Episode 183 (Transcript): What About Anger?

Episode Transcript

Many thanks to listener, Amanda Davis , for her work in transcribing this episode!

This episode can be found on any podcast app, or can be listened to here on Substack.

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CW: Hello, I'm Cynthia Winward. 

SH: And I'm Susan Hinckley. 

CW: And this is At Last She Said It. We are women of faith discussing complicated things, and the title of this week's episode is, “What About Anger?” 

SH: What about anger, Cynthia? We have come to the time, finally–we're in season eight–we've finally come to the time we're going to have another anger episode. [00:01:00] 

CW: Yeah, it's true. Yeah, we had it way back in season one, episode 43. 

SH: No, it would have been season two or possibly three, I think. 

CW: Oh, you're right. Yeah. Episode. Yeah. Episode 43 would have been way later, not season one. And we called that episode “Women are not Switzerland” because we're not neutral. We have actual feelings that lean one way or the other, regardless of what some people think in the Church, like we shouldn't, but we do!

CW: We have all kinds of complicated feelings and anger is one of them. 

SH: We do, but a lot of us aren't that good at showing it, Cynthia, or don't feel a lot of space to show it. Which brings me to my first question that I want to kick off introducing this episode with, which is “What's anger got to do with it?”

SH: Why are we talking about this now? What does it have to do specifically with a Latter-day Saint woman's spirituality or faith journey, or any of this? How is anger related [00:02:00] to this? I mean, as you see it, how do you see it being related? 

CW: Well, one thing that I think you and I have noticed so much as women kind of come into this space when the shelf crashes, the wheels fall off, whatever metaphor we're going to use, anger is one of the first feelings. People feel lied to. They feel like they gave up a whole lot for this narrative that no longer fits anymore. So I think it's top of the list for, if you're going to pull out the emoji list, I think anger is probably one of the first emojis that people would probably choose when things start getting really complicated.

SH: For, how they're feeling, like to, to describe how they're feeling. 

CW: Yeah. 

SH: Yes, I agree. But then like on the other side, I also feel like it's really high on the list of traits that are not looked kindly on, for Latter-day Saint women. 

CW: Oh! Number one.

SH: And I feel like, if you were to even just say the word feminist to a lot of members, don't you think they'd attach [00:03:00] angry?

CW: All the time. 

SH: Yeah. Angry feminists, right?

CW:  Angry feminists. 

SH: Those words just sort of like always travel together, I feel like, culturally anyway. And so I feel like it's one of the dirtiest words, which is why we kind of try and hide it, but that's really hard when it's such a normal emotion that everyone experiences.

SH: And then especially in the space that we're talking about here, a lot of people are feeling it. So it's a really potent combination because what is the old rule? There is nothing like not being able to talk about a thing to give it the wrong kind of power. And I feel like anger goes right into that category.

CW: Yes. 

SH: We can't express it. And also, we can't even talk about it because it's a taboo emotion for Latter-day Saint women. 

CW: Mm  hmm.  Well, and, and even if we were to just broaden it and look at it from an LDS perspective, not just from an LDS woman's [00:04:00] perspective, I remember, I think it was on that episode 43, where I think I had, I think I had said on that episode that in doing research on LDS.org about anger, all of the articles that came up were about, losing our temper. And so I think it's really interesting that even in our culture, I don't even think we have an accurate definition of what anger is because we associate it so often with losing your temper–that maybe that's why anger is very much frowned upon for all LDS people, especially for women, of course. But that's just something I haven't stopped thinking about ever since we made that episode as I was like, “Oh, we're completely dysfunctional in what we even think anger is.” 

SH: Mm hmm. I think so too. And I think also contention starts to get [00:05:00] tangled up in this too. It's that, as soon as you get angry, then the Spirit is going to leave the room.

CW: Bingo. 

SH: It's that. And so it's, oh, there's just no safe way to express it. And if you can't--if you have no way to express something, then there's no safe way to feel it. 

CW: There you go. And that's why we need to talk about it, I think, in terms of women's spirituality, is because we've got to lay out all those feelings on the table. There are no bad feelings anymore. 

