"Good and Mad": Rebecca Traister on the "catalytic" power of women's rage
When Christine Blasey Ford testified last week about the trauma of her alleged sexual assault, she was calm, polite and deferential to the Senate committee she faced. The man she accuses of that assault, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, was indignant, angry and disrespectful to the point that he apologized to Sen. Amy Klobuchar for his retort to her question. The difference in tone was striking and, as author Rebecca Traister sees it, emblematic of how society has taught women to check their anger.
But after the hearing, two survivors of sexual assault demonstrated just how powerful women's anger can be. Maria Gallagher and Ana Maria Archila confronted Sen. Jeff Flake in a display so compelling it appeared to some it was part of why he called for an FBI investigation into the claims against Kavanaugh.
In her new book "Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger," Traister places the anger of women today in its historical context and shows us where it could take the country in the future.
"This is a crucial political story. Because the mass anger that these events, that so many of the events of the past couple of years have provoked in so many millions of women took form outside that hearing room," Traister said on "CBS This Morning." "They showed open anger, they pointed their fingers in his face and said 'look me in the eye.'"
Archila and Gallagher were not diminished for their anger but instead applauded for their courage. Traister sees that as a sign some things have changed over the past few years.
"Women are caring less about…how their anger is perceived because they're so angry that it's bubbling over. We're seeing that in the women's marches, in the teachers strikes, in #MeToo. There are all kinds of messages that are telling them 'calm down'… and they're like 'no, we're so angry' we are going to keep yelling, we are going to keep calling people to account. What that tells us is that there's a political movement afoot perhaps," Traister said.
Her book argues that almost every movement that has transformed the United States has started with women's anger from abolition to gay rights. Still, there are consequences to displaying anger as a woman, says Traister.
"Women's anger is politically catalytic and that's something we need to recognize in this moment where so much of it is spilling over," she said.
"Women are judged very harshly for showing anger. We're told that it is invalid, irrational, that we sound hysterical, infantile or dangerous – it's a witch hunt. We're a mob….it's a fight and a balance between an unwillingness to hear women's anger and women's determination to voice it."
Despite her faith in the power of women to enact change, in the short term, Traister sees Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court as almost inevitable. Though what's happening today, she says, is planting seeds for change in the future.
"The kind of fury that this is stirring is likely to have political consequences, perhaps in the number of women and women of color who are elected to represent us," she said. "A change in how our government does represent its population. And perhaps a protest movement that is going to continue over coming years to push for changed laws and practices around gender and power."
"Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger" is published by Simon & Schuster, a division of CBS.