S1:E7 Soraya Chemaly: The Power of Women's Anger

"We have anger for a reason and yet we're taught to ignore it and to ignore what that anger is telling us."

In today's episode, my guest and I discuss the outstanding opportunity of women's rage. 

Soraya Chemaly is the author of Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger, which was recognized as a Best Book of 2018 by the Washington Post, Fast Company, Psychology Today, and NPR.

She's an award-winning author and activist and she writes and speaks frequently on topics related to gender norms, inclusivity, social justice, free speech, sexualized violence, and technology.

When I asked her why she wrote the book, she said:

"During the 2016 election, it was just really striking how differently anger in white men was treated versus anger in white women, black people, immigrants.  For the two white male candidates, they could leverage their anger, be angry themselves and it strengthened people's impression of their leadership.  But for any woman candidate, that would have been suicide."

We talk about gender norms and socialization, how to reconcile our emotions as a whole and that we can find truth in anger.

"Understanding your own anger is healthy and it is self compassionate. It is a way of saying 'I have the right in this world to be healthy and to ask for reciprocity in my relationships.'"

Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger
Website:  www.sorayachemaly.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ragebecomesher/ 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soraya.l.chemaly
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/schemaly 

Transcript

Kristen (00:00):

Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.

Soraya (00:31):

It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me today.

Kristen (00:34):

This gets to be a really fun conversation about women's anger and the reason why I I've been following you for at least the last six months picked up your book was like, holy crap. Yes. Thank you for putting words on paper, about how I have, I would honestly say, always felt knowing full well that the anger that I felt inside me was here for something. It wasn't meant for me to push it aside. It wasn't meant for me to, to not to deny it. And I got to this point where I was like, well, I'm pretty comfortable with anger. And I get to figure out a more, a, an empowered way for me to channel it and catalyze it. And so I Googled women's rage or women and rage because it wasn't anger that it was experiencing, it was breakage and your book was at the top of the list. And so tell me, tell the listeners, tell me, tell me, let's talk a little bit about what was the catalyst for this? What was the, I got to write this book. Was it just a culmination of years of work or it wasn't like this?

Soraya (01:41):

Well, I think it was several things. It was definitely the culmination of years of work. I'd been writing about social justice issues and women really around the globe whether it was politics or religion or media education child-rearing. And so a lot of that work went into this book because during the 2016 election, it was just really striking how differently anger in white men was treated than anger in white women, black people immigrants. It was just a completely different categorization of the expression of this emotion. And so really in the most blunt way, both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders could leverage populace to anger and they could be angry themselves. You know, they could look angry and that strengthened that, that strengthened people's impression of their leadership, but for any woman candidate and, you know, it was eventually just Hillary Clinton to do that would have been suicide.

Soraya (02:52):

And we saw that also on our streets. I mean, women were protesting Donald Trump before he was elected. And then by the millions around the world, the day of his inauguration and that anger just wasn't treated like a citizenship. I entitlement, you know, it was really treated like, honestly, even with millions and millions of women, almost like a pet project, like even the year after when millions and millions of women, again, to the streets, it didn't even make the front pages of most major media companies around the world. It was like, we have to get to that last year. So anyway, I thought, let me take all of this work and also life experience. Having had the same types of experiences and use anger as a way to look at what's happening here to our free speech and our safety and our rights and our health and wellbeing.

Kristen (03:50):

Say more about that. Same more about health and wellbeing, because honestly, that's, that was one of the things that, that also led me to dive into this topic of my own rage, my own fury, my own, my own anger, and how did, how it manifested in my, in my body physically. That was it. That was an area I went to as well. What, what do you mean by that?

Soraya (04:13):

So I mean, exactly that, I mean, I mean, I think it's the ways in which we, we don't think about how our emotions affect our physical bodies. And we sort of, you know, we are immersed in the Western tradition of thinking that the mind and the body are split, and it's a very Cartesian dualistic way of understanding the world that kind of flies in the face of our experience of living, right. And yet we hold these beliefs and I, and I think anger is an example of the ways in which the mind and body are really one dynamic complex thing.

