(00:00:00):
I'm surrounded by violent men,

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men who have assaulted women,

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yelled at me,

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men who break things in rage.

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I know men who are in or who have been to prison for violent offenses.

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And yet they all seem to agree on one thing.

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I'm angry and they're rational and emotionless.

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No matter what I say or how I say it to my husband,

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my dad,

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my brother,

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my boss,

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my male colleagues,

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if I have a problem with anything,

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I'm the angry one.

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I'm the scary one.

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I'm the emotional one.

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To these men who have tantrums and break things and engage in violence because of

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their angry emotions.

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When I read Zahn's piece on patriarchal rules,

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asserting that anything men do is rational and that anything women do in opposition

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to is emotional and crazy,

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it clicked into place.

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They don't actually think I'm angry.

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They just want me to shut up.

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Hi,

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I'm Zanva Lines,

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a writer and feminist activist,

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and this is the Liberating Motherhood podcast.

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Today,

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we're talking about women,

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anger,

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and how the stigmatization of women's anger furthers the goals of patriarchy.

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Before we get started, just a few quick administrative reminders.

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You can visit all things Liberating Motherhood at my website, liberatingmotherhood.org.

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There's also a form there to submit podcast vignettes, feminist advice questions, contact form.

(00:01:17):
Pretty much any question that you might have is answered there.

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You'll also find book lists, tons of resources, and links to everywhere else you can find me.

(00:01:25):
And of course, the main place to find me is on Substack.

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zon.substack.com.

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If you like this podcast,

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I really hope you'll consider leaving a positive review on your chosen podcast platform.

(00:01:36):
Reviews along with shares,

(00:01:38):
comments,

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and engagement really help to support the podcast and ensure that more people can

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find it.

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This then in turn allows me to make more episodes.

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So on to women's anger.

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My guest today is Gemma Hartley.

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Hi, Gemma.

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Hi.

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I am so excited to have you here.

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So let me tell you guys a little bit about Gemma.

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Gemma Hartley is a freelance writer with a BA in writing from the University of Nevada at Reno.

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She is the author of Fed Up, Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward.

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And this is how I discovered Gemma.

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Her book is amazing and has contributed significantly to my understanding of

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feminist philosophy and of women in anger.

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She has a new book coming out,

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No One Loves an Angry Woman,

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which will be out in September of 2026.

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Her sub stack,

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of the same name,

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No One Loves an Angry Woman,

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explores feminism,

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anger,

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domestic labor inequity,

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and more.

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She also has an amazing substack for writers called Creative Commitment.

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Gemma, I'm so thrilled to have you here.

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So let's get started.

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All right.

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I'm really excited to be here.

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Thank you for having me.

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Yay.

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Thank you for coming on.

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So your book grew from an article you wrote for Harper's Bazaar,

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Women Aren't Nags,

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We're Just Fed Up.

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The title alone is something I think so many of us can relate to.

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How did you get interested in this topic and how did it give birth to your book Fed Up?

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Yeah,

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so this was a topic that I think was just kind of blooming in the general

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consciousness around the time that I wrote that article.

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And this was a time when I was freelancing and writing maybe 10 articles a week,

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I was writing constantly.

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And so I didn't really have any idea that this particular article would blow up in

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the way that it did.

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And I

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had agents approach me and ask me if I would like to write a book on this topic.

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I ended up going with my agent who I love and got a book deal with Harper one to write fed up.

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And I had to do a lot of research very, very quickly on the mental load and emotional labor.

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in order to write the book.

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I had a six-month deadline and it was a real whirlwind writing that book.

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I sometimes wish that I had done a little bit more research before,

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that I had had a little bit more time to sit with the subject because there are so

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many changes I would make to this book if I were to write it today.

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Yeah, that's fair.

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And that's kind of

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How it goes,

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I also started out as a freelance writer where you're just throwing things into the

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void and seeing what sticks and then something does and then you have to like make

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that your whole thing and I think it can be pretty challenging.

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Yeah.

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And I think the nice thing about the book that I'm writing now is that it's coming

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out so long after my first book that I have a lot more freedom with it.

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And I've had a lot of time to sit with this topic of women's anger and gender

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inequity that I've experienced throughout my life,

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largely through growing up in an evangelical community.

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And it feels like

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I finally get to say many of the things I've wanted to say in all of these interim years.

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Yeah.

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So, okay.

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It's interesting that you mentioned growing up in an evangelical community,

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because I find that there is this like pipeline with women where they start out

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evangelical and then they get kind of a little shred where they think something is unjust.

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And then they go down a rabbit hole and they get kind of radicalized and they end

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up like basically where you and I are.

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Um,

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I guess,

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talk to me about how anger is depicted in the evangelical community,

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how women in that community are raised to feel about anger.

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Yeah.

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So, you know, I think that your reader who sent in that vignette got it exactly right.

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They don't think that you're angry.

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They just want you to shut up.

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And so if you even veer into anger,

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questioning the way that things are, not even getting angry, just questioning.

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You're told that you're being irrational,

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that you're being sinful,

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and conversation is just shut down at the source.

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And I think that that builds up a lot of rage and resentment,

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even if you're not going to acknowledge it.

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And so when you find that little, you know, nudge towards

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feminism or, or it's, you know, recognizing injustice.

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I think you're right.

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There's a really big like evangelical girl to radical feminist pipeline.

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I wrote about this recently on my Substack about how I'm not actually all that

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afraid of what is happening with,

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you know,

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evangelicals gaining so much political power and,

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you know,

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having all of these evangelical children,

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a lot of them are going to be women and a lot of them are going to turn on their

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family of origin and their faith of origin once they realize their own subjugation.

