At the end of the summer, I was doing my job. Very simple. Open beer, pour beer, give beer, then DONT give beer after a certain time, clean up, leave.

It was a painfully slow, dark, rainy day, and I was at the time where I couldn’t serve anymore, so no one was coming up to help pass the time. I decided to write in this journal. I was doodling and whatnot.

These three guys storm in (I’m not dramatizing, I don’t need to). They ask for beer. I say no, sorry, can’t. Then he pulls out $100 and asks again. “Can’t say no to that,” he said. 

I said no. “I’ll get fired if I serve you right now. It’s like a legal thing, so they take it pretty seriously.” 

He looks at his friends and I see a lightbulb pop above his head. He’s become a genius right before our eyes and says, “$200.”

“No.”

“$300, come on. You can’t turn that down,” he said. “I’m not gonna lose my job for $300. Why don’t you just walk to a bar? There’s so many around.”

“No one’s even around. $300 for 2 beers, best deal of your life,” or whatever he said.

“I’m not going to do it,” I say. He’s all like, “Are you SERIOUS? You just made a huge mistake. You’re so stupid.” Then they walk out. I can feel my teeth are clenched, and my face is red and smoke is about to come out of my ears.

I used to be an, “I don’t really get mad” person until all those years of frowns I forced into smiles and screams I forced into silence —and THAT guy— erupted into this intense awareness that I DO get angry. Right there at the bar. I am and have been pissed off, but I would swallow or “convert” it into something more acceptable, like sadness or exhaustion.

And I wrote this. 

Women are conditioned to reject their own anger. Imagine if you had feelings you understand but no way to speak, no writing tools or no guides to follow to externalize them. It feels like I have no way to get this anger out of me. I don’t know how to process or express anger. I know that I FEEL angry, but it’s like it’s trapped. 

Mark Twain said, “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” He won’t answer my DMs, so I’m out of luck asking him how and where to pour it. 

There are almost no media representations that show an acceptance of women’s expression of anger (unless she’s gained “points” conforming to some ideal or role that earns her the right to anger only in that context). Like, a mother yelling at her kids, or a female CEO in a suit yelling at her team.

Of the women I talked to, I asked, “How has the widespread rejection of women’s anger affected your relationship with your own?”

“Shame, guilt.”

“I’ve taught myself to suppress & ignore it.”

“I’ll never be the person I was before I experienced anger and was told to stay silent for the first time.”

“I get angry around the people I can trust with my emotions.”

“I prefer to have calm discussions and be direct instead of letting it become anger. If I AM rightfully angry, I prefer to take some time alone and then address it.”

I feel like this is kinda the problem, at least for me. If we want a chance to be listened to, we have to swallow our anger and shape it into something approachable and quiet and non-threatening. Something unrecognizable. 

Anger is a hard, ugly, sharp and unsightly thing. I was punished for showing this messy, unladylike thing, until eventually I started doing it myself without even realizing it. I started thinking about all the things that make me angry and how unfair it is and how less privileged women have it even worse. Then guess what, I got more upset.

But, I started to process it. I couldn’t find an answer. I talked to so many people, even Mark Twain, and no one was able to tell me how to be mad. 

After talking and complaining with my friends about how I just realized “this” is unfair, and I don’t deserve to be spoken to like that, and “Oh my god, you’ll never believe the AUDACITY of this man. I’ll call you when I’m off work.”

Misogyny made me mad and took away my ability to yell about it. I realized, while making this, calling your friend who gets it, who understands and will happily accept the sharp, big, ugly, yelling, anger, is actually just as beneficial as meditation, I think.

Being a screaming woman feels, if people see it, like a crime almost. That is, unless you’re with another screaming woman and you yell together and create a force field. In your little bubble, you can step out of the world that makes you this angry. Suddenly, I understand my anger, and so do the other girls around me. It isn’t so hard to let it out, then.

So, I guess the answer is: talking about it and love. Sorry, lame, predictable. But, it looks like, if you run from an angering situation straight to someone who loves you, you just might be able to yell about it before your body’s habit shoves it away. Moral of the story is: anger is a woman’s sport, I love my people and I don’t feel so pissed off anymore.

Header by Anna Retzlaff