RAGE – Glossary to a Woman’s Anger
RAGE – Glossary to a Woman’s Anger is an artist book and glossary that aims to identify and translate moments where female anger exists in our society in order to break the deliberate isolation of women in their emotions.
Anger is the emotion of men. It’s an excuse, strength, motivation, justification, powerful, glorious. The image of an angry man is everywhere, it’s in our most iconic movies and roles, songs, entertainment, literature, it’s in our everyday lives, at home and at work, in politics. Meanwhile for women anger seems to be an emotion completely foreign to their whole nature, at least by the patriarchal view. Rage on a woman is monstrous, evil, unfeminine, ugly, the worst crime a woman can commit. We see again and again in our stories, movies, art that female rage cannot occupy the same space as the rage of men, it is never described as glorious or powerful and never justified.
“Who taught me how to be angry? Or how not to be angry? There is rage in me that isn’t my own, I just carry it along, this generational fury, this caged beast.”
The central questions of my investigation engage with the translation of female anger. Where can we locate the anger of women? Can we translate the anger of women with more purpose? To understand my topic better I have organized a workshop where we discussed these questions with the participants. While the topics gave a lot of room for interpretation, the discussion again and again turned back towards ways of suppressing anger. When identifying objects that hold anger it wasn’t seen as a way to channel it, but hide anger into. Some participants spoke about their anger in fear. Not what they could do with their rage, but the feeling itself, as if the emotion was something to be ashamed of for women. This experience highlighted for me how we have been internalizing the oppression put on us by patriarchy. When women become their own spectators, constantly policing their emotions and reactions it’s easier to keep enforcing the same ideas.
My project is a glossary; but the book doesn’t contain the main text it is attached to. We find the “main text” in experiences, society, our own emotions. The project targets women and the book contextualizes their reactions. I work with illustration and creative writing as a tool to draw out emotions from the reader and create connection between the book and its audience. While we may feel isolated in our feelings, when examining those and contextualizing them we can find the bigger complexities that show our experiences not only as personal struggles but systematic problems. In my work I highlighted a few of these moments, relying heavily on the discussions through my workshop to break the isolation of women through showcasing the similarities in our struggles.
“The rage I know is power, strength, it is fight and spirit, it struggles for meaning, it always has its reasons. It grows in community, women, together, sharing their anger, sharing their actions. It is serious, it demands attention, it is the opposite to what I have been taught to believe.”
