WHAT'S BENEATH HER RAGE

 

I could never stop talking about that one quote from Fleabag: "Women are born with pain built in. It's our physical destiny -period pains, sore boobs, childbirth... We carry it within ourselves throughout our lives. Men don't. They have to seek it out ....We have pain on a cycle for years and years and years, and then just when you feel you are making peace with it all, what happens? The menopause comes .. your entire pelvic floor crumbles and you get fucking hot and no one cares, but you're free. No longer a slave. no longer a machine with parts; you're just a person ". Just like that the 53 year old female character illustrated how women are imprisoned within their bodies, they advocate their pre-menopause lifetime to bring life into the world. They carry all kinds of physical pain for that reason : they sacrifice.

 

I always got angry over how many sacrifices a woman has to make; it’s like a life condition she was assigned without her consent; she has to give up her dreams and let go of her childish fantasies, meanwhile her body is getting sexualized before she even starts embracing her female features, she has to carry all the generational trauma that has been passed down for centuries; she has to suffer at the hands of men and suffer bringing a generation that feeds into this system as well.

A mother getting mad at her child is the most typical form of female rage; how can she tell her disrespectful kids that she is suffering from a system that her kids have internalized and reproduced by not considering her a person, but someone in charge of everything in the house including their mental health , when she was a victim of this toxic system for a lifetime.

Since the day a woman is born, she is taught and programmed to behave in ways that are most appealing to men, to be delicate, sweet and soft.

She is obliged to operate with an internalized man inside of her head judging her every move, therefore she must also perform for him; moreover, not only is she a prisoner to men outside but her situation exacerbates with the suppression of the one inside. And when she can't hide the omission that raged within her; she is considered unattractive, unwomanly, and they may even say that she has lost her femininity; lost her mind. 

- they take her femininity from her, HER SANITY -

WHEN YOU HAVE NO WORDS TO ARTICULATE IT, YOU SHUT IT OUT. 

For me, growing up, that rage was grief in my mother’s eyes, about all her lost potential and the opportunities she missed out on, all the things she could have been; and how she revived them through me. Simultaneously, she aches to see how it is all gonna be lost again - it is a loop -; which reminds me of how Sylvia Path portrayed that in the fig tree analogy; of how society enforces pressures upon young women to restrict them during their lives only for them to rot and crumble to the ground. 

We all agree that rage shouldn't be as unfocused and immoral, maybe it's not so schooled, maybe it is no good; maybe it is not something we can celebrate or think well of. But apparently this statement falls when it comes to men, they can rage out and exteriorize all their anger, and still get praised.

Female rage is a deep-rooted turmoil and inner struggle that has lasted for god knows how long; and when women can't repress it anymore, because traditionally they are not allowed to display anger, they get labels like hysterical, overly emotional, or crazy - no matter how well justified they can be. 

There is also a quiet rage, simmering and unspoken, amongst women     - an anger that's been encoded in our private conversations; - growing up, it is the language that women from my family used, to warn me about how uneasy it is for us, how I have to protect myself; but from whom? -   it is a silent rage that I hope I am articulating well.

We can all admit how tiring it is to deal with the internalized trauma on one hand, and speak about it on the other. However I believe that young women hold the power to break this generational cycle. We have to learn the language needed to express our anger and disappointment, to put words on the inequalities and the injustices we face daily.

Hajar Ammar