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Yeah,

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it's really interesting how I found through my own work,

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I've converted,

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I guess,

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for lack of a better term,

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a large number of evangelical women.

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And the ones who contact me all tell me the same story,

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which is that they found my work because they were searching to solve a problem

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with their spouse.

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And at first they thought that I was crazy and angry and something to avoid,

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and they hate followed me.

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And then they started reading more and then they got radicalized.

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And then like a few years later,

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you know,

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now they can't stop themselves from,

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you know,

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every time they hear about a woman going on a date,

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for example,

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telling her to just murder the man instead.

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So I think that's really interesting.

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And I think that,

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you know,

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when we tell women to be silent for so long,

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we can expect that they're going to be like really,

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really angry after a while.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And I think when you finally start to reckon with all the ways that you've been

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silenced throughout your life,

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anger is the natural response to that.

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Anger is just part of being awake to all of the things you were told didn't exist

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throughout your life.

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And I used to be really afraid or ashamed of my anger.

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And

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I see it as a really powerful tool.

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Now it is what brings me clarity and shows me that I'm moving in the right direction.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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I,

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I think it's not an accident that we want to silence women's anger because before

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you can change anything,

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you have to be angry about it.

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So I,

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I want to get to that,

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but I want to talk a little bit about fed up first and about emotional labor.

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Um,

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One thing that I see so often is this idea that household labor inequity is just a

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small trivial matter.

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It's something to laugh about.

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Tee hee, look how stupid and incompetent men are.

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You know,

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pundits talk about it as if it's just a dish in the sink,

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just a minor difference in standards and preferences.

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You know, there's the she left me because I left a dish in the sink guy.

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But depending on which data you believe,

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men are creating an average of an additional seven to 12 hours of work a week for

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their partners.

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And that's on top of the ways they undermine their partners with mediocre or bad parenting,

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emotionally abandoning their partners,

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and just generally making life more stressful and less fulfilling.

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This to me is like the total theft of a person's life opportunities and dreams.

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So why do you think we and like even so many of us in the feminist movement pretend

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this is a small thing,

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a distraction,

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a trivial issue?

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I mean,

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I feel like in most feminist spaces,

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especially over the last five years,

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we've started to come around to what a big deal this is.

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not just the domestic labor inequity,

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but the aspect of the emotional labor and mental load,

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which is all of the noticing,

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planning,

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delegating,

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overseeing work.

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Alison Damager breaks this down really well into the different parts of cognitive labor.

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And then there is the emotional labor aspect of it,

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which is doing the emotion management of everyone around you.

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You have to ask in the right tone

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you have to make sure that your requests are clear enough,

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because there's this misconception that men can't possibly understand what you're

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asking them to do,

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or they can't possibly do this job well.

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And one of the things that I am exploring in my next book is that a lot of this

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belief is rooted in Christian patriarchy and Christian ideology.

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And

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where our ideas about men's incompetence and,

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you know,

(00:10:43):
women's work being really trivial come from is from complementarianism.

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The idea that like, well, men aren't wired for this and women are.

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And so therefore, because you're wired for it, it's not really labor.

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And because they aren't wired for it, they can't take it on.

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And it's really insidious.

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Most people don't recognize that that comes from within religious ideology,

(00:11:06):
but it absolutely does.

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Oh my God.

(00:11:09):
It's so true.

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I mean,

(00:11:10):
that's the thing that I hear all the time is that,

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well,

(00:11:14):
women are just better at it and it's completely complementarianism.

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And then there's this sort of secular version,

(00:11:22):
which is this like evolutionary psychology bullshit of,

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you know,

(00:11:26):
well,

(00:11:26):
women are this way and men are this way.

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And we love the just so stories because it's a lot easier than confronting that

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Men are doing this deliberately because it's easier for them.

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You talked about emotion management,

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and I want to zero in on that because I feel like that's something that we're not

(00:11:43):
talking about as much right now.

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This idea that women have to manage other people's emotions and manage their own emotions.

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especially in the context of like men's weaponized bad moods.

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I had a reader refer to it as the passive aggressive male presence in the house

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that if he's angry and brooding,

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she has to keep like putting new coins into the slot until she finds one that works.

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Tell me what you're seeing in your research about that.

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Yeah.

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The emotion management work, it's, it's another distraction, right?

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It's another way to keep women from talking about the things that actually matter,

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the things that would,

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you know,

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increase their ability to enjoy life.

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If you have to manage someone else's emotion,

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if they're not going to be responsible for their own emotions,

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um,

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Women have been tasked with managing that for a long time.

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And the idea of emotional labor and emotion management comes from Arlie

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Hochschild's research,

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which was very specifically like within the capitalist framework of she did a lot

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of research around flight attendants who had to put up with a lot of misogyny and

(00:12:58):
keep a smile on their face.

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But women do this in their personal lives as well.

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They are tasked with keeping a happy home.

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It's one of the reasons I really hate the whole like happy wife,

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happy life kind of reframing of this,

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because it's women that are keeping everyone else happy.

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And we do this not only with our partners,

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you know,

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making sure that like,

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oh,

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let's tend to his emotions and make sure that he's okay.

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Um,

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you know,

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and often that means doing all of the domestic labor around the house,

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doing all of the mental load work so that we're not burdening him because he's

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already in a bad mood.

(00:13:43):
Right.

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And we do the same thing when we're out in public.

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I write a lot about this and fed up about how we have to

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take in the emotions of those around us when we're in public spaces.

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And this comes in with,

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you know,

(00:13:57):
sexual predation and,

(00:14:00):
you know,

(00:14:01):
getting catcalled on the street basically is like,

(00:14:03):
okay,

(00:14:04):
how do I not escalate this situation?

