By Evangelina Machado, ’23

(An excerpt of this essay was published in the May 2023 issue of Dragon Tales.)

“A woman’s first blood doesn’t come from between her legs but from biting her tongue” (Royer). The woman’s psyche has been shaped by her experiences since adolescence and the ever-lasting effects of society.  Rage, especially from a woman, builds on the idea of them feeling systematic marginalization and oppression. This anger frequently has its roots in issues like discrimination, sexual objectification, and gender inequality, among others. Women’s wrath can take many forms, including protest, advocacy, and artistic expression. This alongside what is found in the presence of the media, education system, and overall coming of age that our newer generations come to, all begin to paint a narrative of what “femininity” is, and who can achieve it while staying within the constructed boundaries of the box. These emotions painted on the faces of girls and women alike begin to question what truly is a women’s journey in telling their story of what their version of femininity is and challenging the patriarchal definition placed in front of them. In this paper, we will explore the intersectionality of those who are confined by the traditionality of the topic of rage, and how it blends and stands out from femininity; As well as the potential consequences of expressing rage as a woman.

To say that young adolescent women should be more focused on becoming married and thinking about children in their early 20s, rather than prioritizing their education and wanting to achieve a high-in-demand job is against where basic feminism begins.

Evangelina Machado, ’23

Feminism has always been loosely defined from person to person and sits at the root of why many people feel as though true femininity has begun to decline. In many scenarios of the 21st century, feminism has been tied to the idea of equality in the workforce, relationships, and identity. Tammy Bruce from Prager University emphasizes in her lecture that the 21st-century idea of femininity can be broken down into 3 pillars of dignity, the word “no.”, and men. Bruce identifies the consequences of fewer women getting married, less respect given to men, and overall women acting like men in any social ground to the building blocks of the women of today’s society.  During her first pillar of dignity, she states how women never list being a mother and wife as one of their jobs. To say that young adolescent women should be more focused on becoming married and thinking about children in their early 20s, rather than prioritizing their education and wanting to achieve a high-in-demand job is against where basic feminism begins. The presumption that a woman in her youth must have a child/marriage before her journey toward a career negates her individuality and feeds into the belief that her womanhood comes before herself. This unnerving criticism of an outdated ideal pushes the narrative that a woman’s womb solely carries her place in society, thus provoking an unspoken rage about how her reproductive organs take precedence over her thoughts and opinions. These bubble into her thoughts of not being good enough as a woman and as a mother since she cannot advocate for her values. When you separate an individual from the expectations of their sex, you begin to peel back layers of complex emotional intelligence and find the core of why female rage exists; the forced narrative of womanhood equating sex.

Emotions help us to better understand the world and help convey a message of our thoughts and beliefs. When women stray from the feelings that are thought to be equated to femininity, they begin to be viewed as undesirable and discourteous. In any century,  the views of society have been demonstrated through art and have always been interpreted differently, varying in perspective. Women tended to be the subject of art especially when the portrayal of anger and rage stemmed from a story of beauty and objectification. In Caravaggio’s 1597 painting of Medusa beheaded ( photo below), he displays the duality of being a symbol of a hindrance toward victory, and as a sign of courageousness until the end of her death. While the painting itself depicts her in a state of shock that someone is beheading her, her eyes tell another narrative. Medusa’s story is of a beautiful girl who dares to compare herself to Aphrodite, a goddess, and is punished with a life of isolation and ridicule for her new appearance of snake hair and stone eyes. This portrayal of a woman being satisfied with her internal appearance without the validation of the male gaze begins to build up the narrative that one can only gain true beauty through fitting the idealism of being passive and delicate. A story that is only furthered by the fetishization of Aphrodite’s’ lust. Medusa’s ability to see the truth through the fabrication of what Aphrodite represented as a goddess, gave voice to her unspoken aptitude to call out the hypocrisy of what a woman should be. Her enragement was built up to be against Aphrodite but was the opposite of that and was towards the world and its social construct. Zeus, the God that dealt her punishment, portrayed what he believed to be the ugliness inside of her through the snakes that were an extension of her emotional state. In summation, Medusa has served as the embodiment of female rage.

