Good Girls, Young Ladies & Anger
By: Smitten Kemp
Tags: Self Respect, Anger, Feminism, Innocence, Good Girl

Anger is a beautifully productive and empowering emotion. An emotion that we don’t consider congruent with our civilised society. It is often shirked off our tense shoulders or frightened back into its cage by wide eyed glares from others. As a result it lives like an unfed monster rejected to the darkest corners of our emotional being. I am guilty. For most of my young life I have starved this monster. In doing so I have starved the strength that this monster affords me and the passion and laughter it offers as a gift. No more. Whilst I’m not about to go ape the next time a cyclist approaches me from behind on the path and so much as a sneeze could lead to a Tom and Jerry sprawl and broken bones, I have made friends with this monster. He’s actually quite nice.

As a woman — yes, I’m using that phrase — my relationship with anger is all the more confused with contradictory societal conditioning. Just like the generations before my 1997 birth, perhaps not proceeding however, an overarching social narrative fed to young minds is that ‘good girls’ and ‘young ladies’ are to be polite, passive, forgiving, kind, thoughtful and put others ahead of themselves. Perhaps I did take this to an extreme — I had rather bad OCD growing up which I initially justified as my dead Grandad judging my behaviour and deciding if my family should live or die, and then superstition dissolved into plain old-fashioned OCD — but the key message I received if I was to be ‘good’, which was the most important thing in life apparently, was to be selfless.

This meant never standing up for myself, because a good girl didn’t make a scene. She put others first. She doubted herself. She didn’t get angry.

In contradiction to this is female empowerment. Sure third wave feminism isn’t trying to create raging bleeding monsters, and its not for the most part, but the often blind acceptance of prioritising what we as women want and standing up for that in the face of challenges, does infer the embracement of anger. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing, but I don’t think an angry response should be justified by the empowerment of our vagina-wielding sex. An angry response should be justified by the situation. This kind of narrative has undoubtedly affected a lot of women, for others it hasn’t kicked in quite yet.

Many ‘young ladies’ are unacquainted with putting our needs first in social situations or arguments, or even considering them equal to others needs or wants. Flight, Freeze and goddam Fawn are all too familiar. I know I used to retreat back to safety, sometimes half aware that the only card I knew how to play was that of the apologetic good girl. It essentially weaponises youth and innocence and beauty as a forcefield for insults. And I was not self-aware of this, I fully internalised that I should never stand up for myself. That I was below others. No joke. But it is a safe and familiar place. Although the good girl doesn’t protect you from other’s shitty behaviour or actions, breaking free of the fawning and displaying a bit of self-respecting anger removes that shield and makes you vulnerable. But this is when you really grow up.

Something clicked for me recently. When I look at my past self objectively, as another person, I feel a great deal of frustration and anger on her behalf. How could anyone treat her that way? How could no-one stand up for her?

Oh. Nobody cares.

As sad as it is, most people just look out for their own interests and an even sadder amount don’t care if they screw you over doing so. Therefore, you must recognise that nobody is coming to save you. You have to stand up for yourself. And this means integrating your every want and need and emotion. You need to know yourself to advocate for yourself. You need to know your anger.

We are often in vulnerable positions, especially if you’ve moved to a new city or country alone. Living with strangers, working with strangers where you simply trust that they have mutual respect for you. Even if you’re around the same familiar people, they may become a little too comfortable and move the boundaries without you noticing until bam! You have no breathing space.

I now recognise I must not be afraid of my own anger, in fact I must make friends with it. Why? Because it keeps me safe. Not just physically safe but mentally and emotionally. It is only within safety and peace that we can focus on things outside of our survival. Creativity. Aesthetics. Laughter. Healing. Fun. That is what safety affords us. And the monster kindly hands them over in passionate punches once you embrace him/her.

This is just a metaphor of course. Jordan Peterson talks about integrating your shadow self. This is the same thing. It’s important in order to be a full and healthy human.

If you’re an adult good girl, it’s probably time you realised that in order to grow up you have to lose that naivety. You’re smarter than that. Nobody is coming to save you, not every time at least. At some point you’re going to have to stand up for yourself and get a bit angry. Feed the monster from time to time. He keeps you safe.

And here’s a better question; when exactly did you agree you had to be good?