Rage Becomes Her

By: Soraya Chemaly

Narrated by: Soraya Chemaly

Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's Summary

“How many women cry when angry because we've held it in for so long? How many discover that anger turned inward is depression? Soraya Chemaly’s Rage Becomes Her will be good for women, and for the future of this country. After all, women have a lot to be angry about.” (Gloria Steinem)

A transformative audiobook urging 21st-century women to embrace their anger and harness it as a tool for lasting personal and societal change.

Women are angry, and it isn’t hard to figure out why. 

We are underpaid and overworked. Too sensitive or not sensitive enough. Too dowdy or too made-up. Too big or too thin. Sluts or prudes. We are harassed, told we are asking for it, and asked if it would kill us to smile. Yes, yes it would. 

Contrary to the rhetoric of popular “self-help” and an entire lifetime of being told otherwise, our rage is one of the most important resources we have, our sharpest tool against both personal and political oppression. We’ve been told for so long to bottle up our anger, letting it corrode our bodies and minds in ways we don’t even realize. Yet our anger is a vital instrument, our radar for injustice and a catalyst for change. On the flip side, the societal and cultural belittlement of our anger is a cunning way of limiting and controlling our power. 

We are so often told to resist our rage or punished for justifiably expressing it, yet how many remarkable achievements in this world would never have gotten off the ground without the kernel of anger that fueled them? Rage Becomes Her makes the case that anger is not what gets in our way, it is our way, sparking a new understanding of one of our core emotions that will give women a liberating sense of why their anger matters and connect them to an entire universe of women no longer interested in making nice at all costs. 

Following in the footsteps of classic feminist manifestos like The Feminine Mystique and Our Bodies, Ourselves, Rage Becomes Her is an eye-opening audiobook for the 21st-century woman: an engaging, accessible credo offering us the tools to re-understand our anger and harness its power to create lasting positive change.

©2018 Soraya Chemaly (P)2018 Simon & Schuster

Holy Raging Hell

This book rocked my world. I’ve been in what I have affectionately called a “funk” for a few months. The news, things happening in life and business, and a lifetime of only recently felt and examined fury have taken their toll. I thought I was depressed, but what it is, I realized with the help of this book, is a low-grade seething rage that I keep suppressing to get through the day.

This book reminded me how to harness that anger and put it to use. It’s here to help me, and it’s here to help you, and it’s here to help all of us do something to change the way things are for women and other marginalized people. Listen to this book. I’ve already told all of my friends to get it too.

10 of 10 people found this review helpful

A New Classic of Feminist Writing.

This book is excellent, and it could not have been released at a better time, given the rage engendered by the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. I can imagine that the author will update the book to include her thoughts about this situation when the paperback version is released. She points out how the inability of women to express anger without being criticized and even demonized is one of the most significant roots of misogyny. I am extremely impressed by the level of scholarship of the author, with numerous facts to back up her assertions. There are examples from history and the current day. The writing is anything but dry, however. The author writes with passion and a wry sense of humor. I am glad that she read the book herself; I found her voice very strong and appealing. I believe that this book will enter the ranks of classics of feminist writing. I have listened to it once, and plan to listen to it again. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

Sad!

Reviewers called this book "important", "timely", "liberating". And it certainly is important and eye-opening. And I felt so sad listening to all the arguments and findings of recent research that are EXACTLY THE SAME! as the arguments and research I read about in the 60's and 70's, when "Women's Lib" and I came of age at the same time. What have we accomplished in 50 years?! a few more cents per hour, a handful of female CEOs....and anti-female sentiments everywhere, constant, relentless, and infuriating. Still infuriating, I should say. It's true that anger is powerful. When will enough women be angry enough to change this "man's world"?

6 of 6 people found this review helpful

If you are a man a want to understand...

What your wife, mother, daughter, or sister
experience this is a eye opening book. We think “we get it” but it is much more subversive and complicated than most men realize.
This is a masterful work that is a powerhouse of hard statistics. Truly Life changing, I highly recommend.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

eye opening, mind altering

This book alternates between deacribing the unhealthy and unfair supression of anger in women and the disproportionate volume of things women have to be about. there is a chapter at the end about healthy ways to express anger.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

This book validated my experiences

The book is a must read for black women. It was very informative and blew my mind!

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Nearly made me cry with rage

I nearly cried with rage while listening to this book. It really turned my attention to actions and reactions I see or experience everyday but most of the time dismiss as normal. I want to recomend it to every women or just everybody I know.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Transformative

A perfect combination of personal stories and social sciences research that validates feelings I’ve held for ages but couldn’t articulate them so clearly.

I am so glad the author chose to read it herself on audible as I think only she could communicate the subtle humor and sarcasm that made this book so enjoyable. I intend to buy a hard copy to highlight my favorite parts to reference when I inevitably feel angry at current events or personal experiences. This is a must read.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

A Must Read - for Women and Men

Beyond important. Powerful. Needed.

Loved the recommended actions for women to take. Loved it all.

A must read for women.

And a must read for men.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Great breakdown of rage

This book is probably better to read, in addition to listening to it. There is a lot to process. Chemaly breaks down rage in ways that no one else has/does.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Amazing

It is hard work in places, just because some of the topics that are explored are hard to read about/listen to. But it is absolutely worth reading, and more than once. Ms Chemaly has clearly done her research and put a lot of thought into the whole thing.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

a must-listen for anyone who is or loves a woman

A well-presented and powerful message for men, parents, businesses, women, politicians- anyone who is curious about why and how women occupy and respond to society around them. It seemed deeply researched, packed full of 90% facts and 10% anecdotes to support the thesis that we/society denies females- babies, children, adults, all women- the opportunity to use rage to express powerful feelings of anger, and that this suppression is killing those women, damaging their physical and mental health, and damaging the lives of those around them. If I were an alien from.another society, it would make truly depressing reading, but as a woman and mother it is jubilant to hear lived experience- so often gaslighted by anyone who might listen, and certainly wider media- validated so clearly by evidence. Thank you Soraya for a powerful book that has helped open up my relationship with my powerful, expressive daughter, and with myself.

This book has helped me so much

Illuminating and informative and rigorously written and researched. This book is incredibly helpful for those who suppress anger or miss understand it or simply want to learn more about a myriad of emotional censorship means and effects meted out to women in society both historically and today. If I had a daughter I would want to both read this myself to prepare and parent and also for her to read this and to discuss it with her.

Accessible, important and uplifting.

This book has been quite literally life changing for me. As a first foray into feminist literature, it didn’t disappoint. It tackled many important points from the perspective of women’s anger and served as a call to action that is impossible to ignore.