(00:14:07):
How do I maintain my safety?

(00:14:09):
And that safety happens out in the public and also happens a lot within the home,

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which we don't talk about as often.

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Yeah.

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I mean, I, so I have this piece I wrote about a year ago.

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It was called something like, you know,

(00:14:22):
the threat of violence lurks in every unequal relationship because it is that

(00:14:27):
violence that men use to reinforce this.

(00:14:29):
Even if an individual man would never be violent,

(00:14:33):
the woman understanding that he could be,

(00:14:35):
and that men often are,

(00:14:36):
and that they almost always get away with it,

(00:14:39):
keeps her compliant and keeps her in line.

(00:14:41):
So that's, you know, great and really scary.

(00:14:43):
Um,

(00:14:46):
you talk a lot about managing men's emotions.

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And I think that's really interesting because men,

(00:14:51):
of course,

(00:14:52):
have this idea of themselves as rational and not having emotions.

(00:14:58):
And if you talk to a men's rights activist,

(00:15:01):
he'll prattle on about how men aren't allowed to share their emotions or have their emotions.

(00:15:07):
And I feel like women's emotion management labor that we do constantly is

(00:15:13):
enables men to feel that way.

(00:15:14):
It enables men to think,

(00:15:16):
oh,

(00:15:17):
we're rational and we don't burden anybody with our emotions because women act as

(00:15:23):
if we're not burdened and we act as if men's emotions aren't really emotions.

(00:15:27):
They're just rational and reality and sort of the default settings by which we

(00:15:31):
determine everything else.

(00:15:34):
Yeah.

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Well, and I mean, that's just how we operate as a society.

(00:15:37):
Whatever men do is the standard and whatever women do is the aberration.

(00:15:42):
And I think that men do have this idea of themselves as being rational and not emotional.

(00:15:49):
And part of that is social conditioning where we venerate men's anger and we shut

(00:15:56):
down oftentimes the sensitivities and full emotional range of men.

(00:16:03):
Women don't do that.

(00:16:04):
Men do that to other men.

(00:16:06):
And then it gets taken out on women who bear the burden of that emotional labor.

(00:16:12):
And I think that it's so interesting that men have this belief still that they are

(00:16:20):
so rational because they are generally only putting that emotional labor onto their

(00:16:26):
partner or women in positions that cannot,

(00:16:31):
you know,

(00:16:32):
fight back or speak up about the emotionality that they're expressing.

(00:16:38):
Yeah,

(00:16:38):
I mean,

(00:16:39):
there's only one gender that is committing like tons of acts of violence and

(00:16:43):
tantrums and all of that because of their emotions.

(00:16:46):
And it's not women.

(00:16:49):
So,

(00:16:49):
okay,

(00:16:49):
so let's talk about women and our anger that is kind of simmering below the surface

(00:16:54):
that we're never allowed to express.

(00:16:57):
It's obvious to me that the women are angry for a reason and that anger is really

(00:17:03):
the only rational reaction to living in a patriarchy.

(00:17:07):
which is exactly why we stigmatize anger.

(00:17:10):
We want to pretend women are crazy for calling injustice exactly what it is.

(00:17:13):
And I think that if we stigmatize women as angry,

(00:17:17):
we stigmatize them as irrational and often in fundamentalist evangelical circles,

(00:17:23):
stigmatize them as like flighty,

(00:17:25):
less reliable,

(00:17:26):
less intelligent,

(00:17:28):
then it's very easy to silence them.

(00:17:31):
So talk to me about the important role that this stigmatization of anger produces.

(00:17:36):
plays in patriarchy and what we can do about it?

(00:17:40):
So I think that when I think about how silencing women and specifically women's

(00:17:48):
anger works in the favor of the patriarchy,

(00:17:51):
I always come back to this quote from Gerda Lerner from The Creation of Patriarchy.

(00:17:56):
And she says that the system of patriarchy can function only with the cooperation of women.

(00:18:01):
And angry women

(00:18:03):
are not cooperative women.

(00:18:06):
And she goes on to talk about the different ways that you secure cooperation.

(00:18:11):
One is gender indoctrination,

(00:18:12):
which is really big in the church,

(00:18:14):
that complementarianism,

(00:18:16):
that women are made for a submissive role.

(00:18:20):
And I feel like I experienced all the things that she lists,

(00:18:24):
educational deprivation,

(00:18:26):
the denial of women's knowledge about their history,

(00:18:30):
dividing women from one another,

(00:18:31):
which has been a big goal of the church for many years.

(00:18:35):
It is, you know, the genesis of the witch hunts was let's break up women.

(00:18:41):
Let's put an end to gossip and knowledge sharing.

(00:18:45):
And then, you know, defining respectability and deviance and

(00:18:50):
restraining women from feeling their full range of emotions.

(00:18:54):
And I think that you're right,

(00:18:55):
that anger is the only logical response for a woman living in patriarchy.

(00:19:03):
But when we tell them that anger is not a natural response,

(00:19:10):
That sense that like we want belonging within society will keep us quiet,

(00:19:17):
especially if our community consists of,

(00:19:21):
you know,

(00:19:21):
a religious community that really banks on women's silence in order to continue operating.

(00:19:28):
Yeah, I think that's really, really important.

(00:19:34):
I had a reader probably a couple of months ago point out that most women don't

(00:19:40):
really have deep connections with other women and don't know what their daily lives

(00:19:44):
are like.

(00:19:45):
And so...

(00:19:47):
they think that their very political experiences are highly personal and their own fault.

(00:19:53):
So yeah, I think that's true.

(00:19:55):
And I see it in my own work too, this sort of dividing women.

