Speaker 1: Hi, this is Annie, and you're listening to stuff Mom
Speaker 1: never told you. And today we're rerunning a classic that
Speaker 1: has it's been top of mind for me recently, and
Speaker 1: it is about anchor and in particular, angry women and
Speaker 1: how we perceive angry women. And I think I've mentioned
Speaker 1: in passing a couple of times on the show. I
Speaker 1: have always, always, always had trouble expressing anger. I go
Speaker 1: from one, two, and eleven, and the eleven is very rare,
Speaker 1: but it is probably far more than whatever situation, whatever
Speaker 1: it warrants. I do not have a healthy in between.
Speaker 1: And this is because of my family. My dad very
Speaker 1: much not let me express negative emotions. But also I
Speaker 1: think society at large is extremely uncomfortable with women expressing anger,
Speaker 1: and we penalize women for expressing anger. I have trouble
Speaker 1: even raising my voice to the point that sometimes I'm
Speaker 1: concerned I wouldn't be able to and if this situation,
Speaker 1: if I really needed to um. The subject of women
Speaker 1: in anger has been in the news a lot lately,
Speaker 1: starting with the onslaught of furious women after the American election.
Speaker 1: You've got Anti magazine, the whole thing around, Serena Williams
Speaker 1: and then I'm sure a lot of you saw recently
Speaker 1: the testimony of Brett Kavanaugh UM compared to Dr Christine
Speaker 1: blasie Ford and how he was a crying, screaming rage monster. UM.
Speaker 1: And as this episode will will delve into, angry men
Speaker 1: are often seemed as more comp tent and taken more seriously,
Speaker 1: whereas angry women are seen as more emotional and less competent,
Speaker 1: which is infuriating. UM. I have I have gotten more comfortable,
Speaker 1: especially recently, because there's so much, so many things that
Speaker 1: make me angry, expressing anger and accepting my anger and
Speaker 1: not being as afraid of it. But it is, it
Speaker 1: is sort of a constant battle, and there there is
Speaker 1: this tight rope of knowing how angry women are perceived.
Speaker 1: But I think that more and more of us are
Speaker 1: starting to accept our anger, and I think it it
Speaker 1: is powerful, and it is pushing. It's pushing a lot
Speaker 1: of us to do to run for political office, to
Speaker 1: to fight against all of these these injustices that we see. UM.
Speaker 1: So I hope that you enjoy this classic, find it
Speaker 1: useful if if you've been struggling to deal with your
Speaker 1: anger or find your anger. I hope it helps you
Speaker 1: do that as well. Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told
Speaker 1: You from how Stuffworks dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristin Kristen. I was
Speaker 1: talking to a group of young women are our age,
Speaker 1: young young ladies who were discussing the topic of anger,
Speaker 1: women in anger, and we we sort of got on
Speaker 1: the topic because one one of the women was saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I've just been feeling so angry lately, and
Speaker 1: not at a person or at a thing, or just
Speaker 1: with road rage, but just sort of bubbling over with
Speaker 1: anger in general. Does anyone else feel this way? And
Speaker 1: how can I combat it? And I came back with,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, lady, I actually feel the same way.
Speaker 1: And I didn't really want to talk about it, because,
Speaker 1: you know, nobody wants to seem like an negative Nancy.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to come off as some really negative, angry person,
Speaker 1: especially with all of the different types of research that
Speaker 1: have been done on how women are perceived when they're
Speaker 1: angry versus men. You could do, you could get into
Speaker 1: a whole thing with it, which we will. But so
Speaker 1: I thought it would be a great topic to look into.
