan does–find time to exercise and take care of herself. Before her husband leaves for work each morning, Keenan runs for half an hour. And, following the advice of a friend who has six children, Keenan peeks in on her sleeping kids each night before going to bed.
“That gives me the strength to get through the next day, when they’re terrible and talking back and arguing,” Keenan says. “It rekindles the love.”
Make anger work for you
Sandra Thomas, a nurse, psychologist and co-author along with Cheryl Jefferson of “Use Your Anger: A Woman’s Guide to Empowerment” (Pocket Books, 1996), conducted the Women’s Anger Study, a large-scale investigation involving 535 women ages 25 to 66 in 1993 (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text). She directs the Women’s Anger Research Project at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.
“What makes women angriest is a situation in which they want something or someone–say, a boss or a husband–to change. They invest the effort to get the change and, instead, the same old, same old happens,” Thomas said recently.
In her book, Thomas calls on women to employ what she calls “productive anger” to make changes and get ahead.
“Learn to express your anger in a way that might bring results,” she suggested. “Write an assertive anger statement to your husband. Join a coalition of fellow workers if you’re angry about on-the-job harassment. Even if you do not solve the problem that was bothering you, you did something that was productive.”
Eventually, Thomas said, if the situation remains unchanged and provokes more anger, women have to ask themselves, “Is this relationship … worth it?”
Thomas said many women have to learn to deal with anger toward friends. For example, she said, a woman might look forward to meeting a trusted friend for lunch, only to find that the woman regularly arrives 45 minutes late.
“At first, you don’t say anything because you value the friendship,” she said. “Eventually, your anger spills over. You have to say directly to your friend, `This is a consistent problem that makes me angry.’ If she persists in being late, you’d have to stop making lunch dates with her.”
Lynne Knobloch-Fedders, a couples therapist and professor at Northwestern University, advises women to sit down with their partners in a quiet moment rather than arguing.
“I tell my clients to say something like, `I can’t hear you now, but in two hours, we’ll talk about it,’ then create a feeling of togetherness around an issue, in a problem-solving atmosphere,” she said. “Start off with something like, `I want our relationship to be better’ rather than getting mad and taking an oppositional stance.”
— Nancy Traver