(00:20:01):
A lot of women will tell me that they really like my work,

(00:20:05):
but that they can't read it that much because I'm so angry and I'm so mean and I'm

(00:20:09):
so negative.

(00:20:10):
I'm not positive enough or that their husbands don't want to read me because I scare them.

(00:20:14):
You know,

(00:20:14):
because we're supposed to talk about our oppression without ever being upset about it.

(00:20:19):
And, you know, I intellectually recognize the dynamic that's going on here.

(00:20:24):
But I also have this immediate reaction of like, but I'm so nice and I'm so rational.

(00:20:29):
Like, I'm not angry.

(00:20:31):
I'm not a bad guy.

(00:20:32):
Like, look at me write so nicely about grief.

(00:20:35):
And I think that if you get enough of that,

(00:20:38):
you start to just kind of temper your message ever so subtly and try to spend some

(00:20:45):
time proving what a nice girl you are.

(00:20:47):
And then, of course, that is time taken away from more meaningful work.

(00:20:52):
Yeah, absolutely.

(00:20:53):
And I think

(00:20:54):
You know,

(00:20:55):
one of my greatest regrets about my first book is that I was trying so hard to be nice.

(00:21:04):
And I've gotten the comment that like, oh, you're so approachable to men in this book.

(00:21:11):
And I've even heard from some women that,

(00:21:14):
you know,

(00:21:15):
because I spoke to men in that book in a way that was measured and easy to hear.

(00:21:24):
Some,

(00:21:24):
you know,

(00:21:25):
good guys,

(00:21:26):
and I'm putting that in air quotes here,

(00:21:28):
felt emboldened to cherry pick through my message and feel,

(00:21:34):
you know,

(00:21:34):
like they didn't actually have to change and feel victimized.

(00:21:39):
And,

(00:21:39):
you know,

(00:21:39):
all the things that men love to do when they twist messages that are trying to

(00:21:45):
speak to them gently that are doing that emotional labor.

(00:21:49):
And I don't write like that anymore.

(00:21:54):
I am really unapologetically angry and I think it's going to lose me a lot of

(00:22:01):
people because I think when you talk about the women that say,

(00:22:06):
you know,

(00:22:06):
I just,

(00:22:07):
I can't stay with you in this anger.

(00:22:11):
They can't stay with their own anger.

(00:22:13):
It's too scary because they know that down that path of anger is going to be rejection and

(00:22:22):
from a lot of the places of power that have held them close.

(00:22:27):
So getting that proximity to power, I think, is one of the things that keeps women silent.

(00:22:32):
Like, oh, well, men aren't going to turn on me if I continue to be nice.

(00:22:37):
If I continue to swallow my anger,

(00:22:40):
I can keep the peace and I can keep this proximity to power that is not full power,

(00:22:46):
that keeps you in this place of actual powerlessness.

(00:22:52):
but you don't have to be fighting against the patriarchy if you're going to hide your anger.

(00:22:59):
And once you release that, you can't really shove it back in.

(00:23:04):
And so I understand why women don't want to face their own anger because you don't

(00:23:11):
know what liberation is actually going to feel like.

(00:23:15):
And it looks really scary from the outside and from everything you've been told.

(00:23:19):
Yeah, yeah.

(00:23:20):
So I will tell you this,

(00:23:21):
which is that I think and I hope that you might be surprised by the positive

(00:23:27):
reaction you get to being sort of more authentically angry because,

(00:23:32):
well,

(00:23:32):
yes,

(00:23:32):
that does come with some rejection.

(00:23:34):
I found that overwhelmingly people say that they're refreshed by my direct tone and

(00:23:41):
that they're happy that I'm saying the way things really are.

(00:23:46):
And, you know, kind of on a personal level,

(00:23:49):
There's not much reward in being accepted for work that isn't really you.

(00:23:55):
But when you do work that is your authentic self and that is accepted,

(00:23:59):
like that feels really good.

(00:24:00):
So I just want listeners to bear in mind that anger does come with rejection,

(00:24:05):
but saying what you actually think can help you connect meaningfully to other women.

(00:24:11):
And

(00:24:12):
Also,

(00:24:13):
you may be surprised by how accepting people can be because like anger is our

(00:24:17):
reality and oppression is very much our reality right now.

(00:24:22):
Yeah.

(00:24:22):
And I think that it's I will lose some people and I will gain others.

(00:24:27):
And the people that I lose are not a loss to me.

(00:24:31):
Okay, so you mentioned this thing about men contacting you and like cherry picking your work.

(00:24:36):
And I have to ask you about this, because I get this all the time.

(00:24:39):
And I'm just curious if it's happening to other feminist writers.

(00:24:43):
Do you get men contacting you seeking your like,

(00:24:47):
validation and feminist stamp of approvals that they can then weaponize it against

(00:24:51):
their partners?

(00:24:53):
Oh my gosh.

(00:24:54):
Yes.

(00:24:55):
And it drives me absolutely crazy.

(00:24:58):
And often what I'll say to that,

(00:25:00):
you know,

(00:25:00):
if they email me or privately message me,

(00:25:02):
a lot of the time I won't respond,

(00:25:04):
but if I do,

(00:25:05):
I will just tell them,

(00:25:06):
I'm not going to give you a fucking cookie.

(00:25:09):
Like you've come to the wrong place.

(00:25:11):
I am not here to give you a fucking cookie for your good behavior.

(00:25:14):
You are showing your misogyny by reaching out to me right now.

(00:25:18):
And I have no tolerance for it anymore.

(00:25:21):
I used to engage with so many men who were purposefully misinterpreting my work and

(00:25:29):
trying to clarify myself and like,

(00:25:32):
oh,

(00:25:32):
so much wasted energy.