Speaker 1: But as I was doing some research. As Kristin and
Speaker 1: I were researching, we really did not find anything that
Speaker 1: jumped out at us as far as a trend piece
Speaker 1: or anything about women in our generation experiencing more anger,
Speaker 1: less anger, different anger than women in the past have. Right,
Speaker 1: there's some scientific research that will get into into the
Speaker 1: biological sex differences and some socialization factors that get into that, um,
Speaker 1: but there wasn't that much digging into culturally this idea
Speaker 1: of the angry woman, and especially how you know, if
Speaker 1: you think of out um in feminist circles, how often
Speaker 1: are women liberal women criticize this angry feminists and it's
Speaker 1: such a bad thing if we're angry. And then there's
Speaker 1: also the trip going beyond all of this, of say
Speaker 1: the angry black woman, where it's like, oh, be careful
Speaker 1: not to rile her because you'll just spiral right out
Speaker 1: of control. Um, So let's let's get into this anger
Speaker 1: and maybe circle back to anger in adult women. Because yeah,
Speaker 1: similar to you, Caroline, I was really surprised at the
Speaker 1: gap of like, hey, where are the angry women? Do
Speaker 1: you just not want to talk about it? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean I am surprised just because I feel like
Speaker 1: there are a lot of things today with our generation
Speaker 1: and where we are as far as in the workplace
Speaker 1: and trying to I mean, how many articles have been
Speaker 1: written about women trying to balance everything in their lives,
Speaker 1: but where are the articles about like how that actually
Speaker 1: can make us feel. Yeah, So let's from a very
Speaker 1: basic point of what is anger? I mean, I think
Speaker 1: everybody knows the feeling of anger and the effects of anger,
Speaker 1: but scientifically speaking, anger is an emotional state that consists
Speaker 1: of feelings of irritation, annoyance, fury, or rage, and heightened
Speaker 1: activation or arousal of the autonomic nervous system. Right, so
Speaker 1: where does anger come from? When does it jump up
Speaker 1: in our system? Usually anger results either from violations of
Speaker 1: expectations that we have or blocking our goals, and it
Speaker 1: sparks in the brain so quickly it takes the brain
Speaker 1: lesten too seconds to process anger, and it activates the amygdala,
Speaker 1: the frontal lobe, which is our seat of reasoning, our
Speaker 1: fight or flight response. And and thankfully there's a hormone
Speaker 1: called a seat of coline that once our anger starts
Speaker 1: to ebb, it brings us back down from the edge
Speaker 1: of the cliff. Oh and even just thinking about that
Speaker 1: physiological feeling of anger is making me tense. Well, I
Speaker 1: wonder if that's what's going on when I'm in traffic.
Speaker 1: I've been doing so ever since I got back from vacation,
Speaker 1: I have been trying to do some deep breathing in traffic,
Speaker 1: like anytime anyone cuts me off, because hello, it's Atlanta.
Speaker 1: So it happens every two seconds. Um, I try to
Speaker 1: take that deep breath and I feel that immediate calming sensation.
Speaker 1: So I wonder if that's the hormone or if that's
Speaker 1: just me taking a breath, or maybe just a combination
Speaker 1: of both. Um, And I mean the thing. I don't
Speaker 1: know about you, but for me, anger is sort of
Speaker 1: a frightening emotional reaction because it feels so uncontrollable. And
Speaker 1: maybe it's because it's considered a primitive human reaction, right.
Speaker 1: Rich pifer Is, the president of the National Anger Management Association,
Speaker 1: wrote that anger activates the primitive human brain referred to
Speaker 1: as the limbic system, which is automatic and impulsive. And
Speaker 1: this is going off of something that T. D. Kim
Speaker 1: per road in nine seven, basically saying that anger has
Speaker 1: actual evolutionary value. It's been with us forever. It's present
Speaker 1: in our early life as children. It has cross cultural
Speaker 1: universality and has differentiated autonomic patterns in our brains from
Speaker 1: other emotions. Yeah, it's so very distinct and so very common.
Speaker 1: Some surveys find that Americans report feeling anger one to
Speaker 1: two days per week. But I mean there are also
Speaker 1: some sites that say that up to a third of us,
Speaker 1: I think, report feeling angry every single day. I have
Speaker 1: those weeks, Yeah, it happens. Sometimes those are not good weeks. No,
Speaker 1: not good weeks. That's when you bring out the box
Speaker 1: of wine. But the interesting thing about anger too, when
Speaker 1: you think about it from an emotional standpoint, is that
Speaker 1: it's a very social emotion. A lot of times, if
Speaker 1: you're just sitting in a room by yourself, you know,
Speaker 1: not on the internet, just just hanging out, anger is
Speaker 1: not going to be all of that present. Probably it's
Speaker 1: usually when other people get involved that anger tends to
Speaker 1: spark more often. Right. Scott Shiman, who is from the
Speaker 1: University of Toronto and wrote the anger chapter in the
Speaker 1: Handbook of the Sociology of Emotions, which I would love
Speaker 1: to go back and read about the other emotions, UH,
Speaker 1: talks about the fact that common elicitors of anger include
Speaker 1: perceived or actual insult, injustice, betrayal, in equity, unfairness, goal impediments,
Speaker 1: the incompetent actions of another which is pretty much why
Speaker 1: I'm angry all the time, um and being the target
Speaker 1: of another person's verbal or physical aggression. And the big
Speaker 1: reason for anger is actions that threaten an individual's self concept, identity,
Speaker 1: or public image. So again we see those common themes
Speaker 1: coming up over and over again of expectations being violated,
Speaker 1: control factors, other people coming in the way of what
Speaker 1: we need to get done. And so no wonder anger
Speaker 1: arises quite often at the workplace as a result of marriage, relationships, parenting,
Speaker 1: and so forth. Whenever you're getting all those people in
Speaker 1: a room together, I'm going to get angry, right, And
Speaker 1: I mean that's not even mentioning or going into like
Speaker 1: the gender and power divides yet. I mean, of you know,
Speaker 1: all of those multifaceted aspects of the workplace, of marriage, relationships.