SH: Right, right. Okay, I've got to admit, though, I'm having this little experience. Remember when we recorded with C.A. Larson, we had the episode about regret and resentment, and I had that moment where I was like, “Wow, I don't have any resentments.” And C.A. said, “It's because you're so healthy.”

SH: And I said, “I don't think so.” And then I ended up having to go to therapy because I had to figure out, why do I have no resentment? Okay. Well, the reason I'm telling you that whole story is I'm having that experience with anger. I'm not, I'm not really an angry person. I don't [00:06:00] really do anger, somehow. So now I'm starting to think, “Do I have to go to therapy now just to find out why I'm not angry?”

SH: I don't know. I have a lot of feelings about this. However, I can look back in my history as a Latter-day Saint woman and see some times where I really did have what felt like very righteous anger. Looking at you, Florida, actually, and, and was able to express that. So maybe it's, I don't know. Maybe it's not something that I've suppressed so much as an emotion that maybe doesn't come to the fore for me in the way that it does for, for some other people. 

CW: Me. 

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SH: Okay. I wasn't gonna say that. 

CW: No, I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say that if we pull out the emoji sheet and we pull out maybe the top five emotions that we have felt as we went through, like faith transitions, anger would definitely be in the top five for me and maybe not for you. [00:07:00]  I don't know. 

SH: Yeah. No, I don't think it would. It wouldn't be. There would be other potent emotions, but I don't think it would be anger. I had a lot when I was younger. Not so much now. So maybe, I don't know, but I'm still not ready to give myself the, “‘It's Because You're So Healthy’ award.” I do think I have work to do around this. So I'm really, really happy that we're having this conversation. 

CW: Yeah, I kind of feel like you and I, well, for sure you and I are not mental health professionals, so we should in a way not be having this episode without a third person, like C.A. Larson to sit here and actually go through these voicemails.

CW: On the other hand, I feel like you and I are maybe the perfect women to go through this because we're just regular women in the pews, like the women who called in and left voicemails. 

SH: Right. Right.

CW: And, therefore, I think that actually makes it okay for us to sit here and go through all of this with [00:08:00] other women because we're just one of them feeling different emotions like anger and such. And so anyway, so we're okay. We're good to talk about anger, even though we're just peons. 

SH: Well, I mean if there's space for us to feel it then we need to be able to talk about it. And so I think, yes, we have–we will have something to add to this conversation just as run of the mill Latter-day Saint women because those are the kinds of women who are going to show up and share their experiences with us today. 

CW:For sure.  Well, I know before we jump into voicemails, like you kind of had a quote and I had a quote to kick us off in talking about this. So why don't you go first? 

SH: Yeah, my quote comes from Sarah Bessey and it's from her book, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith. And it's very, very short. And it says, “I hope we get angry and that we say true things.”

SH: I had never thought about uttering that sentence like a blessing: “I hope you get angry.” But yeah, I feel like it should [00:09:00] be that kind of, yeah, like it can open something for someone else to say to them, you know what, I hope you get angry and that you say true things. I aspire to that personally.

CW: That's awesome. 

CW: Well, my quote is from the book Rage Becomes Her by Soraya Chamaly, and I think it's really funny because recently, I think when we put a call out for voicemails about anger, we got a message from a woman saying “I don't know if you've heard of this book called Rage Becomes–” 

SH: Yes.

CW: And I was sitting there going, “Are you kidding me?” I think I quoted it on every episode for our first 50 episodes. And finally I was like, “You have gotta quit quoting from this book.” 

SH: Quote again, Cynthia. It's so great.

CW: I have; I know. I have heard of this book and it was very instrumental in unpacking my box as I was going through this faith journey.

CW: So here's one of the quotes, and I think it's perfect to kick us off today. She says, [00:10:00] “It took me too long to realize that the people most inclined to say, ‘You sound angry,’ are the same people who uniformly don't care to ask ‘Why?’ They're interested in silence, not dialogue. This response to women expressing anger happens on larger and larger scales: in schools, places of worship, the workplace, and politics. A society that does not respect women's anger is one that does not respect women–not as human beings, thinkers, knowers, active participants or citizens.”

SH: It's one of the most effective shutdowns for a woman that I know. 

CW: One of the most effective shutdowns, hands down, in all of society. Like she said, school, politics, church, all of it.