(00:25:34):
And now it's like, I block, I delete, or I tell you, I'm not going to give you a fucking cookie.

(00:25:40):
Well, and then it's like you engage with them in good faith.

(00:25:43):
You try to help them.

(00:25:45):
You give them evidence.

(00:25:46):
You walk them through all the way up to the feminist door.

(00:25:50):
And then what do they say?

(00:25:51):
They say, well, I've lost respect for you.

(00:25:53):
You're just one of the bad feminists.

(00:25:54):
It's like they never actually walk through the door.

(00:25:57):
Yeah, there is no good faith that I've found in any man who feels emboldened to take up my time.

(00:26:07):
Yeah, yeah.

(00:26:08):
They're just, oh, it's exhausting.

(00:26:11):
I feel like I want to do a whole podcast episode about just the men who email me

(00:26:15):
and how much they upset me.

(00:26:19):
It's just,

(00:26:19):
it's unbelievable the stuff that is like constantly sitting in my inbox and

(00:26:23):
probably in yours too.

(00:26:25):
And like people always think it's like the death threats, but it's not.

(00:26:28):
It's these like faux good faith bros who are just like,

(00:26:31):
and one more question,

(00:26:33):
and one more question,

(00:26:34):
and one more question.

(00:26:34):
The worst.

(00:26:35):
And you know, when I have

(00:26:38):
I recently had this experience when I wrote a Substack piece on like just the

(00:26:43):
really abominable treatment that a lot of women experience within their

(00:26:48):
relationships where they are basically begging their partners for help and men are

(00:26:54):
turning away from them.

(00:26:55):
And I had so many men come into my comments and be like, that's horrible.

(00:27:01):
Let me tell you about what a good guy I am.

(00:27:03):
Oh my God, I saw that.

(00:27:05):
I started typing so many hateful comments to so many of those men.

(00:27:10):
And I finally just had to like leave my office and get away from the computer

(00:27:15):
because I was just going to like bomb your sub stack.

(00:27:19):
I mean, I would allow it.

(00:27:21):
Also, I blocked a lot of them.

(00:27:23):
So they weren't able to respond.

(00:27:25):
I went on with some of them because, you know, like I choose where I direct my energy.

(00:27:32):
And because it's my comments section,

(00:27:34):
and I know the people that are reading my comments section might find value in some

(00:27:39):
of these talking points,

(00:27:40):
I will engage in the way that I want to.

(00:27:43):
And boy,

(00:27:43):
does it piss them off when you're not going to take the bait that they're trying to

(00:27:48):
lay for you.

(00:27:50):
Or when you ban them,

(00:27:51):
they all say the same thing,

(00:27:53):
which is that you've suppressed my ideas and you've silenced me and you're fearful

(00:27:57):
of the truth.

(00:27:58):
And it's just, oh God, it's so infuriating.

(00:28:01):
Okay, so.

(00:28:02):
Yeah.

(00:28:03):
It's like it's my space.

(00:28:04):
I get to choose what I want to do with it.

(00:28:05):
And you're not welcome here.

(00:28:07):
But don't forget,

(00:28:08):
you're a monster for having your own space because every space belongs to men and

(00:28:12):
they should be able to come into everybody's space and say whatever they want

(00:28:15):
without any consequences.

(00:28:17):
And we should not be able to talk back to them because they have freedom of speech,

(00:28:20):
but we don't.

(00:28:22):
Exactly.

(00:28:22):
I'm like, my dude, you're on my sub stack, like my personal blog, essentially.

(00:28:30):
I can kick you out.

(00:28:31):
I know, I wish that I was the government silencing you like forever, but sadly I am not.

(00:28:38):
Okay,

(00:28:38):
so I think a lot of women worry that they are being irrational or unfair when

(00:28:44):
they're angry.

(00:28:45):
One of the most common questions I get from my advice column is like,

(00:28:49):
a woman will itemize all of the horrible things her spouse has done.

(00:28:53):
And then she'll say, and I do admit that I'm angry.

(00:28:57):
So do you think I'm being unfair?

(00:28:58):
And it's like the answer is never no.

(00:29:01):
But something about having that angry reaction makes a woman question everything she thinks.

(00:29:07):
Yeah, because we're supposed to be ashamed of our anger.

(00:29:11):
Our anger is ugly and unfeminine and not allowed.

(00:29:15):
And so as soon as we transgress that boundary of anger,

(00:29:20):
it's like everything that has been done to bring us to that point is null and void

(00:29:24):
because you have crossed the uncrossable line.

(00:29:27):
Yeah.

(00:29:28):
So what is the what is the mental trick going on with men where you

(00:29:34):
Their anger is a sign of righteousness and their commitment to justice and goodness,

(00:29:40):
no matter what they do with that anger and no matter how violent it makes them.

(00:29:43):
Whereas our anger is unacceptable and also exists even when it doesn't exist.

(00:29:50):
Like they'll call us angry for just like asking for something politely.

(00:29:53):
Yeah.

(00:29:55):
Yeah.

(00:29:57):
Honestly,

(00:29:57):
you know,

(00:29:58):
I don't know that it is so much a mental trick as it is just so much conditioning

(00:30:04):
and reinforcement and a lot of it.

(00:30:07):
I view through the lens of evangelical Christianity and the fact that men are

(00:30:14):
supposed to be the direct line to God,

(00:30:18):
essentially.

(00:30:20):
I mean, literally.

(00:30:22):
We have an entirely male succession of popes.

(00:30:27):
Almost all Protestant Christianity will only allow men to be leaders.

(00:30:32):
And so anything that men do, again, it becomes the standard.

(00:30:36):
And anything that challenges that standard is not allowed.

(00:30:40):
And so women are not allowed the full spectrum of their humanity,

(00:30:45):
which very rightfully includes anger.

