Femme Rage

 Female rage has been a hot topic I've been seeing on social media nonstop for weeks now. As a woman myself, I know the feeling all too well. For me, it's when something happens to me that likely wouldn't have happened if I were a dude or at least male-presenting. I never knew what it actually meant until today when I searched it up.

The Google definition, by Her Campus, states:

"Feminine rage has been explained as an ancestral and inherited response to the struggles, oppressions and wrongdoings that women have been subjected to. I have seen feminine rage described as a compilation of the anger, that our ancestors were not able to express, that is passed down through generations."

PJ gave me an article to read about femme rage and different writers who express their experiences and emotions with it, personally and politically, through their work. What stuck out to me the most was the ideology that women should fit societal standards or their worth is not valuable, not enough. For decades, and still even to this day, misogyny can be seen everywhere you go. From TikTok to ex-boyfriends, especially that one uncle who believes a woman's sole purpose is simply to be a housewife and mother... And makes it very clear at every family gathering. This article particularly reminded me of my mother, who has always been someone to knock down women who did not fit the standards that were engraved in her mind. From appearance to lifestyle, she was always so quick to judge. (She also has NPD, so her mindset is pretty much that she is perfect and there is nobody superior to her.)

I don't think this particularly relates to what the article was about, but I just started thinking about how so many other women I see, in person and online, talk about other women in the same kind of way as the exact men they always complain about. When men do it, it's catcalling and gawking and feeling superiority over the girl they're criticizing. And it is. But I feel as though we've grown so accustomed to it, even bored of it, that we just shrug it off and/or flip them the big bird and move on with our hours. I usually don't feel personally attacked when it happens to me, because a) I know my worth and those pigs would be blessed to have even a penny's worth of it, and b) the world will forever contain at least a handful of men in every city who refuse to get with the program and respect the very beings that allow them life on this earth.

But I think it gets harder for men to respect women when there are so many WOMEN who don't respect women. I don't feel anything but disgust and annoyance when a man says anything in attempt to make a girl feel less than. But when it comes from another woman, it just hurts. Women fought and protested to be seen as equals, but how is that supposed to happen when we aren't treating each other as equals? We should be leading by example so everyone can get a grip. But when a girl tells another girl that what she's doing as a woman is unfeminine, ugly, disgusting, and wrong, she is no better than any man who she knows damn well have said the exact same lines to her when she walks down a street after dark. Femininity and masculinity are terms anyone can use to describe themselves. That's what equality is. Everyone should have the unspoken right to be any version of themselves without question or fear of judgment.

See that? See how I rambled on about my own thoughts of femanine rage? That was femanine rage.

I don't throw like a girl, I throw like a woman.

I have countless memories of her watching television shows and films, and just ripping the actresses and their characters to shreds if they looked like, acted like, or lived like anything my mother disagreed with. Whether that be sexual preference, the choice to be a full-time working mother instead of a stay-at-home caregiver, physical features that she saw as "unfeminine" and so on. We both like the Netflix reality show 'Too Hot To Handle," and we were watching the 4th season one night. One of the singles selected for the season was called Elys, and she was a blonde beach babe. She had the whole sunkissed clean girl, barely any makeup makeup, take her swimming on the first date kind of look. Her eyebrows were obviously laminated, as eyebrow lamination and business has become popular more recently. I remember my mom's exact reaction to her reveal to the show;

"Her eyebrows are so bushy, she has all this money and can't get them done?"

"Mom, she does, that's called eyebrow lamination. Lot's of people are doing it right now."

"Well, she looks like a boy. They're huge."

"*sigh* okay mom."

And for the entirety of the season, my mom HATED Elys. She would call her a bitch through the screen, as if she could hear her. When her and her bedmate would get into arguments or any conflict, mom would just pound her with insults and remarks, even if she was in the right!