Speaker 1: But you know, while anger can be definitely negative because
Speaker 1: you know, excessive anger does affect your mental and physical health,
Speaker 1: there are positive aspects of it. I mean, to a degree,
Speaker 1: it can help motivate you sure. I mean, when you
Speaker 1: feel so angry, it can push you forward to finding
Speaker 1: a solution, right exactly. That's actually I mean, anger is
Speaker 1: sort of kind of what drove me to leave my
Speaker 1: newspaper job. I mean, you know, I just got I
Speaker 1: just got one more email. I just got one more
Speaker 1: terrible office space kind of email that and then I
Speaker 1: was done. Well. Also, I mean so in addition to
Speaker 1: motivating you to possibly improve your situation, anger can also
Speaker 1: increase your sense of control. I mean, how many times
Speaker 1: have you experienced, maybe not like super excessive negative anger,
Speaker 1: but like a degree of anger that makes you think,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to do something about this today.
Speaker 1: Then that is very positive. Yeah. I remember distinctly when
Speaker 1: I was probably sixteen seventeen years old in high school
Speaker 1: and the first time that I got mad at my parents.
Speaker 1: I mean, granted it was this, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: a teen rebellion acting out sort of thing, but I
Speaker 1: got angry, and I got loud, and I felt that
Speaker 1: sense of control for the first time of saying, oh
Speaker 1: I own this room now, and I'm being very angry, okay,
Speaker 1: And it was I'm sure it was a nightmare for
Speaker 1: my parents at the time. But yeah, there was that
Speaker 1: distinct feeling of like I'm gonna, oh, I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: this well. But that is a feeling I think that
Speaker 1: maybe you know we're about to get into gender issues here.
Speaker 1: That feeling of like taking control, I think is what
Speaker 1: a lot of women feel uncomfortable with. Absolutely. Um, it's
Speaker 1: interesting when you look at how common anger might be
Speaker 1: between men and women. It's not so different. It's not
Speaker 1: that men are angrier than women are vice versa. The
Speaker 1: difference between anger and men and women really comes down
Speaker 1: to the way that we experience it. So our gender,
Speaker 1: our sex affects how we perceive anger, ours and others,
Speaker 1: whether it's positive or negative, but also how we express it. Now,
Speaker 1: stereotypes that were all very familiar with about emotions say
Speaker 1: that women have less self control with emotions, whereas men
Speaker 1: are more buttoned up. You know, women were always like
Speaker 1: weeping and asking for chocolate and crying on our best
Speaker 1: friend's shoulder, and men, you know, they man up and
Speaker 1: they're they're all tough. But Shiman, who we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: says that anger might be the exception to that emotion stereotype. Yes,
Speaker 1: definitely considered a male masculine emotion, and so perhaps men
Speaker 1: are more comfortable with expressing anger. And there are often
Speaker 1: these gender scripts that helped shape emotional regulation, and that
Speaker 1: women are expected to not show their anger or else
Speaker 1: risk being labeled as hostile, neurotic, or unladylike, whereas men
Speaker 1: and boys are expected to be overt. No, you know,
Speaker 1: to Tiger, that's my impression of an angry man. You
Speaker 1: didn't get it, um. And there are some interesting studies
Speaker 1: that have been done looking at how we perceive the
Speaker 1: an angry emotion on someone's face. And there was one
Speaker 1: that showed people just androgynous faces, not particularly masculine or feminine,
Speaker 1: and people rated those faces that had angry expressions on
Speaker 1: them as mass skill in and those depicting sadness or
Speaker 1: happiness as feminine. And so no wonder, Caroline. Feminists are
Speaker 1: so often labeled as just angry as an insult, because
Speaker 1: our outright expression of anger is a direct violation of
Speaker 1: gender norms. Interesting, it's daring to be angry, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: just like you did. No, I know, like, well, that's
Speaker 1: kind of the bad side of anger. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure whatever I was arguing, I don't even remember
Speaker 1: what I was arguing with my parents about but I'm
Speaker 1: sure it was something along the lines of me wanting
Speaker 1: to stay out later than I should have. Well, darnet dad,
Speaker 1: gummit dad, gum it um Well. So, I mean, we
Speaker 1: have these gender stereotypes, but it's not like we don't
Speaker 1: act according to them. Men do tend to be aggressive
Speaker 1: and impulsive, and Dr Raymond Giesseppi found that men actually
Speaker 1: had more of a revenge motive to their anger, so
Speaker 1: they're they're pretty driven in their anger, whereas when women
Speaker 1: are angry, we talk more about our feelings and stay
Speaker 1: angry longer. We are more resentful and more likely to
Speaker 1: just write off another person because they've made us mad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And when I read that, it totally resonated with me,
Speaker 1: because you know, I've seen this happen. I may or
Speaker 1: may not have been guilty of at least making that
Speaker 1: threat in anger of like, well, you know, you'll just
Speaker 1: be gone. I just don't have to deal with you anymore.