(00:30:49):
What do you think of this new thing?

(00:30:51):
You talking about evangelical Christians has me thinking about this new trend I'm

(00:30:55):
seeing more and more of supposedly secular men talking about masculine and feminist energy,

(00:31:03):
feminine energy,

(00:31:04):
never feminist energy.

(00:31:06):
And

(00:31:07):
I just want to die.

(00:31:09):
Every time I see it,

(00:31:10):
I just feel this withering disgust where I want to hide under my desk that this has

(00:31:16):
become a normal,

(00:31:18):
acceptable thing to talk about of,

(00:31:19):
well,

(00:31:20):
you need to get her into her feminine so that she can submit to you.

(00:31:24):
Do you think that this is like, I don't even know what my question is.

(00:31:30):
Just say something about that.

(00:31:32):
What is this?

(00:31:34):
Well,

(00:31:35):
I mean,

(00:31:35):
put simply,

(00:31:36):
it is complementarianism,

(00:31:38):
that idea that men are meant for leadership and women are meant for submission.

(00:31:43):
And I think that it's very appealing to even secular men because they want to hold on to power.

(00:31:52):
And

(00:31:53):
They don't understand that,

(00:31:56):
you know,

(00:31:56):
feminism or even matriarchy is not an inversion of the power structure.

(00:32:00):
It's not women over men.

(00:32:03):
It's just better for everyone.

(00:32:06):
And I think that the desire to go back to this traditional idea around masculinity

(00:32:13):
and femininity,

(00:32:15):
really as described within Christian ideology,

(00:32:19):
has to do with the fact that men are so stunted and

(00:32:23):
by the way that they are raised within our culture and the ways that they are

(00:32:30):
unwilling to grow.

(00:32:32):
This is something that I see time and again as women start to reach middle age and

(00:32:39):
start to sort of come into their anger,

(00:32:42):
come into their power.

(00:32:42):
There is this whole trope of like women reach 40 and they go crazy.

(00:32:47):
Like, no, they just can't put up with all of this bullshit anymore.

(00:32:52):
And their anger has to go somewhere.

(00:32:54):
And oftentimes that awakening leads to divorce because women are growing.

(00:32:59):
Women are constantly in this state of like self-improvement.

(00:33:04):
And a lot of that has to do with the patriarchal standards of we need to figure out

(00:33:09):
how to carve out space for us in this world that will not allow us any.

(00:33:13):
And so we're constantly like

(00:33:15):
tweaking and making adjustments to our lives and growing in a way that eventually

(00:33:21):
leads us to,

(00:33:22):
you know,

(00:33:23):
the real answer that patriarchy is the problem.

(00:33:27):
But men,

(00:33:27):
a lot of the time are in this space of like,

(00:33:30):
well,

(00:33:30):
you know,

(00:33:31):
I'm still the same guy you married.

(00:33:33):
I just haven't grown at all since we first met.

(00:33:37):
What's the big deal here?

(00:33:40):
And I think that the fact that men are so unwilling to grow

(00:33:45):
is what makes them want to go back into this little comfort zone of traditional

(00:33:49):
masculinity of like,

(00:33:51):
if I'm the only one that has these masculine traits or masculine skills,

(00:33:57):
then I don't need to feel threatened by women who have their full humanity.

(00:34:02):
If we can put women back in the submissive box, that would be great for my ego.

(00:34:07):
And so I think that's where a lot of it is coming from.

(00:34:10):
Yeah,

(00:34:10):
there's just I've written a lot about how patriarchy really disrupts men's ability

(00:34:16):
to think critically.

(00:34:18):
And like I've talked about it as a brain disease because I really do think it works that way.

(00:34:24):
When my oldest was a toddler,

(00:34:26):
my husband would do this like modified version of the wheels on the bus where he

(00:34:31):
would talk about like different people getting on the bus and what they said.

(00:34:35):
And, you know, the sexist man would get on the bus.

(00:34:39):
And the thing that he says on the bus is, I can't change.

(00:34:41):
I can't change.

(00:34:43):
And to me,

(00:34:44):
that's like the whole of like patriarchy and relationships is this idea that you

(00:34:48):
cannot ask a man to change,

(00:34:50):
that that's fundamentally unloving and like unfair and unreasonable.

(00:34:55):
And women are just supposed to perpetually change.

(00:34:58):
Like if you look at any

(00:35:00):
mainstream marriage advice book.

(00:35:02):
It's about all the things that women have to accept and all the positions they have

(00:35:06):
to contort themselves into to change,

(00:35:08):
to accommodate the man.

(00:35:10):
And it's just like, it's so sad.

(00:35:12):
It's outrageous.

(00:35:14):
Yeah.

(00:35:15):
And I think that's so true.

(00:35:16):
The idea, you know, this is why complementarianism is so alluring for men, right?

(00:35:23):
It tells them, you can't change.

(00:35:25):
Or that, you know, secular biologicalism that says, no, you can't change.

(00:35:30):
Any sort of gender essentialist ideology is

(00:35:34):
says, well, you can't change.

(00:35:36):
So you don't have to try.

(00:35:37):
You don't have to grow.

(00:35:38):
You don't have to feel all of the uncomfortable feelings.

(00:35:42):
And I think the reason that women are able to grow into their anger and grow in such,

(00:35:47):
you know,

(00:35:47):
magnificent ways as they age is because they have lived a life of discomfort.

(00:35:53):
So what's,

(00:35:54):
you know,

(00:35:54):
what's the point of staying in the discomfort that doesn't serve you when there's a

(00:35:58):
discomfort that leads to your liberation?

(00:36:00):
Yeah.

(00:36:01):
I love that.

