I still remember being told to calm down and not show the anger I was feeling. I remember having a conversation with a close friend in which we talked about how, growing up, we were told to remain calm and were told not to show emotion or discomfort no matter what life threw at us.
I suppressed my feelings for a long time until I realized that I was harming my health in order to maintain peace for the benefit of those around me. I’ve always been labeled as a woman who feels too deeply, has too much passion, and gets annoyed by tiny things that the world usually overlooks.
It’s confusing that a woman is always told to watch her tone, take her words seriously, control her anger, and behave submissively in every room she enters.
It’s confusing that a woman is always told to watch her tone, take her words seriously, control her anger, and behave submissively in every room she enters. Only recently did I realize that anger in women has always been viewed as something dangerous. It has always been frowned upon for a woman to have the most human quality of all – anger. I learned that women who expressed anger at society’s atrocities were always labeled as difficult women – an idea designed to discourage women from their anger and discipline their expression.
A historical pattern of pathologizing women’s anger
As a writer and opinionated feminist, I have had many frustrating encounters with the label “difficult woman.” Women are all too familiar with having their pain dismissed and their worries minimized. And this is not a new phenomenon. Throughout history, the term “hysteria” has been used to dismiss a woman’s emotional experiences. Signs of hysteria included emotional outbursts, hallucinations, attention seeking, and loss of logical thinking. The idea of hysteria had its roots in sexism, and this sexism shaped not only society’s beliefs, but even those of medicine.
In ancient Greece, it was believed that a woman’s uterus could stretch the length of her body and cause a range of physical and emotional symptoms. This idea became known as wandering uteruswhich ultimately led to the coining of the term hysteria from the Greek word “hystera” (womb).
Today the term hysteria is met with severe criticism and has fallen out of favor. However, while women were once described as hysterical, today they are more often described as difficult.
As we journey through the trenches of history, we notice a pattern of women being labeled hysterical for speaking out, not conforming to societal expectations, and not apologizing. Today the term hysteria is met with severe criticism and has fallen out of favor. However, while women were once described as hysterical, today they are more often described as difficult.
The “difficult woman” of today
Any woman who is assertive, uncompromising, independent, and vocal is described as “difficult” or in a similar manner, such as intimidating, bossy, or aggressive. This is often done as a means to control and shrink women and mold them into societal expectations of femininity. This can be seen in online spaces, at work, in social settings and at home. Women are expected to be accommodating, polite, and compliant, and women’s anger and emotional expression are often at odds with these expectations. Even in response to injustice, anger or emotion is never considered acceptable in women.
Patriarchal societies are designed to suppress women’s voices. Patriarchy will always view intense, angry and emotional women as difficult, and such labeling is a control mechanism designed to maintain patriarchal norms and silence women on behalf of men. As women, we must ask ourselves: If we are told to stop being difficult and remain compliant in order to keep the peace, who benefits from our silence?
Redefining anger as a political emotion
How often do we as women internalize this policing and shrink ourselves and our voices? I wondered if I was doing too much and being too difficult. But over time, I’ve come to realize that the more we dilute ourselves to fit society’s gendered expectations, the further we stray from what we truly believe in and who we truly are.
In her essay The Uses of Anger: Women Respond to RacismAmerican writer and thinker Audre Lorde argued that anger in the face of oppression was a powerful tool necessary to bring about change. Anger and emotions are not destructive forces that need to be suppressed. Emotional expression can be a catalyst for clarity rather than chaos feminist anger of women can be empowering.
The label of “difficult woman” is a tool of oppression that society uses to control and degrade women. Instead of asking women to silence their voices, perhaps we should think about what motivated them to speak out in the first place. What if the difficult woman was simply the one who refused to go away? Or a woman who refuses to remain silent in the face of injustice?
Hridya Sharma would like to describe herself in three simple words as a dreamer, achiever and…
believers. She believes that the power to achieve your goals lies within yourself. Writing has always been her passion and in her 2.5 years of experience as a content writer and blogger, she has specialized in many content niches. Her search for creative endeavors has never stopped and has only made her realize that no matter how many milestones one achieves or stories one writes, writing conveys the feeling of writing as much as possible. She is currently working as a freelance author and blogger.