Kristen (04:54):

That's amazing. I want to hear more please. Well,

Soraya (04:57):

I mean, throughout the book, the book has a very linear progression basically through infancy through old age. And it looks also in a different dimension at the personal interpersonal professional and political, right? And so in every one of the intersections between those things, there are just examples of how anger becomes material in our bodies and in our systems. And so in our bodies, we know that there are lots of illnesses that are often attributed to you know, they're sort of categorized as women's illnesses, the way hysteria was in the large part of our history, but those illnesses all share the quality of suppressed, repressed and diverted anger. And the control of that emotion in those not productive, not healthy ways exacerbates pain, chronic illness, recovery from illness and surgery. I mean, they're all kinds of correlations and in some place, in, in, in some cases causality that I write about in terms of how people make sense of their experience of anger, can they identify it? Can they name it, label it, listen to what it's telling them, and then can they actually do anything about it? Can they hold the people around them responsible and accountable for mutual care?

Kristen (06:30):

What was your, I want to talk about this, the story you opened with is your mom and the plates. And I want to talk about that because it's so brilliant and how it's such a brilliant illustration of how, how women's anger up until probably recently has, has, has occurred, has expressed itself in the being nice sort of feminine, keeping it all together sort of ways.

Soraya (06:58):

Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, my mom grew up, she actually converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism, but she was sort of here tip when she went to a convent school. She was very, she is, I think, a very typical firstborn, good girl in that lady, like mold, where to be angry is to frankly, if you're religious to be sinful, like it's a sin. And, and so, and it's also, if you're a woman selfish and cruel, and that's a very sort of absolute categorical way of thinking. But in fact, it is implicit in so many of our stereotypes about gender and anger. Men, boys learn to us, all of us learn to associate anger with men and masculinity when we're very, very young and we learn to detach it from women and femininity and girls and girls are punished. If they show anger, they don't even have to show anger.

Soraya (08:00):

They can be assertive. You know, it's not, not even anger. They can be aggressive, also not anger, but you know, that behavior is policed and it's punished. So girls are encouraged to put others first to speak in their nice voices, to lower change, their tone, to not be selfish, to not interrupt them in their, all of these sort of politeness norms. And I mean, honestly, mainly that's white girls, right? Because if you're a black girl, you don't even get the benefit of any of that. Like if you're in school, you're just much more likely to be harshly disciplined for being what in a young boy, a young white boy would be categorized as rambunctious, you know? And so those stereotypes start really early. And the flip side of that is people attribute sadness to girls and women instead of anger. And with boys, they deny them the right to sadness because it's a weak feminizing trait. So it doesn't really serve anybody very well, but there is a difference because that sadness is a retreat emotion you're supposed to ruminate and turn it on yourself. Sad people are more empathetic, but angry people believe they have the right to a different future to make demands on the world, to be able to influence the world around them. And that's a very different orientation. Wow.

Kristen (09:23):

When you say it like that, I eat immediately. My mind, my brain, you know, my brain wants to go good, bad, right. Wrong. Right. Because this is, this is part of the conditioning. Sad is okay for women to feel girls to feel not okay for boys to feel rage and anger, not okay for girls completely acceptable for white boys. And then later men, what's the, for you, I know you talk in the book about inexperience with your, one of your daughters and building these these blocks and every day going to school and building this structure. And I think it was at the castle or something and the boy coming over. So what is it, what were the, if you could share some of the things that happened either to you as a young child, or to you as a parent raising raising girls, I'm, I'm a parent raising girls that you could see your own conditioning, you could see the cultural conditioning that had you go holy smokes.

