There’ve been a lot of articles in the mainstream press addressing women’s anger. Reading them is both validating..and ironically, rage inducing. They please me because they’re long past due. They piss me off because women have been writing about their own anger for decades…yet those articles and essays and books, like women in general, have largely been ignored or negated, shoved under the rug and passed over.

Look, women’s anger–when it has even been allowed— has almost always been used against them. Mocking, shaming, creating caricatures around women’s anger? It’s used to shut down the conversation before it even begins. It’s the wrench in the patriarchal tool belt.

Angry women are almost never granted legitimacy. There is no framework for women’s anger. We are shushed, patted on the head, prescribed Valium, and repeatedly told to calm the hell down can’t you take a joke?

Mad women are shrill, we’re harpies, we’re hysterical. We are the cartoon figure of the feminist killjoy, an equality pushing dementor who sucks the joy and fun from every conversation; the racist caricature of the angry black woman; the crazy ex-girlfriend, the bunny-boiling anger of a scorned woman or the vengeful ex-wife. And so forth.

All of these caricatures? They exist to undermine the legitimacy of women’s anger. You see, if we make fun of it, we don’t have to take it seriously. If we don’t take it seriously, we can convince each other that women are just being whiny bitches out for revenge and avoid the real issues.

Pssst…..there’s a lot to be angry about. Legit.

And here comes the mainstream media riding in two centuries too late on a lame-ass pony reporting on women’s anger as if it’s a new trend.

Women’s anger is not a damn fidget spinner.

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I’ve borne witness to the anger of women young and old, but by far the most pissed off group I’ve seen is the one caught between maiden and crone. Which, perhaps not coincidentally, is my own peer group.

Women between forty and sixty who are coasting on a tidal wave of blind, white rage.

And still the media asks, gosh ladies, why are you so darn mad?

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Women my age–women who grew up with the idea that it was ALL possible (Sally Ride! Sandra Day O’Connor!), we were lulled into a false sense of equality. Abortion was decriminalized, birth control became available. Women took control of their bodies–and by doing so, their economic power.

And they have been fighting to retain control of both ever since. It is never-ending.

We were told the problem was not enough girls liking math, not enough girls going into engineering. We were told the problem was high powered jobs were difficult to maintain as a mother. We were told, in short, the problem was us.

The problem was never that girls weren’t good at math. The problem is not that women aren’t interested in science and tech, or sports, or medicine. The problem is not that women aren’t funny or innovative. The problem is not that women make up allegations against men because they’re liars or out for revenge. The problem is not that women are not ambitious enough to have both a career and a family.

The problem is not women.

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You want to know one reason why the wage gap exists? The real wage gap–the one which traces the income of women working over a lifetime vs. that of men. It doesn’t exist because women don’t want good, high-paying jobs, or that they don’t possess the innate skills to do those jobs, (and if you thought any of those were the reason–check your misogyny at the door, bro.)

Let’s look instead at how men have been traumatizing women right OUT of those jobs with their penises.

Men with their dicks out have been chasing women out of tech, out of publishing and film, out of academia, out of finance, out of comedy and Congress and sports and every, single, other industry until all we are left with is men. Men who control what we read and see and hear and buy and listen to and like.

Those same men then turn around and ask why women are under-represented in those fields. Some go as far as to promote themselves as allies to the feminist cause. Those same men? They control the narrative we’re fed about women. That’s right. How’s that for a double-bind mindfuck?

Have you never wondered why women cluster in certain fields? Sure, some of it has to do with trying to carve out a career around the demands of family care taking (and don’t even get me started on that), but a lot of it is this: when you are surrounded by other women, you’re relatively safe. Oh, you may not be safe from backstabbing and bullying, but you are safe from being chased out of your chosen career path because your boss can’t keep his fantasies or his dick zipped where it belongs.

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Do you want to know why so many women are so blindingly angry?

Women have been playing by the rules we’ve been given, rules written by men, and yet whenever we get close to the trophy, the rules suddenly change. It’s like reaching square 98 in Chutes and Ladders and landing on that damn chute which dumps you back at square 4 every, single time.

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This anger you’re sensing from women? The one behind hashtags like #MenAreCancelled? It’s a survival mechanism against a system which has left many women with no other choice but to fight their way out.

And women have reached the point where if they’re going down, they’re going down fighting.

They may not win, but they’ll make damn sure they have the skin of the patriarchy under their fingernails on the way down.