Are women getting angrier?

[Bosebeau]

The BBC have published an article about rising anger and stress levels in women…as if this is news!

Yes I am angry. I am angry that equality means I get out to go and have a job whilst still having to pick up most of the domestic work at home. I am angry that I pay most of the bills, but still have to be the one who organises Christmas, birthdays, the weekly food shop and even pull the damn blinds every morning.

I am angry that when I bring it up with my partner I am told “just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it”….you’re 40 fucking years old, the floor is dirty you shouldn’t need to be told to put the hoover round.

Im angry that the washing basket is overflowing with his clothes because they haven’t been washed in 5 weeks, but I’ve stopped doing his washing to see at what point he notices.

bloody hell BBC.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-63874001

I’m bloody angry.

I made another post about this already but..

Im angry womens rights are seen as secondary. Where were the footballers in Qatar falling over themselves to wear armbands to support the women subject to flogging and stoning if they were raped?

Wheres the outcry over 4-6% of women having ptsd from childbirth yet are just told be happy

Women being killed over what they wear or don’t wear

Women being told to shut up if the express they don’t want to strip naked next to a random male bodies person

Women being told they don’t have autonomy over their own bodies

women being subject to ridicule in the name of “entertainment”

Women being silenced over the mutilation and drugging of children

Women being put at risk in hospitals and prisons and shouted down if they are raped

women having hard fought for rights hijacked

Womens appalling healthcare eg re endometriosis and menopause

The more we are silenced the louder our voices should get.

We need to turn our anger into action.

No.

I think you should just be angry at yourself for choosing such a poor partner.

Just the usual amount of anger over here, same as it ever was, in fact maybe less as I get older

Exactly this. Can people not see what is happening to women? Usually trying to tell us stop being angry about being fucked over just be kind to the person trying to screw you. The whole narrative is focused on the subservience of women to men (however they identify)

I think women have always been angry about these things but until recently they didn’t feel they had permission to be angry.

Historically it was channeled into subservience, low self esteem, competitiveness against other women for marginal perceived advantages in status and various other toxic and self sabotaging behaviours.

I am glad women are now beginning to allow themselves to feel angry and I hope we can start to channel it.

Yes I am angry about the way women are treated in society. I do have a great partner though…

OP you can solve your immediate anger by getting rid of your lazy man.

I’m not angry

But there are various things I want to take a stand against - erasure of sex based rights mostly, I’ll keep pushing back on that

Yes, start making the changes at home. No woman should be subservient to a man’s laziness. I’m lucky with my DH but then it’s not luck it’s choosing wisely one who knows where the iron and vacuum clear live and operate them just as well as me

Of course we're fucking angry. No idea who said "if you're not angry you're not paying attention" but they were right. I'm angry about:

Male violence against women and girls
ingrained misogyny and sexism including in the NHS, the police, the government
Rape used as a weapon, youngest being 4 and oldest being 85 as recently reported
The fact that we still don't have gender pay equality.
Men like Putin being in power, nobody doing anything about it
TRAs trying to redefine and reclaim the word "woman"
Men in women's spaces, including sport, prisons, toilets
Women taking the burden of tedious unpaid domestic work and childcare
My daughter routinely being harassed in the street and everywhere
The fact that most women I know have experienced rape or sexual assault

and a million other things but I have to work to earn a living so I can't think of them right now

I also want to add that I'm angry about Roe V Wade and about men telling women what to do with their bodies.

I am angry that so much is expected from us as women. There's such a telling sentence in that article - "You see the men relax, going to a tea shop, having a smoke. And you find the women hurrying to the bus or train station"
This happens so often the world over. Men getting time to relax, indulge in their hobbies, game or kick back to watch sporting events while partners are juggling chores, kids and jobs.
And then there's the lack of support, or worse, negative interaction, from those we know, the wider society, the political system and so on.
Many women are strong enough to carry on and do what need to be done, but often, there's a breaking point.

No, I don't think so, not in RL. On forums where we are invited to share, such as threads like this, you can get that impression for obvious reasons. But in reality most women may be slightly or even greatly irritated at times by the things you describe, but otherwise just accept it and balance it off against the actual or percieved positives in their lives and relationships.
I work with women who have suffered some of the worst types of abuse and exploitation you can imagine, yet anger is surprisingly rare, and where it exists is directed towards the perpetrator, not towards systemic or attitudal unfairness. Far more common is a heightened gratitude for even the lowest level of support.
The problem is, anger can often only be felt from a position of relative privilege and entitlement. Many women simply don't have the head space or confidence to think that way. Far too busy fire fighting and not sufficiently aware of their worth to believe they deserve more.

I'm not angry about my domestic situation. That's pretty equal. I am fucking raging about misogyny out in the wider world. VAWG. The gender (sex) pay gap. Men telling women what they should wear and what they should do with their bodies. People tiptoeing around entitled men claiming women's spaces so they are not offended. The whole bloody lot can just fuck the fuck off.

Yes, OP should be constantly telling her husband what is in front of him, poor man being expected to use his observation skills when OP could be gently guiding him to do the his laundry and tidy up.