Soraya (10:23):

Yeah, sure. I mean, I, I, there's so many examples of it that I can think of, right. Where we learned very young as girls that were expected to nurture and maintain relationships and anything that does that undermines, that is bad, that makes you a bad woman or a bad girl. Right. And so any kind of emotion that you might have that warns you the way anger does anger is a signal emotion that warrants you a threat to your body or dignity or something. You know, anger is we are, we have anger for a reason. And yet we're taught to ignore it and to ignore what that anger is telling us. And so in the case of my daughter, it was just very clear over and over again that she would build a sane and spoil would rip it down. And his parents were always there and they never did anything until afterwards, you know, they would, they were filled with platitudes afterwards about how boys will be boys and how they can't control themselves.

Soraya (11:28):

And, you know, it was such a beautiful sparkly thing. How could he resist? And honestly, I mean, I, I shouldn't joke about this because it's quite serious, but I remember thinking to myself, I can't explain to them that they're growing a rapist. These kids are for, they like that is exactly what is happening here. He is being allowed to define the terms of the relationship to control the environment and that she's supposed adapt to that, adjust to that, be pleasant and polite about doing that. And frankly, be implicated in his emotional development where she has no responsibility for being implicated in his emotional development. And he's infringing on her labor and her space and all of these other things. But I didn't do any of that in the moment I tried to teach her to sort of be a good citizen. And so she tried using her words and that didn't work.

Soraya (12:19):

And then she tried body blocking him. And that didn't work. Then we talked to the teacher and the teacher said, well, maybe she can build it over there, which is absurd. Right. There was never a point in which this boy was held accountable. And and I think that's pretty typical. And I think we S we, and I did something women often do, which is to preemptively stop my own anger so that I wouldn't be blamed for being disagreeable or disruptive, angry mom and angry. And if she had lost, if my daughter had really lost her temper, I'm pretty sure that would have been an equivalence made between her bad behavior and his, and I'm like, there's no equivalence here. Like she's acting in self-defense in the absence of us really helping her or giving her feelings legitimacy, you know? And, and I thought it was interesting because I was on book tour.

Soraya (13:13):

So, you know, years after I was on an airplane in Australia, and we'd been waiting for three or four hours for this flight. We finally get out at 10 o'clock at night. And very long day when I got in the plane, I pushed my seat back. It was just so happy to be sitting and not carrying bags. And two flight attendants came over after we were up in the air. And they said, would you mind moving your seat forward? And I said, well, sure, but why? I mean, we just took off and we have like an hour and a half left. And he said, well, the man behind you is very uncomfortable. And I said, oh, well, that's unfortunate. And then I didn't say anything else. And they said, well, be really nice if you moved your seat forward. How, and I said, I'm afraid you have the wrong gal.

Soraya (14:06):

I said, you know, I appreciate that. But basically if I move my seat forward, I'm going to be really uncomfortable. And I purchased this ticket and this target, this ticket includes the right to push my seat back. And it's sort of the contract, all of us make when we get on this plane. And they said, well, you know, do you think you could just maybe be nice and move your seat forward? And I said, no, I'm sorry. I said, but you know, there are empty seats, like right across the aisle. And they said, well, would you like to move to one? And I said, no, but he's welcome to move to one of the, I mean, literally across from him were three empty seats. And so they, that I didn't move my seat and I'm, he was upset and I must've sounded like a complete. And so before the flight landed, these two come barreling down the aisle and very loudly announced that for his troubles, they weren't going to give him a flight credit.

Kristen (15:06):

You, I don't know why it shocked me. I don't.

Soraya (15:11):

Yeah. That's basically the adult version of what happened in that classroom. Right? 100%. I was just, I was like, this is amazing. This is amazing. It's 2019, and this is what's happening on this airplane right now. So I actually, the next night I was making a speech and I included this story cause I was so incensed, but it was a good example. And someone came up to me after and she said, you know, I work for Quantis. And I would like permission to use your story. I'm on the executive board. I'd like permission to use your story. Because in fact, we have a major problem on our airlines and that flight attendants perceive their job to be, to make men comfortable. And I just said, no problem, go right ahead. No problem at all. Wow.

