Girls are more likely to learn that their feelings of anger, no matter the reason they have them, are “wrong” and out of sync with their identities as girls. They are also more likely to intuit that to show anger puts their relationships at risk. Even worse, they associate anger with being unattractive in a social milieu where few things are portrayed as worse for a girl.
These messages start immediately. Ideas about anger in children are quickly infused with parental implicit biases and gender expectations. In one study, newborns were dressed in gender-neutral clothing and researchers misled adults about their sex. Parents were far more likely to describe the babies they thought were boys as upset or angry than the girls, who they categorized instead as nice and happy.
In general, starting when they are toddlers, boys in the United States are given more leeway in terms of being “out of control.” Parents and teachers expect girls to be able to control themselves more and hold them to higher standards, and so girls exhibit better self-regulation. Many parents not only think that boys can’t control themselves, but they unconsciously expect boys to be angry and girls to be sociable. When kids don’t adhere to these stereotypes, parents often respond, usually subconsciously, in ways that develop these traits accordingly. For girls, that means a whole lot of sublimation.
“Unspoken gender rules,” write Deborah Cox, Karin Bruckner, and Sally Stabb, authors of The Anger Advantage, “play into the diversion of women’s anger.”
Anger is diverted in women, who, as girls, lose even the awareness of their own anger as anger. Girls are taught, through politeness norms that suppress disruptive behavior, to use indirect methods of dealing with rage. For example, it’s “unladylike” to be loud, or “vulgar” to curse, yell, or seem unattractive. Adaptable girls find socially acceptable ways to internalize or channel their discomfort and ire, sometimes at great personal cost. Passive aggressive behavior, anxiety, and depression are common effects. Sarcasm, apathy, and meanness have all been linked to suppressed rage. Troublesome behaviors, such as lying, skipping school, bullying other people, even being socially awkward are often signs that a teenager is dealing with anger that they are unable to name as anger.
Girls, taught to ignore their anger, become disassociated from themselves.
Anger is so successfully sublimated that girls lose the ability to understand what it feels and looks like. Is her heart racing? Does she feel flushed or shaky? Does she clench her jaws at night? Is she breaking out in hives? Does she cry for no reason? Laugh inappropriately during difficult conversations? Fly off the handle over something that seems inconsequential? You can see where I’m going here…those crazy girl hormones, right? Better to just think of it as a phase.
For too many women, however, the phase never ends. It’s lives spent never expressing anger at all and believing that they don’t have the right or ability to do so without great risk.
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