One of my friends texted this meme to our group chat yesterday, and we all heartily related to it. I sent the meme to a different friend group chat and there, I also got a very enthusiastic response. The most relatable response from one dear friend (we are all in our late forties), was this . . . . “Hell, yeah!” My friends are all lovely, fun, interesting women. I wouldn’t accuse any of us of being typical “Karens.” People like us. Or at the very least, we like each other.
However, realizing that I had hit a chord, I decided that this would be a good topic to blog about, so I started looking up articles about female rage in middle-aged women. Unfortunately, though, everything that I perused on the internet, just made me feel more annoyed and irritable than ever. Supposedly, hormones are often to blame for our collective seething anger, and many articles gave suggestions to take hormone therapy (while risking breast cancer) or to take anti-depressants, but with the warning that these medications often have the side effects of more weight gain and decreased sex drive, which are some of the biggest complaints that middle-aged women have about aging, in the first place.
I personally think that there’s a whole lot more to the story of middle-aged female rage, but finding the solutions lost my interest. . . . quickly. Anger can be a very fun and energizing and empowering emotion, when channeled appropriately. In the meantime, others (of different ages, sexes and categories) should take the above warning very seriously. We women of a certain age tend to be highly combustible, and none of us seem to find it particularly necessary nor prudent, to justify why we are this way. Nor are we particularly interested in finding a solution to it and changing it, any time soon.
“Your anger is a gift you give to yourself and the world that is yours. In anger, I have lived more fully, freely, intensely, sensitively, and politically. If ever there was a time not to silence yourself, to channel your anger into healthy places and choices, this is it.”
― Soraya Chemaly author of Rage Becomes Her