Kristen (16:03):

It is. So, you know, I was thinking about the questions that I wanted to ask you. And I was at a, this is a, there's a part in the book that you, you talked about, some of these transgressions that you had experienced at the hands of boys at nine, and then someone else at 14 and in with your boyfriend, all of these things. And they were it from, from my perspective, they were pretty big transgressions where I think I struggle is in that moment, that takes you off guard where you're having an interaction. I had an interaction with a couple of older white men who we had ordered food from their restaurant. And they were like, I mean, it was like, we had bags of stuff. There was a bunch of us. And they said, would you like us to help you out? And I was like, oh my gosh, thank you so much. There's cups. And you know, so they're helping us out. And one of the men walks out and he says to the other gentlemen, who's waiting inside. I'll be back in a minute. And he and the other gentleman said, is that all you need, is that all you need? Meaning like,

Soraya (17:15):

Would you like something more ladies? I mean, I, in, in,

Kristen (17:22):

In that moment, of course it's a Chuck and I'm like, oh, kind of laugh. Right. Hey, I'm caught off guard. Whoa. It's just so it's so it's so abrasively blindsiding horrible that I just don't even expect it, but so just, I'm just kidding or I'm just making fun or rat holes, vein. How you talk a little bit about this, of how it's, it's shocking. And we freeze, right? What are some of the, what could I have said when I was reading?

Soraya (17:57):

Well, this is the problem, right? Because it never ceases to be shocking when it happens. This is it like I'm 54 and it still happens and I'm still caught off guard. I it's a really, and this has literally been happening to me since I was nine. I know this right, men. I mean, you're saying transgressions. I think I'm going to say what some of these are, because in fact, you know, they're not just things that you can, they're not just jokes, right? These are people grabbing you, touching you, asking you for oral sex on the side of the street, threatening to rape you. I mean, this is not funny in any way, right? And honestly, in my experience, I've had police officers do it. I've had doctors do it. I've had TSA agents do it. People who have power and authority, this is what they don't seem to understand.

Soraya (18:52):

Right. And that's really disturbing on so many levels. And so, I don't know, it's very hard. It's very hard to know what to do and to prepare. And I'm always in awe of the women. I see. And especially young women who in the moment are so filled with righteous, indignation and rage. And the thing is, I remember that, I remember once a guy pulled my arm, I was 15 and he grabbed my arm and he stopped me in my tracks. And I didn't know what was going on. And I turned around to look at him and he basically was like, I just wanted to get a good look at you. And he wouldn't let go of my arm. And I was so enraged that I punched him. I, this is, I think the story you're talking about, I punched him in the neck and he let go of me because it hurt him.

Soraya (19:40):

And I bolted, I ran, but I realized, and he ran after me and he was yelling at me. And I realized right after that, that was a really like foolish, dangerous thing. I probably did. Right. To punch this man who was bigger than I was an older than I was. And so I never did that again. I, you know, the lesson I took from that was that you have to find other ways as opposed to escalating the risk of physical harm, but that's pretty much the way women have to operate in general. Right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And that gets that that's a problem. Because in fact, when we face threat like that, it's not just that we're socialized to smile. It's that we actually have physiological responses that are tendon. The friend responses, people think of fight or flight, which is much more likely if you're a man in this situation.

Soraya (20:31):

But if you're a woman and you're faced with someone who's got overwhelming strength or is what, you know, has a weapon or a history of violence, you don't take the fight. You, you, you freeze sometimes, but sometimes you do cause you want to safely withdraw and courts, for example, don't recognize that the law doesn't recognize that as a neuro neurological, socio neurological response, that's why during rape cases know, people will often judge a woman because she didn't fight because she froze. Or she doesn't really remember what happened in the moment of trauma. And the courts just haven't caught up with what we know about human neuro, you know, urology.

Kristen (21:20):

So those moments are they're so tenuous. And I guess what you're saying is do what you do. What makes you feel the most safe in that moment?

