Why I’m angry

I have been saying for years that Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” is one of the best feminist texts. I also think that Virginia Woolf, like all great geniuses, didn’t understand just how wise her words were. In her “Chapter 2,” her elegant pen writes:

“When an arguer argues dispassionately he thinks only of the argument; and the reader cannot help thinking of the argument too. If he had written dispassionately about women, had used indisputable proofs to establish his argument and had shown no trace of wishing that the result should be one thing rather than another, one would not have been angry either. One would have accepted the fact, as one accepts the fact that a pea is green or a canary yellow. So be it, I should have said. But I had been angry because he was angry.”

Being able to argue dispassionately is indeed the best way to get the audience to consider the merit of the argument and not of the orator. And yet, as a feminist, I often found myself getting angrier and angrier during my discussions. The always on-point and smart and hilarious Jessica Valenti recently discussed the anger in a Planned Parenthood luncheon and I agree with her wholeheartedly but after a recent spat with my brother I ended up wondering again about this topic. Here is what I came up with as a response for the next person that asks me, “Why are you so angry?”

I am angry because I was named after a Saint whose worth was based on her being the mother of a father of the Church (a misogynistic one at that). I am angry for all the women considered as cattle and traded or conquered in war. I am angry because Aurelia Cotta, who according to all accounts was an extremely smart and cunning woman, wasn’t allowed the chance of having her name become synonymous of King, nor to give her name to a month. I am angry for all the Beatrices that wanted to be more than “kind and honest” and for the Agnes Wickfields that were tired of being “angels,” I am angry for the many anonymous of the history of literature whose work lives without their identity, I am angry for the Shakespeare’s sisters that never grew up and the Elizabeths I that never got to the throne because of younger brothers. I am angry for women with a gift for oratory that wanted to become priestesses and for all their sermons that we never heard. I am angry for the burned meat of beautiful women that had to be witches and for the possible Jane Austens too busy with houses and children to write. 

I am angry for the hours spent looking outside the window dreaming about events while husbands, sons and brothers shaped them. I am angry for the many warriors and generals that never weren’t. I am angry for the pains due to homemade abortive swills, I am angry for the “lie back and think of England,” I am angry for all the violence sanctioned by a marriage contract. I am angry for the wives repudiated because they didn’t give birth to a male heir. I am angry for the women that were never born, just because they were women. I am angry for the stones launched from those that had done committed the same “sin” but as they had a penis they got to kill instead of being killed. I am angry for the discoveries never made by scientists that didn’t have possibilities, I am angry for the tears shed by those that had a life without having the power to decide over it.

I am angry for all those times in which I have been afraid to walk alone, I am angry for all the “pay attention.” I am angry for all the remarks thrown to those who choose not to gift their freedom to others and dare to pass the limits of the “pay attention.” I am angry for the Batwomen (Bat and not CAT) and the Spiderwomen that were never invented. I am angry for the costumes of those superheroines that were invented. I am angry because Office’s dictionary has no problem with superhero but does not recognize superheroine. I am angry for the Avengers T-Shirts implying that we all need a hero.

I am angry for the “assassins” that have been shouted to women that decided what was best for themselves, I am angry for all the women that have felt judged for the decision taken. I am angry for the word “spinster” and the expressions “half-women” or “mother-in-waiting.” I am angry for all the choirs never sung for female athletes. I am angry for the money not received by women that have the same job as men but have one more chromosome X. I am angry for all the shes swallowed by the hes. For all the Mrs without their surname. I am angry for the bicycle rides that “good women” don’t take in Saudi Arabia. I am angry because a chauvinist can easily be President of a G8 country, a feminist with the same dream can only be laughed at. I am angry for “at the end of the day, women are the ones who rule the world.” I am angry because a woman that reads books written by men is nothing more than a normal reader, a man that dares to read Jane Austen or, God forbid, Virginia Woolf is either whipped or not a real man.

I am angry for all those that have put a finger inside their mouths and those that have faked eating, counting calories obsessively. I am angry for the little girls that diet at 7 years old and for new moms, whose immediate goal should be to lose their baby-weight. I am angry for the “selfish” label attached to women that want to work and for the “cold-bitches” pointed to the CEOs that invoke respect. I am angry for the “boner-shrinker” and the “Monicas” shouted at Hillary Clinton. I am angry for all those guys who think that sexual violence deserves an LOL on the phone. I am angry for the invasive words and looks on the street. I am angry for the “privilege” of being pregnant, for the parking helpers free on the 8th of March. I am angry for all the mirrors that we have received, for those models that never asked to speak. I am angry for the pink that seems to pervade every aspect of our world. I am angry for the detergents and the baby-food and washing-machine ads with women always protagonist, I am angry for the double meaning of the word “femme” in French, for the politically correct people that talk and talk and want everything to stay the same.

I am angry because I know that I won’t be alive to see a world governed by women and it pierces me greatly.

I have been told often in my life that I am not truly emphatic but this rage often on behalf of women that I don’t even know doesn’t seem to fade with time. It’s an ancestral rage.

Maybe at the end of it all, I’m angry because there are many women that aren’t angry enough.