I was asked recently when I last allowed myself to get angry. Properly angry, in an uncontrolled, justifiable but not exactly justified way. I didn’t have an answer because I don’t remember. 

I remember times I’ve been called angry, sure. But a time where I just let the rage out without censoring it, without making it more palatable? A time when I was allowed to simply feel my anger? Nothing came to mind. This is sad because anger is just as human as any other emotion and as important to express as joy, love or fear. Granted, anger can be toxic when expressed badly, but it is not inherently bad nor is it, contrary to what we’ve been told, inherently male.

Society has long given a pass to men expressing anger, chalking it up to genetics or a side-effect of power and strength. What’s worse, it also twists a whole array of other emotions to fit under one angry umbrella; disappointment, jealousy, embarrassment or frustration don’t exist, just anger. All the while, women have been dubbed the ‘more emotional’ gender when expressing anything. We are scolded for feeling; our emotions are beaten down as a form of patriarchal control, as we watch men glide through life freely expressing their rage without so much as a second glance.

Male rage is strong, necessary and a means to an end. Female rage? That shouldn’t exist; it’s not ladylike. It needs to be caged up and silenced because women must be polite, agreeable and ‘nice’ at all times. We must submit to anger but not feel it ourselves, and if we dare let a bit of anger slip out, we will be dubbed rude, uncooperative or difficult.

These are some of the lies we have been consciously and unconsciously told our whole lives. But something is changing. A rebirth. A renaissance of female rage. And like all renaissances, it starts with art.