Soraya (21:30):

Well, I think that's right. And I mean, it is really jarring though. It's really very disturbing and a lot of women, I think afterwards they're filled with shame because they think, why didn't I say something or why didn't I do something? You know? And, and in fact, it, isn't just that we have this physical response. It is that we are actively taught not to defend ourselves. Right. And to just let it go and to let it slide and not to say anything. And yeah. Oh, I should say, like, I did have one though. One case where again, it was amazing. Airports are such interesting places. I was going through security and I had to basically I'm dressed, right. I take off my jacket and my boots. And so I was left in a pair of leggings and a black t-shirt black leggings, black t-shirt no shoes.

Soraya (22:21):

Like I took everything off to go through the security. And there was the, the gate where you sort of walk through the scanner and on the other end was a TSA person, a guy. And so before I walked through, he said, hold on a minute, please, can you step back? And someone had just gone through, so I stepped back and he looks me up and down. And then he says, okay, now you can come through. And so I went through and he said, you know, black really suits your figure. And I was just like, what? Like you had me stepped back so you could get a good look at my figure. And so I got, I was so filled with rage that he had just done this. And there were TSA agents everywhere. All men, there were nine men, there were six men around me going through the line.

Soraya (23:12):

And there were three TSA agents who were men. There was another woman at arms length. And, and basically I'm like, wait, you just did all of that for your own pleasure. And then you signaled it to all the other men, by speaking very loudly about what you had just done. So I went through and there were two managers of the entire place there, two women, one was maybe in her thirties and one was in her twenties. And I said, I'd like to file a report. And I told her what I've done. And sh and the first woman said well, I need to go get him to hear his side of the story. And I said, that's not my business. I have to fly a flight to catch. It's your job, not mine. I don't have to waste any more time here. I do not. I've told you what just happened is your responsibility. Women are not safe going through with that kind of interaction. And he has power over people going through that gate. She was so upset because I have to have to wait. And I said, no, I don't. You have to do your job, which is to make sure none of these men does this again. It was terrible. It was terrible. Wow.

Kristen (24:23):

This is, and again, I, you know, I call this a transgression. I think I'm being nice. I think I'm being nice. Right? It's just harassment. I absolutely, absolutely. So what do we do in situations like this? So what's the, okay, let me ask you this question. What's the solution. And I mean like big, broad stroke transformer near transformational, we do things differently. Now. Remember where we could look back and be like, remember when men were able to say things like that, remember that? Can you imagine that, like, we get to look back what, what what's needed to get from here to there.

Soraya (25:03):

I mean, honestly what what's needed is intergenerational change over time, right? Like we have to educate children to think differently and to recognize stereotypes and to understand their emotions. And it's, I mean, everything, everything, I mean, I'm not joking when I say everything has to change, right. Institutions are inherently conservative. And we, we live in a, in a very traditional patriarchal, you know, and it's a white supremacist, patriarchy, which you know, in another country, you know, we, we might be referring to cast which Isabel Wilkerson is now clearly doing in terms of writing about race in America. But, you know, there's, there's not, there's no quick fix. There's no easy fix. I think a lot of the hard work frankly, is the interpersonal work between men and women in their own relationships, as models for children, particularly heterosexual, men, and women, particularly more affluent men and women because they really have a vested interest in keeping things the way they are.

Soraya (26:26):

And that's hard. I mean, even with this, you know, with COVID, we've just seen millions of women be forced out of the workplace to take care of children. And nobody really thinks of that as a wealth transfer to men over time, you know, because those women can't go back work, they can't get tenure, they can't accrue benefits for taking care of their family. I mean, they're really substantially impoverished in terms of their long-term security and professional lives by, by having to do that, because we don't understand care as, as a social issue, as an infrastructure issue, as a political issue.

