Grief, Anger, And Rage
Excerpt from the chapter
Men, as discussed in my first book, use anger to cover their grief. This is because “big boys don’t cry,” and therefore they certainly don’t grief. They may go off into a corner, sullen and drink themselves into oblivion, or find a myriad of distractions refocusing their attention, but they are taught that grieving shows weakness, and is feminine.
The opposite is true for women, for whom grieving is permitted to some extent. Not too much of course, otherwise the medical profession (witch doctors) will too readily proscribe a tranquilizer, mood elevator, etc. So even full grieving is not allowed. We will cover this later, for now let’s look at what women use grief to cover.
Anger, is what is not allowed in women. “Nice girls don’t get angry,” is the directive taught either verbally or non-verbally to most women by the patriarchal social structure. Often, both in life and in my practice, I would come across depressed women, which on the surface looks a lot like unexpressed grief. Looking deeper I found it usually was being used to cover repressed anger, which when stewed becomes rage. When a client came across a scene in their lives that was painful, or traumatic, they would easily start crying and grieving. Yet, they found it near impossible to be angry at the person who wronged them. They may have been beaten, raped, or otherwise abused, yet there was no anger. The opposite I found true for men, who immediately get angry, but find in near impossible to cry and grieve.
Men are only allowed anger, necessary for the warrior. No other emotions are permitted. Women are allowed all emotions, except anger. Now, recently, women are making headway in expressing anger. I have spoken to a number who proclaim they express their anger freely. But when we dig deeper, usually we find that the most important aspects, their deepest darkest feelings, especially from childhood they remain mute about.
Men are taught to base themselves in their minds; women are to be based in their hearts. Therefore, women are also denied in varying degrees their abilities to be logical and develop reason. Naturally, this would prevent women from living their heritage to be Gods of Wisdom. It deprives the world of this wisdom and we deeply need it.