Good and Mad

This 2018 release had particularly good timing: By the end of the previous year, the #MeToo movement had exploded into a global phenomenon and women the world over were pissed. I was one of them, and I was doing a lot of soul-searching about the growing rage inside of me.

Good and Mad helped me understand the broader context of what I was feeling: why and how women have been taught that anger is unbecoming and unacceptable, how society holds us to that standard, and how some brave women—like Mamie Till—have turned this reality into an opportunity to create… show more.

I inhaled this non-fiction book like a fever dream.

It pulled together the boiling cauldron of the #MeToo movement with such brilliance and clarity that I felt like Traister had taken me by the hand and flicked on the lights.

It also reframed female anger for me, as an emotion that society shames women for and that we have been conditioned to silence and dislike within ourselves.

That all may sound incendiary and to a point it is, but the book is also eminently readable, and I’ve handed it to many men, who’ve read it reluctantly but come back to… show more.

I have started joking that I want to title my next book In Praise of Old Hags and Battle Axes because I think it is so vital that we challenge stereotypes about older women and about women who get mad. We women have a lot to be mad about right now, and many of us are thinking about how to channel our anger for good. Rebecca Traister’s Good and Mad puts our complicated feelings about angry women in historical perspective and reminds us of the political and cultural power of angry women. Plus, Traister is one of my very favorite… show more.

The name of this book alone tells us what we need to know. And the timing was inspired; it came out during 2018, where women’s anger was making headlines. This book takes a step back, examining the political history of women’s anger in the last century. I particularly loved the analysis of how women’s anger is belittled and defused compared to men’s anger, how our anger is perceived differently based on race and class, and how it’s often turned inward and towards other women. It’s a complicated and infuriating book. But also one that reminds us that our fury is… show more.