Speaker 1: And in my mind, that kind of anger of just
Speaker 1: eliminating a person writing somebody off to me, that's far
Speaker 1: more powerful than throwing a punch or just yelling and
Speaker 1: stomping out. I've done it. I wonder if it's because
Speaker 1: like we watch so much Oprah where they talk about
Speaker 1: toxic people, you know, like cutting toxic people out of
Speaker 1: your life. But I've done it. I mean I think, Okay,
Speaker 1: have people done it in an overreacting way? Yeah, probably,
Speaker 1: but it does It does feel good when someone's making
Speaker 1: you angry and you have that realization of like, oh,
Speaker 1: but you make me angry all the time that when
Speaker 1: you finally do write that person off, I mean, maybe
Speaker 1: you're not as angry anymore. And you know what that
Speaker 1: circles back to is increasing that sense of control. There
Speaker 1: you go, because you're like, oh wait, I actually don't
Speaker 1: have to deal with you. Maybe we should table toxic
Speaker 1: people for another one. Not to say that it's always
Speaker 1: you know that people are always deserving of being written
Speaker 1: off any who. How Um, there was an interesting study
Speaker 1: though that was conducted, so it's a little bit dated,
Speaker 1: but it was one of the first groundbreaking looks at
Speaker 1: where women's anger tends to stem from. And it was
Speaker 1: conducted by psychologist Sandra Thomas, and she identified three major
Speaker 1: roots of women's anger, which speaks volumes about these gender
Speaker 1: dynamics because it's powerlessness injustice and the irresponsibility of other people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so give us equality in the workplace and put your
Speaker 1: dishes away. That's right, Yeah, there you go. But I'm
Speaker 1: seriously like, I'm not trying to be glib. When I
Speaker 1: read irresponsible city of other people, I was like, I know, right,
Speaker 1: would people just clean up after themselves? It would be
Speaker 1: it would be nice anyway, So moving on now. There
Speaker 1: was a study publishing the journal Aggressive Behavior published in
Speaker 1: February two thousand and six that looked at differences in
Speaker 1: anger provoking behaviors and verbal insults, and it found that
Speaker 1: men were more likely to consider sort of physical things
Speaker 1: as anger provoking. Uh and in the examples given in
Speaker 1: the study, those were women exhibiting physical aggression or a
Speaker 1: man hurting another person um, whereas women were more likely
Speaker 1: to mention condescending or insensitive behaviors regardless of whether it's
Speaker 1: coming from a man or a woman, along with verbal
Speaker 1: aggression as being more anger provoking. I mean. And of
Speaker 1: course they also found physical aggression to trigger the anger,
Speaker 1: but the verbal stuff and the more behavioral stuff came
Speaker 1: into play a lot more for women. And also for women,
Speaker 1: one of the big differences was accusations of promiscuity. Uh
Speaker 1: old split shaming. Hey, what's up? Yeah, no, wonder it
Speaker 1: makes it makes us angry. Um. Dishonesty just just dishonesty,
Speaker 1: plane and simple provoked more anger when coming from a woman.
Speaker 1: Huh oh lying women, lying women? Interesting? Um. One thing?
Speaker 1: You know, we we we talked about gender divides in
Speaker 1: the workplace a lot, and you know, anger is no different.
Speaker 1: It's something that people experience at work. Um Uh. Studying
Speaker 1: psychological science from March two thousand eight found that men
Speaker 1: benefit straight out benefit from anger at work, whereas women
Speaker 1: do not. Um. Men who expressed anger in a professional
Speaker 1: context were conferred higher status than men who expressed sadness.
Speaker 1: So there we have this gender norms anger is a
Speaker 1: normal masculine emotion, where a sadness is considered more feminine. Um.
