Welcome to April, and the month of Feel the Fume. Now don’t worry, we won’t be spending the month trying to get you angry (that’s just what I do to Sam- Al) but we will be having a good look at exactly what anger is, what it’s for and what we can do with it. Our oil this month is Cardamom, the oil of Objectivity, so we will be looking at all of our emotions, and anger in particular, and using the balm of Cardamom to help utilise our strong emotions. 

Anger is defined as: a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure or hostility. 

Which doesn’t sound too bad, and yet so often when we work with women and ask them what their anger is about, they say, “Oh, I’m not angry” as if anger is a emotion that is not worthy of their attention, they’re ashamed of it, or they are in so much denial that they’ve pushed it down so far that they aren’t even aware of it. 

Despite this, women still do tend to show the effects of anger, and it’s bubbly cousin: Resentment, and well as its good friend: “It’s not fair” in their body as much as their male counterparts (and perhaps even more). Organs affected may be the liver, the gall bladder or the thyroid gland. 

So why are we so concerned about showing anger? One reason could be that women have a tendency towards “nourish and nurture” rather than “fight or flight”, which means that anger may show up in a different way- where nourishment and nurturance are neglected or even taken away entirely. This can be directed at the self, or others. 

Another, and possibly more insidious reason is that historically female anger has seen as being hysterical. From our book last month Cassandra Speaks, we saw that women who showed a “lack of control and extravagant feelings” due to the presence of hystera (the Greek word for uterus) were forced to either have sex with "several strong men”, have doctor-initiated orgasms, have high pressure douches applied or even underwent hysterectomies. 

No wonder we try to suppress anger. So even though these interventions and maimings are no longer in operation, we see that the term “Hysterical Neurosis” was not dropped from the DSM until 1980. What the actual fuck? 

Even if we haven’t had our own direct experience of these practices or attitudes, we know that through the interconnectedness of us all, and via the collective history we all share, that we have absorbed some of this narrative. It’s time for each of us to take a look at anger. What are we bottling up and what is bubbling over?

This week we would love you to take a moment to list all of the things that you have been doing anger about (more on doing vs being in the podcast). What themes emerge? Is there a similar root cause (for example; not being heard, feeling out of control, not having freedom, etc). Also notice where you feel anger in your body. 

We will chat more about all of this in the podcast, but for now we will leave you with the words of Jane Caro, “Far from women as a species being irrational, overemotional, hysterical, lunatic or morally weak, what strikes me about women and their history is just how damn sane we have managed to stay.”

Viva la fume!