As the media age progresses, a greater number of our up-and-coming generation have earlier access to things such as the internet, social media, and overall information as a whole. Because of this and many people wanting to stir up a conversation for topics that they find near to their hearts, we begin to see a rising influence of large trends and topics being up for discussion. What are the largest issues found especially on TikTok, primarily in the podcast trend, focusing on the aspect of what a woman and men are responsible for in their relationships, and work, and the general ideology behind those dynamics? In the majority of these “alpha-led” podcasts, they highlight issues of women being pretentious, using men for personal/material gain, and even going as far as to say that women, in general, are not special for what they offer as one “ species”. Knowing their audience and the influence of TikTok, they are creating a new generation of toxic masculinity to shield away the change that is being brought with a new implementation of jobs and career paths being held accountable for giving equal opportunities in the workforce, women being able to offer only as much as their significant other is willing to, and creating meaningful relationships with the people around them. Many of the women who are placed in these podcasts are either cut from the final takes of production that are published to the general public, are like-minded and only convey one perspective of femininity as a whole in America, or are backed into a corner and forced to convey a false narrative. For femininity to be questioned by a group of men who have nothing better to do than to criticize and ridicule women solely based on a rejection basis, or from statistics that only make up a small percentage of the American diaspora as a whole, only conveys the message that Women are just pawns. Objectification already occurs in real life, so it, now being influenced and placed within the grasp of the newer generation only fuels the fire of female rage because they are now having to call out children on their actions and even raise some of them to dive deeper into the media outlets they listen to and build their moral compass on. with the world that is constantly contradicting itself and building many lies off of hypocrisy, the femininity narrative has now been passed off as a Bluemoon opportunity that only an “alpha male” can obtain if they are to dictate a woman’s everyday life, mood, and body.

In my perspective femininity was a word to describe every female-identifying person. As I’ve grown older I’ve come to terms that that definition does not truly fit. The experiences I’ve had with various cultures, and religions, and even being able to grow up with siblings who all primarily are female-identifying people, have shaped me into being a woman. But does that truly mean that those who have very different experiences when it comes to life from me, experience being a woman wrong?  Life has construed a message in societal and educational bubbles that being a woman has a specific cookie-cutter shape and those who aren’t in it are not “relevant” to a conversation of moving as one. Outspokenness, differing interests, plans for the future, and even ways of living have all impacted ways that women have been held down and marginalized for not fitting what is acquainted with being a woman. I have carried myself in a way that “devalues” me as an ideal woman of femininity because I choose to pierce my face, dye and cut my natural hair, and even choose to pursue a field that requires me to argue and yell to my heart’s content against a system built against me. I grew up hearing the words that it was weird for me to argue and talk back to men simply because I did not agree with their statements and view of life. While yes, my age may have played a role in what they vouched for, it was my sex that sealed my fate. My liberation has identified anti-feminist women as cogs in the machine that fear radicalization. 

This fear stems from the past in the idea that being outspoken in a world full of followers is only met with repremandments and causes a disturbance in societal views that people are not willing to speak out against on their own. The hypocrisy in this thinking is that the world that we’ve constructed as of right now is built on others’ contributions to shake the status quo and vouch for what they believe in. The majority of those people in the past have been females and have been silenced and this only allowed for the narrative that true innovation was created by a white man almost always. To settle for this means that I must be okay with my route being paved and choose the best suitable for a woman rather than on my terms. But what if I choose to question this? What if I choose to turn back because I want to explore all available options to me? This satisfaction cannot reach my lips if I constantly have to justify my actions and well-being to those around me, especially those who feel that I am a hindrance to what lies ahead for themselves. My rage is having to prove my worth when my trophies, writings, and education can speak for themselves. And yet when they do, it is almost impossible for them to do so because it is filled to the brim with radical thinking and left-leaning opinions which so happen to be anti-society and the pedestal held beneath being feminine. 

The complexity of evoking female rage when defining femininity in the case of its definition, emotion, media, and personal experience all highlight the societal pressures and expectations that women face. Women throughout history have faced constant feelings of marginalization and oppression since the time they were brought into the world, leading to feelings of rage. With this comes being labeled as a monster, undesirable, and even unfeminine. Despite these challenges, women continue to challenge the patriarchal definition of femininity and express their rage by continuing to advocate for themselves on any real-life and digital platform possible. With this comes the conversation of speaking up too much or too little, while defining femininity with the idea of female rage-reinforcing idealism that deems women as emotional, irrational, and even incapable of controlling their emotions. As a society, it is important to recognize the intersectionality of those who are confined by traditional notions of femininity, allow for the expression of female-identifying people to express themselves to release this patriarchal suppression, and even go as far as offering support to those who are silenced and choose to remain so the opportunity to be given a place where they are ever-evolving and become comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Works Cited

“Feminism 2.0: Prageru.” Home, 10 Feb. 2014, https://www.prageru.com/video/feminism-20.

Medusa, 1597 by Caravaggio, https://www.caravaggio.org/medusa.jsp.“Women Are Calling out ‘Sexist’ Male Podcast Hosts with Viral TikTok Trend.”

The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 8 Feb. 2022, https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/sexist-male-podcast-tiktok-trend-b2010670.html