Speaker 1: Both men and women conferred lower status on angry female
Speaker 1: professionals than male It was just totally not surprising whatsoever,
Speaker 1: because if you already have a woman in more of
Speaker 1: a leadership position, she's already at social risk from having
Speaker 1: violated those those forms of climbing up the ladder, and
Speaker 1: then to show anger on top of that, well, she's
Speaker 1: just going to be considered a shrew r. One thing
Speaker 1: that I thought was really interesting about this study, though,
Speaker 1: was that women's emotional reactions were attributed to internal characteristics
Speaker 1: their p m s NG again, whereas men's were attributed
Speaker 1: to external circumstances. So obviously, if a woman is expressing
Speaker 1: a masculine emotion like anger, you know, she's got to
Speaker 1: be like, you know, her her uterus is floating around
Speaker 1: her body, whereas men probably have a legitimate reason yeah
Speaker 1: you know, the shipment didn't come, that didn't come in
Speaker 1: on time or something. But there was an equalizer with
Speaker 1: all of this. They found that providing an external attribution
Speaker 1: for the person's anger eliminated gender bias. So if you're
Speaker 1: able to basically say, oh, okay, well our stock price
Speaker 1: plummeted today, so that's why he or she is angry,
Speaker 1: then everyone's like okay, right. But yeah, So that I mean,
Speaker 1: that is something important to keep in mind, whether you're
Speaker 1: a man or a woman. At work, people are making
Speaker 1: really big assumptions about you when you act a certain way.
Speaker 1: Although I will say, I mean, you know, while this
Speaker 1: study says that men benefit from anger at work, I
Speaker 1: imagine that's to a point sure. I mean if you're
Speaker 1: hitting people and like flipping over desks and creating a
Speaker 1: toxic environment, correct, and then I would just write you off.
Speaker 1: That's right, because I'm ruthless. I mean to write you
Speaker 1: off and march straight to the unemployment office. I'll show you. Um.
Speaker 1: But let's circle back to to this idea that women
Speaker 1: might hold in our anger, stay angrier longer even though
Speaker 1: we might be quieter, because this might be leading to
Speaker 1: a higher rate of internalizing disorders. Right. This is coming
Speaker 1: from psychologists Susan Nolan Hoax Sima and Cheryl L. Rusting,
Speaker 1: who found that women show higher rates for all mood
Speaker 1: and anxiety disorders except importantly enough manic episodes uh and
Speaker 1: that includes depression, and they report feeling more shame, sadness, guilt,
Speaker 1: and fear, whereas externalizing disorders, things like antisocial personality disorder
Speaker 1: and substance use disorders are diagnosed more often in men.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to self reporting, women yet again
Speaker 1: reported just as much anger and hostility as men. So again,
Speaker 1: we're expressing it, we're experiencing it, probably differently, and so
Speaker 1: the inconsistency in these findings could be related to the
Speaker 1: gender differences that elicit anger, and that we're more likely
Speaker 1: to feel shame and sadness. Oh man, that's depressing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I feel like it's kind of a minefield.
Speaker 1: Not only are we kind of discouraged from feeling or
Speaker 1: expressing anger, but if we do, I feel like we're
Speaker 1: more likely to be guilty about it and and ashamed
Speaker 1: of our strong masculine emotion. Oh yeah. If I if
Speaker 1: I let my temper flare and I lowed to another
Speaker 1: person about it, try to put this delicately, I feel
Speaker 1: incredibly guilty. It's like a it's a cycle. I can
Speaker 1: predict it almost down to the minute. Well I can't.
Speaker 1: All right, maybe this says something bad about me. I
Speaker 1: can't say that when I get actually angry, not just
Speaker 1: annoyed or whatever. When I get actually angry, I can't
Speaker 1: say that I feel guilty about it. But I do.
Speaker 1: It just poisons like the next several hours for me. Right,
Speaker 1: I guess it's more. I don't feel guilty about feeling angry.
Speaker 1: I get I feel guilty if I express it to
Speaker 1: the target of that anger. Because Mavos Caroline can get loud,
Speaker 1: I'm a yeller. Well, I um just drop a lot
Speaker 1: of F bombs, like uncontrollably. Now, I'm like, I had
Speaker 1: a day a couple last week, a day where I
Speaker 1: just seriously, like, let loose a string of F bombs
Speaker 1: and I couldn't even control it. Like I couldn't even
Speaker 1: It's not like I was making a conscious effort to
Speaker 1: say F this and F that and F that guy
Speaker 1: and screw this, and no, I was just I think,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I blacked out for a second. I
Speaker 1: came to and I was like, man, I said a
Speaker 1: lot of F bombs, but I've got to go do
Speaker 1: work now. So well, and then you realize you were
Speaker 1: live on television. Oh you've been Ashton Kutcher this whole time.