Kristen (27:05):

So then let's take it back to the personal. So what can I, or any woman who's listening do around claiming, claiming, and being able, like empowering herself or claiming her rage or really working through her anger, what are the things that not, not necessarily institutionally or politically, but as, as, as a person who's really committed to my own transformation, what can I do? Well,

Soraya (27:33):

Yeah. I mean, I think there's several things that I, and I try and cover this in the book, but one is to understand intersectionality, understand that not everyone is having the same experience, right. And so a lot of times we just kind of want to universalize things like emotions, we're all human, we all have emotions, but in fact, the point is the emotions may have a similar Genesis, but their social construction means we experience things very differently. So I would say that's very important to be sensitive, to difference in a way that is productive. Secondly maybe think about the ways that you yourself are minimizing your anger using minimizing language. I'm stressed, I'm tired. You know, you scratch the surface of any stress woman and you're gonna find rage without any doubt. There's just no doubt. You're three questions in, and she's going to say, well, I'm just really angry because I don't have enough help or I'm taken for granted or any number of other things.

Soraya (28:35):

Right. and that's important to be able to actually say, actually, it's serious and I'm angry. You know, it's not trivial and I'm not just tired. And if I'm not going to be tired, I need help. Or I need to, I need this to stop. And then the third thing is, which is sort of related to that. I really make some meaning out of it. What, what, what are you angry about? And can you do anything about it? You know, and are you not making demands on your family or your spouse or your parents or your siblings or your coworkers, because you want to be nice and at what cost are you getting sick, right. Do you have product fatigue? Do you have auto-immune illnesses? You know, are you not taking care of yourself because all of this is going on at once. And so I would say that I would also say to be aware of the waste or your types work in parenting and in personal relationships among heterosexual couples in particular women, don't like expressing anger because they're worried that they're going to be punished in some way.

Soraya (29:38):

So they express their anger as fear, or and in fact, it turns out that men in heterosexual relationships interpret women's anger as selfish. They literally do not listen to what the word, the woman's saying. They just think, oh, that's really selfish of her just because she's expressing this emotion. And so a lot of women for example, will cry and they won't understand why they're crying because in fact, crying confirms a feminine sort of behavior that then confirms a masculine behavior, which is to provide and protect. So it's less threatening to a man, right? The, the tears or the tears, like double down on the stereotypes, even though we don't want to cry, they come. Right. Right. And so being aware of how those stereotypes work and then I, I would just add that it took me a long time to do this, and I really wish I had done it earlier.

Soraya (30:40):

But if you can find a community of people to talk to these things about, and if you're a parent, a community of parents, because it's very hard to stand on your own, particularly in a school and say, you know, the way you're talking to these kids is causing this problem. You know, like here's a girl she's very assertive. She's a natural born leader, but you're policing her. Like, she's a mean girl, because you don't like these behaviors in girls. Right. And so, in fact, even though you're saying all these words about girls in leadership, you're actually undermining girls' ability to be leaders by tone policing them and punishing them for standing up for their rights or, you know, protesting dress codes or fighting for racial justice. And, and like, you just want leaders in a cookie cutter mode that isn't angry. You want the nice polite leader from a girl, you know? And so there are all kinds of things we can do that we need to sort of practice at home before we go out. So that we're not caught off guard. Right? Like if, if you can have the hard conversations at home at your dinner table, then when they come up somewhere else, you've already had them. You're like, oh, I got this. Like, I, I understand this problem. You know? So

Kristen (32:00):

What would you, what, what would be possible in the world if every girl and woman had this as a context, what would be possibly, and I'm holding the book up for those of you just listening, I'm holding the book up Soraya and I can see each other well, would it be possible if every woman and girl had this as a context?

Soraya (32:20):

So, honestly, I think that the change will only come if every boy and man had that as a glove, right? Because in fact, the tendency to has to stay in this sex segregated world. And our labor is as you know, our whole is separated by sex, everything from bathrooms to jobs to pay to education, like pick your thing. Right. And part of the problem with that is that women's inequality is seen as a women's issue. And it's not a women's issue. It's a problem with men and masculinity. And so I know that men are not likely to pick up a book by a woman about women's anger is about emotion. It's a feminist book. That's a hard sell for men who would rather not know, you know? So, so it's

Kristen (33:14):

It's, it's, it's everyone.