(00:36:03):
And that's what it is, is you have to... What is the quote?

(00:36:07):
It's like, hope has two beautiful daughters and one of them is anger to change things.

(00:36:13):
Yeah, you have to get angry about the way things are to correct them.

(00:36:17):
So...

(00:36:19):
Okay, we know that men are weaponizing this trope of the angry woman and the angry feminist.

(00:36:25):
We know that kind of no matter what we do and how we ask, it's going to be stigmatized.

(00:36:30):
It's excessively angry.

(00:36:32):
And we're going to have this ridiculous idea that women are the scary,

(00:36:35):
emotional,

(00:36:36):
irrational ones.

(00:36:38):
But we still have to live in this world where men keep doing this to us,

(00:36:43):
even when we know that it's just ridiculous and infuriating.

(00:36:47):
Have you tested any scripts for responding to these claims of anger?

(00:36:53):
Have you found anything either that works or that is satisfying to say when a man

(00:36:58):
is like oh you sure sound angry.

(00:37:00):
I think the most satisfying thing.

(00:37:04):
is to not say anything to them at all.

(00:37:07):
I think that one of the things that I have learned over the past few years is that

(00:37:14):
these men will come in and act like they are asking these questions in good faith.

(00:37:20):
And saying,

(00:37:20):
you know,

(00:37:21):
if you changed your tone a little bit,

(00:37:22):
if you were a little bit more rational,

(00:37:24):
then maybe I could hear you.

(00:37:25):
Maybe I would change.

(00:37:27):
They kind of are dangling this carrot in front of you to get your compliance.

(00:37:32):
And if you say, fuck your carrot, I'm going to stay angry.

(00:37:36):
they have nothing else that they can do.

(00:37:39):
And I've gotten into so many good faith arguments with men,

(00:37:44):
and they are never,

(00:37:45):
ever interested in changing.

(00:37:47):
They are interested in taking up your time and your energy and your mental space.

(00:37:52):
And if you just say, no, that is mine and you can't have it, that's all that I need to do.

(00:38:01):
It keeps me clear and focused.

(00:38:04):
And I think

(00:38:05):
one of the things I hear so often, even from women is like, well, what, what about men?

(00:38:12):
You know, how do we speak to them?

(00:38:13):
How do we get them to understand?

(00:38:15):
And I was like, if they wanted to, they would.

(00:38:18):
Yeah.

(00:38:19):
That's really true.

(00:38:21):
And I think what gives me such freedom to say that is that I have a partner that is

(00:38:29):
fully able to accept me in my anger and

(00:38:34):
who listens and understands my full humanity and does not turn away from it.

(00:38:39):
He doesn't need me to speak really rationally.

(00:38:43):
He doesn't need me to be smaller in order for him to be big.

(00:38:47):
And that sort of liberation within my own relationship allows me to get really

(00:38:54):
angry with the men who do not give me the same fullness of my humanity.

(00:39:01):
Yeah.

(00:39:01):
I mean,

(00:39:02):
I think that's,

(00:39:03):
well,

(00:39:03):
and that also speaks to the real tragedy of most heterosexual relationships because

(00:39:09):
I'm also in an equitable marriage with a feminist man.

(00:39:13):
And I really, I see how deeply affected I am by the patriarchy that surrounds me.

(00:39:19):
And I don't understand how women who have no escape from that at home are able to

(00:39:25):
continue functioning.

(00:39:26):
And I

(00:39:28):
These marriages are really destroying women and they're bringing the patriarchy

(00:39:33):
into your home and making it such that there's just no safe place anywhere.

(00:39:38):
So yeah, agreed.

(00:39:40):
One of my favorite things to do with angry men on the internet is that all...

(00:39:45):
you know, type out my response, which is increasingly just mocking.

(00:39:49):
You know, they don't respond to evidence.

(00:39:51):
So I'll mock them and then I'll wait until I can see that they're typing a response

(00:39:55):
and I'll let them type for like a really long time because I know they're sending

(00:39:58):
me a wall of text and then I'll block them before they can post their wall of text.

(00:40:02):
And I don't know how it makes them feel, but it makes me feel great.

(00:40:06):
And that's all I really care about.

(00:40:07):
Yeah.

(00:40:10):
And, you know, I've

(00:40:12):
had so many men this week,

(00:40:15):
like on social media,

(00:40:16):
trying to reach out to me and tell me,

(00:40:20):
you know,

(00:40:21):
if you were a little bit less angry,

(00:40:23):
if you weren't talking down to us.

(00:40:24):
And I was like, who are you?

(00:40:27):
And I'm just not going to respond.

(00:40:30):
I think it's so liberating to not try to convince men that you get to take up space.

(00:40:38):
What about in settings where someone commands authority?

(00:40:41):
Because this is where I see it a lot that there's not an easy escape for women.

(00:40:44):
It's especially common in couples counseling,

(00:40:47):
which is so often a tool of reinforcing patriarchal marriage dynamics,

(00:40:52):
where the woman will go in with complaints that are usually sexual coercion,

(00:40:58):
household labor inequality,

(00:40:59):
low-grade abuse of the kids by her spouse,

(00:41:02):
and emotional abuse and neglect by her spouse.

(00:41:05):
And the therapist will tell her that her anger is the problem and that she needs to

(00:41:08):
work on her anger and also probably like give him sex that's painful and unpleasant

(00:41:13):
for her.

(00:41:15):
In these settings, you know, we can't block, we can't ignore.

(00:41:20):
What do you recommend women do?

(00:41:21):
Is there any way to redirect attention away from the woman's anger in these sorts of,

(00:41:26):
you know,

(00:41:27):
really sexist contexts?