Speaker 1: Uh No, But seriously, a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: this uh this research has been resonating a lot with
Speaker 1: my own personal patterns of anger and even just talking
Speaker 1: publicly about being angry. I'm not calling myself an angry person,
Speaker 1: but even just acknowledging to the world that I experience
Speaker 1: and express anger sometimes I'm feeling uncomfortable. Yeah yeah, uh,
Speaker 1: I guess I think that speaks to our identities are personal,
Speaker 1: our personal identities, how we think of ourselves, and also
Speaker 1: how we want to portray ourselves to other people. It
Speaker 1: feels very vulnerable just to speak honestly about it. But
Speaker 1: maybe perhaps could it get better as as we get older.
Speaker 1: Maybe we're just young and crazy and you know, just
Speaker 1: fiery women and anger will just kind of chill out
Speaker 1: as we get older. Um. Maybe, but probably not. Most
Speaker 1: studies have shown, honestly that if you're a fiery angry
Speaker 1: twenty something, you're going to be a fiery angry sixty something.
Speaker 1: Oh well, and there was also this I'll be curious
Speaker 1: here from any listeners to fit this demo whether this
Speaker 1: rings true to you. Sandra Thomas at UT Knoxville did
Speaker 1: a study in January two two, and she found that
Speaker 1: women in their forties scored significantly higher on anger at
Speaker 1: work than women of other ages, and their scores were
Speaker 1: twice as high as men in their forties. I wonder, though,
Speaker 1: This is my pet theory, is that women in their forties,
Speaker 1: if you have a job, you're probably also taking care
Speaker 1: of kids. There's the imbalance a lot of times of
Speaker 1: the housework. Yeah, you might, you might be a bit angrier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I absolutely I thought the same thing when I read that. Um,
Speaker 1: But as far as Kristen, raising our voices and expressing
Speaker 1: anger to other people, You're in the majority, um. They
Speaker 1: found in this study. As Thomas found in the study
Speaker 1: that UM, there were significant age differences for the propensity
Speaker 1: to overtly express anger. Women in their twenties and thirties
Speaker 1: had the highest mean score on the total expressed anger scale,
Speaker 1: leading Thomas to ask whether we're seeing a weakening of
Speaker 1: traditional gender role socialization. So basically, uh, women are becoming
Speaker 1: more expressive of anger more often. Yeah, there was speaking
Speaker 1: of which a very flimsy daily mail, Yes, the Daily
Speaker 1: Fail story that we found on how young girls are
Speaker 1: fighting and becoming you know, these rambunctious young women and
Speaker 1: so we must be angry and crazy. Now what what
Speaker 1: what to do about it? Which I don't even know
Speaker 1: if it's worth siding. Yeah. I just thought it was
Speaker 1: funny because in all of this was actual academic research
Speaker 1: about anger and how we expressed that according to our
Speaker 1: gender norms. Um, there's like, hey, girls getting bar fights
Speaker 1: now that means equality, right or something? No, moving on,
Speaker 1: So how do we manage all this anger? We we
Speaker 1: both acknowledge that it happens to us. Cooly, it happens
Speaker 1: to other people, and it's this fully physical mental process
Speaker 1: that is natural. It's tolly natural. But we need to
Speaker 1: we need to manage it. How do we do that right? Well,
Speaker 1: there are three basic responses to anger. Those are one expression,
Speaker 1: everything from having a nice, calm discussion to blowing up
Speaker 1: and yelling a lot of F bombs about something that
Speaker 1: didn't go your way. Not that I'm being specific. Suppression,
Speaker 1: which can be holding it in, changing your focus, or
Speaker 1: letting it go. And you would think that letting it
Speaker 1: go could be a good thing, but I would think
Speaker 1: that this refers to like, if somebody keeps harping on
Speaker 1: you or infringing on something and you just continue not
Speaker 1: to deal with it, that could be a bad thing.
