Women's Anger Is A Force For Change And Revolution

Rebecca Traister, a feminist writer and author, is convinced that women's anger has been an essential, yet unrecognized, force for change. In her new book, she not only channels her own anger after the results of the 2016 general election that brought Donald Trump to the Oval Office. She also discusses how some of the leading figures in the women's movement have in common that, at some point, they found they could no longer tolerate the conditions under which they lived. They got angry. And they voiced it.

In this conversation with Vox's Ezra Klein, she goes in depth on her arguments and makes connections with key current events. If it helps, you should know they go beyond Trump and the recent confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court. While the podcast was published before the end of the confirmation procedures, Republican senators forced the confirmation of the conservative jurist, despite allegations of sexual misconduct set forth by Dr Christine Blasey Ford and two other women.

In the conversation, and in her book Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger, Traister analyzes the female-led activism that produced a major shift on how sexual harassment is being discussed through the #MeToo movement.

In this conversation, in particular, Traister explains how anger has been constructive and transformative in bringing people together to rally for change. And how it is crucial for more and more people to recognize the transformative power of said emotion. 

As The New York Times' Elaine Blair comments in a review, "By effectively severing anger from ‘good womanhood,’ we choose to sever girls and women from the emotion that best protects us against danger and injustice.”