Women are getting angrier – and it’s killing us. Signposts to a rise in female rage are everywhere: over 300 million posts are tagged #femalerage on TikTok, rage retreats are growing in popularity across the UK, and Taylor Swift even applied to trademark ‘Female Rage: the Musical.’
“There is more focus on women’s anger than ever before,” says therapist Karyne B. Wilner, who has worked in the field for 40 years. But she insists this isn’t new. “Women have always been angry.” She explains that high expectations, work pressure, household responsibilities, and caring for others can make women neglect themselves, something that in turn gives rise to wrath.
This anger doesn’t just cause arguments — it can harm your physical health. Suppressed and explosive anger both increase the risk of heart attacks, heart disease, and strokes. Wilner explores these dangers in her new book, Releasing Toxic Anger for Women, which also shares her personal journey with anger.
Growing up, Wilner observed both kinds of anger: “vicious”, in her mother’s case; subdued in her father’s. “I was frightened when my mother looked at me with flashing angry eyes,” she remembers. “I felt like the worst person in the world even when I knew I hadn’t really done anything wrong.” This shaped her own struggles with anger in adulthood.
She admits to moments of both suppressed and outward rage — snapping at colleagues after a stressful day. Her inability to express frustration also contributed to her first marriage ending in divorce. “I didn’t know how to discuss my feelings,” she writes. “Instead, I let resentment build up inside me.”
Wilner is far from alone. Her book includes stories from clients like Danielle, who moved from throwing books in school to hitting her fiancé, and Linda, who suppresses anger until it manifests in physical stress. Women, Wilner says, struggle to show anger in ways that are considered acceptable: “If we suppress it, it hurts us. If we’re loud and obnoxious and scream and throw our plates, then everyone says we’re crazy, we’re witches, we’re bitches,”
When it comes to anger, it is deemed acceptable for men, but not so for women.
Women are taught that anger is unacceptable, unflattering, and unattractive, and so they often attempt to suppress it — leading to resentment, self-doubt, and a host of mental and physical health issues. So, how can you honor your emotions, release toxic anger, and find balance?
Anger is a physical reaction — chemicals like adrenaline and cortisol flood the body, impacting the nervous system and heart. While frustration is normal, Wilner warns that experiencing extreme anger too often can harm both body and mind. Studies suggest that even unborn babies react to parental arguments in the womb.
Research supports the health risks of rage. A large US study found that anger and emotional turmoil often preceded strokes. Another study in the European Heart Journal showed heart attacks were five times more likely within two hours of an angry outburst. Women who outwardly express anger face a higher risk of heart disease, especially if they have other conditions like diabetes.
Things aren’t necessarily better among those who suppress their anger, either: a 2022 study found that women of colour who ‘frequently’ did so were seventy per cent more likely to experience carotid atherosclerosis, a cardiovascular ailment that increases the risk of stroke.
This stark data is enough to make you pledge to lead a life of zen forevermore – but “anger can be addictive, particularly women’s anger,” Wilner knows. “We start shrieking and screaming at our children – there’s something addictive about it, what we call ‘negative excitement’ [feeling energised by something associated with negative emotions, such as fear or anxiety].”
It took her until the age of 40 to curb her own anger – achieved via a combination of studying body psychotherapy (the belief that mind and body are one) and developing tools to release anger in healthy ways.
Wilner’s book outlines a seven-step programme to understand and release your anger based on cognitive behavioral therapy. Exercises include locating the feeling of anger in the body and tracing it back to its root cause. If you’re exploding over dirty dishes, it’s likely not about the dishes. Usually this root cause can be connected to trauma during childhood, or feeling uncared for now and resentful of having to juggle so many other people’s needs.
Wilder believes that underlying anger are other feelings of fear and hurt – and when we start to face up to those more tender feelings, the anger can lessen.
Moving and dancing is one healthy way to release anger – if you see animals after they have an altercation, they will shake themselves straight afterwards to let go of it.
Decades later, she sees a common issue among her clients: blame. “People blame others instead of recognising their own anger,” she says. “They should acknowledge: ‘I’m angry, that person triggered my nervous system, it’s my adrenaline that’s pouring into my bloodstream and making me sick’” – but rather shifting the accountability to others.”
She recommends when you are angry to see if there is a way for you to take responsibility. So say your partner is late for the dinner you have spent hours cooking, you can articulate (as calmly as possible) that you are angry they are late, while also taking responsibility for the fact that you did not tell them that this dinner mattered to you.
Many people, she notes, don’t even realise they’re angry, believing themselves to be too “good” or “nice” to be capable of deep rage. This is when anger either gets turned inwards or leaks out in subtle ways, something called passive aggression. Addressing your anger has to start with acknowledging that you are angry.
So now that she has done all this, is she anger free? “Plenty of things annoy me —my partner, my daughter,” she admits. “But with these tools, I don’t react the way I used to.”
Anger doesn’t have to be destructive. By acknowledging it, understanding its roots, and expressing it in a healthy way, women can reclaim their emotional well-being.
Releasing Toxic Anger for Women by Karyne B. Wilner is out on Thursday
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