Girls and Women's Anger

"Whispers and Roars: A Feminist Analysis of The Anesthetization of Girls' Anger"

The path is the goal. If there''s any possibility for
enlightenment, it's right now, not at some future time.
Now is the time. This very moment is the perfect teacher.
Pema Chodron

There is value in listening to one's inner voice: to the whispers that say you are good, good enough and have intrinsic value. Anger whispers too. Its' whispers illuminate injustices shedding light on the otherwise invalidated. Anger travels with whispers that can – if heard – enable authentic self-knowing. Affirmed anger emancipates the roar of girls' authentically boisterous selves, and frees them from the confines of narrow gender-role prescriptions. And so the time is now. Whispers and Roars represents the culmination of a 2-year feminist qualitative study exploring 65 Canadian Girls lived experience of anesthetized anger. That girls are lured into narrow gender roles before they truly develop an authentic self-defined selfhood is not new. But to cover anger with a shroud of shame in the name of femininity, and to chemically and/or societally anesthetize an emotion meant to be a signal is an injustice that must be named and collectively challenged. Now is the time.