I have never actively sought out confrontation. As a journalist who makes a living from speaking my mind – and often finds herself drawn to controversial matters – this sometimes makes life hard. Anger is generally not a fulfilling emotion; unless it is righteous and indirect. The last person I shouted at, caught up in that hot, hard surge of rage, was a man who rudely cat-called me on the street as I stopped on my bike, puffing, to look for directions on my phone.

“Am I bothering you?” he asked eventually. “Yes,” I snapped. “You f**king bitch, why are you being so rude?” was his return. We exchanged a few more vicious words before I cycled away.

Even after this interaction, encased as it was in sexism, I didn’t feel good. It’s much easier to write angrily about systemic prejudice from afar than figure out how to engage with it in your day to day life. As illustrated by the recent Serena Williams debacle, black women experience micro and macro aggressions all the time – where they have to decide whether it’s worth showing annoyance or anger and being stereotypically labelled, or to just smile as a clammy hand tugs at the knots in our afro or pulls on our perfectly laid braids like they’re a bathroom light switch. As with cat-calling, it’s a minor irritation which has major implications of dehumanisation and objectification.

Beyond this, being actively angry with people in my life who I love or work with, however justifiably, seems to lead me down a path of regret and faint nausea. That’s not to say I don’t ever get angry with people I know, but mostly I am rarely led to the point of anger or confrontation because I don’t believe I would be forgiven for the emotion. But being able to use anger in a confrontational way is important.

At some stage I want to harness the emotion, control and expel it so I am not left internally seething or forced to have it burst out unwarranted. Sometimes it’s OK to be angry.

4 women on how they learned to harness the power of female anger