That’s why, one day when I was fifteen, I was dumbfounded to see my mother standing on the long veranda outside our kitchen, chucking one china plate after another as far and as hard as she could into the hot, humid air. When my siblings and I were small, we used them only on the rarest and most special occasions and always with great care.

Growing up, these look-but-don’t-touch dishes were at the top of a hierarchy of plates that my mother established. For my mother, they represented a core aspect of her identity: that of being a woman, soon to be mother, the nurturer of her family. These white-and-gold plates were more than an expensive gesture: they were an important symbol of adulthood and their community’s and family’s approval of marriage in general and of this marriage in particular.

Photos show glamorous women in long evening gowns and smiling men in carefully tailored black tie standing, in glittering groups, around a cake that covered the expanse of a five-foot square table.Īmong the most prized gifts my parents received that day was their wedding china. My parents’ 1965 wedding was a lavish affair that went on for more than twenty hours, with over five hundred guests in attendance. Rage Becomes Her INTRODUCTION NICE TO MEET YOU, RAGE “A work of great spirit and verve” ( Time), Rage Becomes Her is a validating, energizing read that will change the way you interact with the world around you. On the flip side, the societal and cultural belittlement of our anger is a cunning way of limiting and controlling our power-one we can no longer abide. We are so often encouraged to resist our rage or punished for justifiably expressing it, yet how many remarkable achievements would never have gotten off the ground without the kernel of anger that fueled them? Approached with conscious intention, anger is a vital instrument, a radar for injustice and a catalyst for change. In Rage Becomes Her, Soraya Chemaly argues that our anger is not only justified, it is also an active part of the solution. Yet there are so, so many legitimate reasons for us to feel angry, ranging from blatant, horrifying acts of misogyny to the subtle drip, drip drip of daily sexism that reinforces the absurdly damaging gender norms of our society. Rage Becomes Her is an “utterly eye opening” ( Bustle) book that gives voice to the causes, expressions, and possibilities of female rage.Īs women, we’ve been urged for so long to bottle up our anger, letting it corrode our bodies and minds in ways we don’t even realize. Refinery 29, Book Riot, Autostraddle, BITCH NPR * The Washington Post * Book Riot * Autostraddle * Psychology Today

Rage Becomes Her by Soraya Chemaly