Soraya (33:16):

Well, I mean, honestly, if you're a woman and you have this book, I'm always interested to know which women feel that they can ask their male friends or husbands or fathers or sons. This is important, not my book, but books like this, I want you to read this. Yeah. Because I think a lot of women don't even do that. I think they think I just have to keep my own interest to myself. Yeah,

Kristen (33:43):

Yeah. Or deal with it myself or even yeah, yeah. Deal with

Soraya (33:47):

It myself. You know, it was very interesting. The first book event I had was in my own city and I was grateful because it was well attended, but it was super interesting to me, which people came as couples and which people didn't, what did you see? Well, it's just, I think there really are men who just don't think they have any connection to the issue of women's inequality at all. They just don't understand the ways in which the entire world is built to serve, felt around them to serve well, to serve white men. I want to be very clear about this because it's, it's really, if you just look at the power structure in the country, then you understand what I mean. Right. So more than 80% of Congress, more than 90% of CEOs, you know, more than 98% of people funded in tech. I mean, there's really no doubt as to how power works. So the question is, how do you disrupt that? And I think you have to disrupt it in childhood.

Kristen (34:57):

Got it. Okay. I want to read this part of the book right. At the very end. So you said the book really follows a linear path from when you're born to, when you're dying, you talk about your grandmother and you said an in, after my grandmother died in an effort to unlearn all of the negative lessons, I'd absorbed after being a woman and having anger, I wrote down everything positive that anger can be, and I want to read this whole thing, but in the interest of time, cause it's about two pages, but it's so brilliant. Anger is an assertion of rights and worse. It is communication, equality and knowledge. It is intimacy, acceptance, fearlessness, embodiment, revolt, and reconciliation. Anger is memory and rage. It is rational thought and irrational pain. Anger is freedom, independence, expansiveness, and entitlement. It is justice, passion, clarity, and motor motivation.

Kristen (35:57):

Anger is instrumental, thoughtful, complicated, and resolved in anger, whether you like it or not, there is truth. And there's a couple other paragraphs, but so, so powerful. And as women conditioned into white patriarchal system in this country, we get to do whatever work we get to do to really experience our own anger, to give it the validity that it deserves to not hide it and shove it away. My experience growing up as a girl watching my mom was, everything was great. Kind of like she's always put together very similar to yours. There were no plate throwing incidents. This is this, you know, I just, I, you know, the expression of her anger, but, but what she did instead of throwing plates was drink every night. Yeah. It's, it must in some way or form come out. Right.

Soraya (36:57):

That's that's what I S I believe too. I mean, I said it's like water. It will find a way, you know, and it will. And one of my goals in writing this was I wanted girls and women to stop hurting themselves. Like, you know, I remember one of my daughters when she was 14, she came home from school and she w she said, why are so many of my friends sick? You know, because in fact, so many girls have boys too, there's a lot of mental distress, but what you see in girls often is disordered eating a whole spectrum, right. Everything from anorexia and bulemia to obsessed obesity. Right. And so, and, and along that whole spectrum, you see high rates of anxiety and depression and self-harm, and again, the response that we have as a society is to, you know, try and get them to change their behavior.

Soraya (37:55):

Let's do some cognitive behavioral theory, or maybe if the girl's really sick, we'll send her to a place where she'll get fixed. Right. Or she, you know, she, she needs more resilience. Like let's just, let's amp up the resilience. There's never a place where people think, well, what's really bothering her. What is she not saying? What is she angry about? Because anger is central to all of those, the sublimated anger. And maybe we just acknowledge that she's coming to terms with her own vulnerability and inequality in a world that keeps telling her that she has power and has equality. And it's clearly not true.

Kristen (38:37):

That was a mic drop moment. Really? Really thank you. Yeah. It's the inner, it's the inner emotion, the inner feelings, the external messages. Oh, no. You're equal. No, you you've got power. You can do. And then we're okay. Well, it can do anything except,

Soraya (38:54):

You know what they can't do. They can't even go for a walk alone at night. Yeah.

