Turning Anger Into Action
Soraya Chemaly
Mia Timpano in conversation with Soraya Chemaly.
Illustrations by Genna Campton
This story originally appeared in Matters Journal issue 4.
In her book, Rage Becomes Her, writer and activist Soraya Chemaly explores how anger can not only be a positive emotion, but a transformational one. But how do we use anger constructively? And how do we dismantle gender and racial expectations that teach us not to use it?
Mia Timpano: What is anger and how is it different from rage?
Soraya Chemaly: I would define anger as a fundamental human emotion that has been central to our evolution and survival. It protects us from threat, harm, indignity and risk. It’s a signal emotion, elicited when we as human beings understand that something is wrong in our environment. Taking that as my starting point, I wanted to ask: Why, then, do so many of our cultures discourage girls and women from claiming this very human emotion?
I would distinguish [anger] from rage in terms of intensity and management. Rage, I think, is a particularly intense form of anger that results from anger being mismanaged, unrecognised, unaddressed. In the same way that suppressed anger can be very destructive and harmful, rage can be harmful.
MT: So rage is something that, in theory, could be avoided?
SC: In theory, the point of anger is to avoid rage. The point of anger would be to make meaning of it, understand the message that the anger is trying to convey, read the signals that the anger is sending in your own life, and then do something about it.
MT: Can you explain the transformative power of anger and how we can tap into that?
SC: I think that, particularly for girls and women, you learn that any anger you feel is going to isolate you [and] make people dislike you. That’s a very powerful motivation for being nice.
In fact, the anger that we feel can be equally the basis of strong, happy, wonderful, collaborative communities. I have spent my life immersed in feminism globally, and every community that I have ever started, joined or been part of shares this anger that drives them to do the work they do. That doesn’t mean that the interactions that we have are poisonous, toxic or unpleasant. It means that we have recognised what the anger is, and made meaning out of this anger. [We’ve] said, “Why do I feel this way? Why am I sad? Why am I depressed? Why do I feel this frustration?” The point of the feeling is to propel us to act.
So the question is: How do we act? Do we speak, write, paint, sing, form organisations, lobby our politicians, protest? There are so many ways that we can act. The important thing is to recognise what the information is and then decide what you’re capable of.
• Illustration by Genna Campton
MT: Why do we see this almost universal trend to discourage girls from expressing their anger?
SC: At the very simplest level, we’re not that interested in female subjectivity [and] what is of central importance to a girl or a woman – unless it is related to a communal goal, nurturing activity or supportive role. The thing about anger is that it’s subjective; it centres the ‘I’. It says, “This is what I need.” And in most societies, women are supposed to make other people comfortable. They are supposed to prioritise the needs, wants, desires of those around them, and anger doesn’t usually do that. So when women are angry on behalf of other people, society generally respects that anger more. But if a woman is angry on her own behalf, she is usually punished for it.
MT: What can we do to develop anger consciousness?
SC: Girls are so often socialised to put their negative feelings aside, they become disassociated from themselves; they stop being able to recognise anger in themselves. So you need to be able to put yourself back into the experience of your body, as opposed to seeing yourself from someone else’s perspective. You have to be able to say, “It’s okay for me to think about what I want or need, or what I’m feeling, or what I’m scared of, or what I love,” and to think about what that means.
MT: Is there a practical thing one can do to start that process?
SC: One thing that comes up repeatedly, particularly in medical studies of pain mitigation, is the usefulness of writing things down. It’s a cognitive process; it helps you think through things. And even if you’re not naturally a writer, the process of writing is an important one, because it slows you down and makes you think through things in a different way. When I started writing, [it] became incredibly therapeutic. It materialises your emotions in a very constructive way.
"... when women are angry on behalf of other people, society generally respects that anger more. But if a woman is angry on her own behalf, she is usually punished for it."
• Illustration by Genna Campton
"You can find joy in the resistance."
MT: How can we use anger collectively to facilitate positive social change?
SC: The first thing to recognise is that anger doesn’t have to isolate you. If you can become comfortable with even just saying, “I’m angry,” or, “This is making me unhappy – I’m angry about it,” then you [can] practise with yourself. Once you do that, you have to decide: Who do I trust with this anger? [Whom] do I trust to say, “I’m angry,” or who are the people around me that can do something to help me make change? The important part of this idea is finding your people and community.
MT: How can you avoid exhaustion and burnout?
SC: Activism, particularly intense feminist activism, is a baton-exchange exercise. You have to be able to rest and say, “You know what? I need to step back, take care of myself, take a break, see a movie, read some books, exercise; I need to stop for a couple of months because I just need to make sure that I’m okay.” Someone else will do it. If you have this community, you have to trust this community. It’s okay to have limits.
And because these fights can feel so important and pervasive in our lives – the issues are so deep and so profoundly evident – it feels like there’s nowhere to turn. But, in fact, you can turn quietly inward and allow others to do the public-facing work of organising [and] the really exhausting communicating that needs to be done.
MT: What are the other essential ingredients of social movements fuelled by positive anger?
SC: Maintaining a sense of humour. Things are really serious, but you cannot sustain this level of activity without some joy. You can find joy in the resistance.
MT: When you’re organising with a sense of anger, is the fact that you’re organising in opposition to something problematic? I was interested in the distinction you drew in your book between the anger that we’ve been discussing, which is transformative, and the anger that holds you in a place.
SC: I would make the distinction between organising around resentment, which is looking backwards and being defensive, and organising around positive anger that actually holds in it a visionary future.
You’ve got those people who are being defensive or resistant, but you’ve also got future-builders who are fuelled by anger. People who [say], “This is the world we want, so we need to build [it].” Even though they are resisting [and] opposing, they’re often doing that with a vision for a better outcome: for a better world.