(00:41:30):
Oh.

(00:41:31):
Yeah.

(00:41:31):
So I have a lot of issues with couples therapy because I think it does really

(00:41:37):
reinforce gender hierarchy.

(00:41:40):
It is really a place where

(00:41:43):
patriarchy seeps in and makes things often worse for women.

(00:41:49):
Because it's like,

(00:41:49):
oh,

(00:41:49):
well,

(00:41:50):
we've got to listen to both sides,

(00:41:51):
even though one side is like,

(00:41:53):
I would like basic dignity.

(00:41:55):
And the other side is I would like to coerce someone into sex.

(00:42:00):
Like, I would like to go back to where it was legal to rape my wife.

(00:42:05):
And so I have a lot of issues with

(00:42:08):
couples counseling.

(00:42:09):
And it has a lot of Christian roots and like eugenics roots as well.

(00:42:18):
We don't have time to get into all of that.

(00:42:22):
But I think that when you are in a situation like that,

(00:42:27):
what often is going to happen is men are going to really want to stay with a

(00:42:33):
therapist who reinforces those gender hierarchies within the home.

(00:42:38):
And

(00:42:39):
you don't have to stay in that relationship with a therapist, especially.

(00:42:45):
I know that oftentimes women do have to stay in relationships because marriage is

(00:42:51):
built to uphold patriarchy.

(00:42:53):
It is built to keep women beholden to men.

(00:42:59):
But in a therapy office, you do not have to put up with that.

(00:43:02):
You do not have to stay in that situation.

(00:43:06):
And you can say that, you know, like, no, this isn't the problem.

(00:43:11):
And you can actually,

(00:43:13):
you are allowed to call out that bad behavior and that bad ideology that your

(00:43:19):
therapist is espousing.

(00:43:20):
It feels like you can't, but you absolutely can.

(00:43:25):
It's just a social construct that you think like this person is a position in a

(00:43:29):
position of power.

(00:43:29):
No, they're not.

(00:43:30):
You're paying them.

(00:43:32):
You can absolutely tell them to fuck off.

(00:43:35):
That's such an important message.

(00:43:38):
Women just have this ongoing obligation to make things work and to people please

(00:43:43):
and to keep trying and keep trying and keep trying.

(00:43:46):
And this trying distracts us from becoming and doing whoever and whatever we were meant to be.

(00:43:52):
So yeah, I would just add, don't pay someone to inflict misogyny on you.

(00:43:58):
You can get misogyny inflicted on you for free,

(00:44:01):
usually at home from the person who's supposed to love you.

(00:44:03):
Yeah.

(00:44:05):
Absolutely.

(00:44:06):
All right.

(00:44:08):
Well,

(00:44:08):
if you could share one core message about women and anger,

(00:44:13):
if you could get women to accept one thing,

(00:44:16):
you can change the world and you have one thing that you're going to tell women.

(00:44:20):
What do you think they need to know or what do you think they don't understand

(00:44:23):
about their own anger?

(00:44:27):
Your anger isn't something for you to be afraid of.

(00:44:30):
It is something for patriarchy to be afraid of.

(00:44:32):
I think that is...

(00:44:35):
the most empowering thing that I've learned about my anger.

(00:44:39):
It has brought me into community with other women in ways that I never imagined

(00:44:47):
possible when I was growing up in an evangelical community.

(00:44:50):
It has given me so much freedom to pursue a life that feels authentic.

(00:44:56):
Anger is not the end of something.

(00:45:00):
It's the beginning of your life.

(00:45:03):
Oh, I love that.

(00:45:04):
I love that.

(00:45:05):
I mean, patriarchy is only ever going to teach us to behave in ways that serve patriarchy.

(00:45:12):
So I think always the question needs to be, why does patriarchy want me to think this?

(00:45:18):
And what's something that's better for me that I can think?

(00:45:22):
Gemma, your work is amazing and it's changing the world.

(00:45:26):
And I'm just so glad that it's out there and that you are out there.

(00:45:31):
Yeah,

(00:45:31):
I feel absolutely the same about you and your work and how accessible you make it

(00:45:39):
for those evangelical women that are hate following you to slowly come to the other side.

(00:45:46):
I think it is so important to have people who are reaching out that hand and saying, it's okay.

(00:45:54):
You can come over to this side.

(00:45:56):
It's going to be okay.

(00:45:57):
We're going to have your back.

(00:45:59):
And I think you do that really well.

(00:46:02):
I try.

(00:46:02):
I've turned some of them into enemies as well.

(00:46:05):
So I'm not sure how well I'm doing, but I'm doing something I'm doing.

(00:46:09):
So and that's all any of us can do.

(00:46:11):
Gemma, thank you so much.

(00:46:13):
I'm so excited to read your new book.

(00:46:15):
I wish it was coming out sooner because I think it's going to be amazing.

(00:46:19):
You and me both.

(00:46:21):
Well, I think that people are going to love it.

(00:46:24):
And if you have not read Gemma's first book, please do.

(00:46:28):
It's being re-released next month, right?

(00:46:32):
Yes.

(00:46:33):
So it is currently out of stock,

(00:46:35):
absolutely everywhere,

(00:46:36):
but it is in its reprinting right now and it will come out on May 5th.

(00:46:41):
Amazing.

(00:46:43):
So I recommend listeners subscribe to your sub stack,

(00:46:45):
which is just full of thoughtful ruminations on everything.

(00:46:51):
I'll put links to that,

(00:46:53):
to your books,

(00:46:55):
and to everything else people can find out about you in the show notes.

(00:46:58):
Thank you again for listening.

(00:46:59):
Thank you, Gemma, for coming on.

(00:47:01):
And I will be back with our next episode in two weeks.