Speaker 1: But also let's look at management. That's the third one,
Speaker 1: and that is acknowledging anger as a normal emotion and
Speaker 1: making choices to improve your situation, not just dropping f bombs,
Speaker 1: but actually doing something about it. Yeah, there's some of
Speaker 1: the stuff we read said that venting, like that letting
Speaker 1: your volcano explode, is actually not the best way to
Speaker 1: express yourself. So the Mayo Clinic, for instance, offers a
Speaker 1: number of suggestions on healthy anger may management, which is
Speaker 1: as basic as counting to tend you're taking a time
Speaker 1: out before you react, um, expressing your anger once you're calm,
Speaker 1: so you're not being confrontational. Exercise. That's something I wholeheartedly believe,
Speaker 1: and I've talked before about how yoga essentially keeps me
Speaker 1: saying along with jogging um. Also looking for solutions rather
Speaker 1: than just looking for a target. Yeah. And one important
Speaker 1: thing that I try to remember every time I have
Speaker 1: I try to have a productive conversation with my roommate
Speaker 1: is to use I statements. Try to avoid criticizing and
Speaker 1: replacing blame um. And also this is a hard one,
Speaker 1: I think, but don't hold a grudge. Try to forgive
Speaker 1: and learn from the situation. Also practice relaxation skills things
Speaker 1: like yoga, help, meditation, you know, napping, um. But also
Speaker 1: know when to seek help. For instance, the whole conversation
Speaker 1: that started this topic that we picked. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a point at which you're not just kind of going
Speaker 1: through a funk. Maybe you're not just annoyed with you know,
Speaker 1: traffic or work or whatever. It's it's something that maybe
Speaker 1: has changed or something that has gotten worse over time,
Speaker 1: and maybe you're just now noticing it, so you do
Speaker 1: need to go talk to someone that's perfectly normal and healthy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that point of remembering the anger is a
Speaker 1: normal human emotion that has been with us for millennia
Speaker 1: is really important. It helps you kind of rationalize things
Speaker 1: maybe right heat at the moment. And I absolutely think
Speaker 1: that because when I, like when I took vacation and
Speaker 1: I had a minute to actually think, you know, a
Speaker 1: minute to actually sit and drink coffee and think, you know,
Speaker 1: I did reflect on the things that had made me
Speaker 1: angry in my life and like, Okay, what what's driving
Speaker 1: this like crazy town feeling? And what can I do
Speaker 1: to change that stuff? You know, not just letting it stew.
Speaker 1: Actually give yourself a minute to kind of think about
Speaker 1: why you're having this reaction and and what needs to change.
Speaker 1: Because the thing is not managing your anger and just
Speaker 1: letting it eat away at you is not good for
Speaker 1: your health overall. It's probably not good for your relationships either.
Speaker 1: But just physically speaking, a lot of studies have shown
Speaker 1: how not managing your anger in a positive way is
Speaker 1: possibly worse than the health effects of smoking and obesity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we found a lot of studies from Harvard Um. Most
Speaker 1: of them focused on men, so we'll have to you know, hey,
Speaker 1: listeners out there who do research, could you get on
Speaker 1: this um Harvard found that among men with an average
Speaker 1: age of sixty two, the angriest were three times more
Speaker 1: likely to develop heart disease than the most relaxed. And
Speaker 1: coming from John's Hopkins, a study tracked male medical students
Speaker 1: for thirty six years and found that anger and young
Speaker 1: adulthood emerged as a predictor of premature art disease. Listen
Speaker 1: to this. The angriest students were six times more likely
Speaker 1: to suffer heart attacks by fifty five and three times
Speaker 1: more likely to develop some type of cardiovascular disease. And
Speaker 1: so I can only imagine that the fact that women
Speaker 1: tend to stay angrier longer could have equally dire physical
Speaker 1: consequences as well. I mean, because think about all those
Speaker 1: physiological facets of anger, things like a surge in adrenaline,
Speaker 1: the stress hormone that boost blood pressure and pulse rate,
Speaker 1: increasing the heart's workload and increasing also its need for oxygen.