Kristen (38:59):

Yeah. I write about that part in your, yeah. There's a part in the book where you talk about your, your daughter who is strong and she's, you know, she's courageous and she's adventurous, and she asks you to go to the corner ice cream shop and it crumbles you to your knees because you realize in that moment, I've had this moment that you now have to tell some your young child about really about what's out there in the world and how she needs to protect herself.

Soraya (39:30):

Right. And I was like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to, I don't want to say you want to crush her in a sense, but also that you just have to accept that it's a world where street harassment is fine and the threat of rape, but that underlies it is fine. And the restriction of your physical freedom is fine. And, you know, it's interesting because it's almost a luxury because she was maybe, I don't know, 11, right. Again, if you're a black family, Eleven's late, like you don't have the luxury of waiting for 11. You know, I mean, my daughter's sort of ethnically ambiguous. And in fact, I do believe that because of the way, because of the way street harassment works she too has often harassed on the street. So it wasn't a misapprehension on my part. I knew exactly what was about to happen.

Soraya (40:26):

Cause she just looked a lot older than she was. She's actually very tall. And there's always a fine line. How much information is too much information. When do you scare someone? When do you alter the course of their development by saying something like, it's just very hard, you know, so basically I said, you know, if you feel uncomfortable, if anybody approaches you, I want you to run up, you know, up a stoop, knock on her door, find a mom on the street. Like, you know, in my case I would never, in a hundred years say go find a police officer. It just like not happening. So yeah, those moments are very hard.

Kristen (41:06):

They are. They're definitely challenging. How would you describe anger for women as being sacred? AAF?

Soraya (41:16):

Well, honestly I just had a very interesting conversation. I hadn't really thought of it, but I do think that there's a lot of self-compassion involved in acknowledging the good and the bad emotions that we have. You know, we're really supposed to this toxic positivity of being optimistic and, and, you know, just always gratitude, right? Side of gratitude. And like, maybe you just don't feel gratitude because you are really actually being taken advantage of, right. Maybe you don't feel gratitude because you don't have much to be grateful for when you really stop and look at it. And that's why I always say that now this whole self care industry, it's, it's, it's very gender, mainly women. Right. And we prefix it with self because we're caring generally speaking for everyone else. So you've got self care, but you have to take care of yourself when other people, when your society isn't, isn't doing that job. Right. So I'd say that it's the, it's, it's understanding your own anger is healthy and it is self compassionate. It, it is a way of saying I have the right in this world to be healthy and to ask for reciprocity in my relationships.

Kristen (42:40):

Brilliant. Beautiful. I can talk about this all day. I really could. It's so powerful. It's so potent and it's so necessary. So sir, I thank you so much. If there's anything that you want to say before we wrap up, where can people find you out on social media or on your website? Or do you have any, anything else going on with your, with your you're not touring anymore, but

Soraya (43:05):

Yes, well, no, first of all, I just want to say thank you so much. It was really delightful to be here and to talk to you. I really appreciate it. And people can find me in Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. I have rage becomes her sort of book Instagram where I just try and share relevant news, whatever I happened to be seeing and interested in that, that day. But yes. Thank you. Thank you for having this conversation.

Kristen (43:33):

Thank you. I can't wait for, you know, many, many women to hear this conversation because this is what is needed. I, I just, I just know it and I know that if I feel something, if I feel it it's valid, if I feel that it's sacred, even if it's not deemed, if it's on that spectrum of good, bad, or right wrong or impolite or uncomfortable.

Soraya (44:00):

Well, and I will say that it's, I, I want to leave you with this idea because I think it's such an important idea. So people who are more at peace, who are happier, who, whether life's challenges tend to be the people who are accepting of their own negative and positive emotions, right? Because we all have them. We all have them and it's human and we're vulnerable and we have them for good reason. And so the people who are able to say those things out loud to themselves are generally healthier and happier people and more creative actually.

Kristen (44:44):

Yeah. Great. Thank you so much for being here. Soraya cannot wait for this episode to air and drop.