Female Anger and Passive-Aggression
Dr. Helen Smith, a forensic psychologist, blogs about a study that says women are angrier than men and often express it in passive-aggressive ways.
That rings true to me.
My wife, who feels no hesitation about expressing anger in helpful ways, is a healthier, happier, and less angry person than many women--not to mention than most men, including me--because she doesn't feel the need to artificially bottle up her feelings. And she often laments the conditions the study identifies: that women are angry and that it's probably because they express their anger in passive-aggressive ways. Both she and my daughter are such open people. They get disgusted with women in the workplace who resort to passive-aggression and behind-the-back torpedoing, usually of other women, especially those in positions of authority.
Why is this so prevalent? Historically, our culture has put men in places of authority, whether at home, in the workplace, or in social settings. Women have basically been told to get with the male-set program. This incites understandable, justifiable anger within women with no productive ways to express it.
I don't subscribe to the "tea kettle" school of thought that tells us if we don't immediately vent our spleens, we'll implode. Venting everything we feel can be narcissistic and imprison us and our relationships to our fleeting feelings. There is more to us as human beings than our emotions. Or our thoughts. Or our biology.
But I do think that relationships in all contexts would be healthier if so many women didn't feel constrained to live in the manner described by the study.
The Bible has an interesting passage which I share with people--female or male--when they're thrashing over how to deal with a confrontation they need to have: "Be angry; but do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger."
The point: It isn't "bad," as I think many women are taught, to feel anger. The question is what to do with our anger.
Do we use it to discuss things with the object of our anger, with the goal of finding a commonly-acceptable solution and of repairing the relationship?
Or do we allow it to live inside of us and make us hateful toward the other person, often expressing the anger and now the hatred, in passive-aggressive ways?
That passage from Ephesians, then, commends taking ownership of our feelings and finding productive, healthy ways to deal with them. In other words, we don't allow our feelings to micromanage our psyches and lives, programming us.
The most hate-filled person I know is an angry passive-aggressive woman who, when confronted with how hurtful her words are, claims that she's being misunderstood and implies that people who think otherwise must either be having bad days or losing their minds, literally. (More passive-aggressiveness.) This woman may even believe it when she makes these claims. But her family will tell you that her approach is very destructive to her, to their family, and to everybody's health.
I think that the insights in this study are right on!
(Smith links the study to some recent dust-ups in the blogging world, none of which really interests me here. I'm interested in the study at a more global level.)
(I was led to Smith's post through a link at Althouse.)