Speaker 1: Anger actually makes your body work harder, right. It activates platelets,
Speaker 1: those little tiny blood cells that trigger blood clots and
Speaker 1: high anger levels can even provoke a spasm in a
Speaker 1: coronary artery, So it's really not a good idea to
Speaker 1: get angry and stay angry for a long period of time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was one study we found from July two thousand
Speaker 1: three in Psychosomatic Medicine UM, and it suggested that women
Speaker 1: suppressed anger correlated with cardiovascular and cancer related early mortality,
Speaker 1: and so essentially these women were dying sooner, maybe possibly
Speaker 1: related to not expressing that anger. Yeah, so I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I guess I would sum it up by saying that
Speaker 1: you've got to use anger as a catalyst to look
Speaker 1: internally at things that maybe aren't going your way and
Speaker 1: figure out how you can change them or fix them,
Speaker 1: because if you just stay angry, I mean that has
Speaker 1: some pretty direct consequences. And also maybe focusing on how
Speaker 1: anger can be a positive in those ways that we
Speaker 1: noted in terms of being a motivator to find solutions,
Speaker 1: a warning that something might be wrong, that you need
Speaker 1: to adjust something in your life, or increasing that sense
Speaker 1: of control, and perhaps as women circling back to the
Speaker 1: beginning of the conversation with you know women are age
Speaker 1: saying like, you know what I'm angry and I don't
Speaker 1: know why or you know, feminists who are criticized for
Speaker 1: being angry and like the label of anger being sort
Speaker 1: of dangled over women's heads of like, oh, you don't
Speaker 1: want to come across that way, do you, and may
Speaker 1: be saying, you know what, actually, it's totally fine to
Speaker 1: be angry. Yeah, there reasons for it. There are definitely
Speaker 1: reasons for it. We're not talking about being irrationally angry,
Speaker 1: you know, but sure maybe it should be okay more
Speaker 1: okay for women to get angry sometimes. So curious to
Speaker 1: hear what folks have to say about this one. Your
Speaker 1: thoughts on anger expressed kindly? Yeah, don't be angry at us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and now our letters. Okay, well, I have a letter
Speaker 1: here from Elizabeth, who wrote to us about our Bachelor's
Speaker 1: Party episode. She says, I am Mormon, and so are
Speaker 1: my friends who are my bridesmaids, and as such, we
Speaker 1: had a stone cold, sober night out on the town
Speaker 1: in Baltimore. We spent the first part of the day
Speaker 1: shopping and touring the Inner Harbor, followed by a delicious
Speaker 1: dinner and Deserve It at a downtown restaurant. The night
Speaker 1: was finished by going to a dueling piano bar and
Speaker 1: enjoying the spectacular musical talent. I had such a great
Speaker 1: time with all of my girlfriends and never once thought
Speaker 1: I was prude or missing out because I didn't have
Speaker 1: penis whistles, binge drink, or watch a male stripper, et cetera.
Speaker 1: In fact, I firmly believe I hadn't even better time
Speaker 1: because of it. No hangover, less expensive. I remember all
Speaker 1: the good times and it felt very classy and fun.
Speaker 1: I saw the night as a celebration for me and
Speaker 1: the girls of my upcoming nuptials, and as part of
Speaker 1: my thank you for all of their hard work and
Speaker 1: effort supporting me along the way. Just food for thought
Speaker 1: for other women who were turned off by the current
Speaker 1: status quo for bachelorette parties. And then she says thanks
Speaker 1: for the podcast. Hey, you're welcome, and I have been
Speaker 1: listening for a couple of years now and always enjoy
Speaker 1: that it challenges me to think outside my sometimes nearrow
Speaker 1: view of the world. And thank you for sharing your
Speaker 1: view with us. Elizabeth, and I've had a Facebook message
Speaker 1: here from Dana and she was writing about our episode
Speaker 1: on office romances, and she has an interesting story to share.
Speaker 1: She says, I currently work in a male dominated work
Speaker 1: environment of brewing, and I am dating my boss. She said,
Speaker 1: when I was going through this, I was extremely happy
Speaker 1: in my job and extremely attracted to my boss. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to lose my job, blues face, or mess
Speaker 1: up the women in brewing image. I needed guidance. I
Speaker 1: really couldn't find any that suggested that the scenario might
Speaker 1: work out. Ultimately, against the advice of almost everyone I knew,
Speaker 1: I decided to trust myself, and so did he. I
Speaker 1: agree with Caroline that working your way to the top
Speaker 1: using sexuality is despicable. I think these days character determines
Speaker 1: the existence of abuse, exploitation, and inequity in the workplace
Speaker 1: dating dynamic. I don't think the formula male manager plus
Speaker 1: female subordinate necessarily equates to those things. Once my manager
Speaker 1: and I decided that we were falling in rev we
Speaker 1: told the CEO and HR. The response was, Okay, we'll
Speaker 1: make this work. We signed one of those cupid hype
Speaker 1: contracts and have moved forward. It's been a year now
Speaker 1: we lived together and I can still work with him
Speaker 1: as my manager. I think that the CEO's judgment was
Speaker 1: based on this thought that we were good people with integrity.
Speaker 1: Maybe if we were unscrupulous people, he would not have
Speaker 1: trusted us to engage in what it's now pretty much
Speaker 1: against company policy. But the relationship was never casual, so
Speaker 1: perhaps there was inherent respect to rely on. I suppose
Speaker 1: that if it was merely dating, I wouldn't have trusted
Speaker 1: him as much. So, long story short, you can date
Speaker 1: your boss as long as both parties aren't heads. So
Speaker 1: thanks Danta and Elizabeth and everybody else for writing in
Speaker 1: mom Stuff of Discovery dot com is where you can
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