I’m angry too. Not just at particular men but at the whole bloody system. It’s not the OP’s fault for “failing to communicate with her partner”. 🙄 It’s bloody systematic.

Motherhood is much more pressurised nowadays. Looking at DH in his fifties, he left home at 17...as a kid he'd go out and hang out with his friends. Now parents have to organise endless playdates rather than just opening the front door and letting their kids out for the day. Taxi them to endless activities. Schools piling on the pressure of endless projects, dress up days, charity events etc. No more just send your kid to school and that's that. They become adults at 18 but your job of parenting is nowhere near finished.

YANBU. Even in the most harmonious relationships I know, the woman carried the majority of the family workload.

If they work then they end up more burdened.

If they don't, they end up with less financial freedom which results in disempowerment.

I would be surprised if anyone could honestly say women are treated equally. They're not.

Personally I feel women probably naturally do a better job with their family and home than men (tend to be more maternal and organised) but that should be valued more. Women should get better ringfenced benefits/pensions to enable them to stay financially independent while cutting work hours.

The option should be there for men too, but from what I've seen, I do think women do a better job with younger children at least.

Historically it was channeled into subservience, low self esteem, competitiveness against other women for marginal perceived advantages in status and various other toxic and self sabotaging behaviours.

It was/is also medicated away - the level of prescribing anti depressants to women is ridiculous. I was told by my former GP that lots of women take a pill to get through the day when I was struggling with horrendous bullying at work. Valium often went by the name “mothers little helper”. If we can’t beat women into subservience we’ll medicate them away.

Motherhood is much more pressurised nowadays. Looking at DH in his fifties, he left home at 17...as a kid he'd go out and hang out with his friends. Now parents have to organise endless playdates rather than just opening the front door and letting their kids out for the day. Taxi them to endless activities. Schools piling on the pressure of endless projects, dress up days, charity events etc. No more just send your kid to school and that's that. They become adults at 18 but your job of parenting is nowhere near finished.

I think your first word is part of the issue - motherhood rather than parenthood, most men I know simply don’t sign up to endless play dates, taxi services, dress up days, school coffee mornings etc. Women are constantly expected to put children first and in the process accept endless demands on their time.

And to “communicate better” with their men to get them to do the very basics. Is there anything that isn’t a woman’s job?

The problem is, anger can often only be felt from a position of relative privilege and entitlement. Many women simply don't have the head space or confidence to think that way. Far too busy fire fighting and not sufficiently aware of their worth to believe they deserve more.

Totally agree. So many women who have been indoctrinated by men to believe that they need to conform to male standards in terms of looks and behaviour, to have low aspirations regarding professional attainment and pay, and that they are doing women a favour by 'letting' them have children...... whose care is then seen as the almost sole responsibility of the mother.

And when women get fed up and leave, they are financially shafted and their prospects continue to be blighted because of childcare responsibilities. And they end up poor in old age because they never had the high earning jobs and continuous employment that would have allowed them to build up decent pensions.

Not all women, of course, but too many. And sadly it's still happening today. I cannot see much evidence that the lives of today's young women might be significantly different.

Mumsnet proves this to be the case ;)

Re my marriage- no, my husband is wonderful.
Re what's going on in the world- absolutely furious. I kinda gave up, kinda found my own place in all this.

Move the dirty laundry into the garage/shed? And just stop doing things? I.e. don't organise Christmas. There was a post a while back where the person had just had enough, locked herself in her room and went on strike basically. Only emerged to make herself food/ drinks. I wonder how it all ended up.

The older I get the more I rage. Once you see the inherent sexism that underpins all our lives it’s very hard to turn off that outrage.

I didn’t click the link sorry, but have they written an article about why men are angry? Because they are still overwhelmingly more violent and murderous than women. Why don’t they focus on the men behaving badly then they might see why women are angry.

I've been angry all my life. However, most of my anger has been pretty poisonous/destructive, stemming from childhood abuse and trauma.
So, I know the dark side of anger far too intimately.
However, since having my DC, I've felt a different, more righteous anger, if that makes sense.
I'm angry that my ex-husband chose drugs, other women and his own selfish desires over all his children (angry with myself for not realising until too late that he was taking drugs).
I'm angry with my children's paternal family for making fuck all effort with my DC (my bio family are dead).
I'm angry that it's taken me 2.5 years to get those around me (friends, my children's father AND the GP) to take my very valid opinion around my daughters' Neurodivergency seriously.
I'm angry that I've made such a fucking mess of my life.
I'm angry that I spent most of my life thinking that I was only valuable as a Vulva with a Voice (I was treated like a piece of meat by innumerable men over the years). I'm angry with myself for valuing myself so very little.
I'm angry at men who subjugate women and invalidate our very real concerns and opinions about the world around us.
I'm angry that, as women, we are damned if we do, damned if we don't, whatever our path in life.
Yeah, I'm angry. And, I need to stay angry about injustices in the world, but stop the shadow side of anger consuming me.
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