From the Archive: Soraya Chemaly Loves Your Rage
She's an award-winning author and activist who writes and speaks frequently on topics related to gender norms, inclusivity, social justice, free speech, sexualized violence, and technology.
Hello to all our readers around the world, and Happy Women’s History Month! As Womancake prepares for our 1st birthday on March 22nd, we’re sharing some great interviews from our archive. Soraya Chemaly was one of my top-5 dream interview guests when I conceived of Womancake. Her book “Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger” impacted me deeply, and I’ve given countless copies to friends since it was published a few years ago. I was nervous about approaching her for an interview, but she was immediately gracious and game, and we had a great chat that demonstrates her ferocious intelligence and unique brand of midlife cool. By the way, she has a brand-new book coming soon!
Hi, Soraya, and welcome to the Womancake interview! How is your day going?
It's going well, thank you. Every day, spring is coming, summer is coming.
It’s my favorite time of year, too. Your book “Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger” was an extraordinary hit when it came out in 2018 and was translated to multiple languages. I loved it, and I believe it’s required reading for anyone who is deeply committed to a truly equitable society. When you look out on the political landscape in front of us, what are you most concerned about, and what, if anything, is giving you hope?
I think the thing that I'm most concerned about is a societal attitude that when we move forward, there's always some sort of progress, that things are getting better, that every generation is somehow more knowledgeable, capable, open. Some of that is true. But in fact, when it comes to gender equality, that's a pretty dangerous and slippery equation, because we're living through a period of intense global backlash to the changes that have happened in the last 50 years, [like] anti-colonial movements, Black Lives Matter movements, women's liberation movements, and Indigenous Rights movements around the world. These changes are happening at an accelerated pace. And people have a heightened awareness of it because of the nature of our media. Particularly in the United States, I talk to a lot of people who think Millennials, and Gen Y and Gen Z, the boys and men in those generations, are much more egalitarian. But in fact, that is proven not to be true at all. Among very young people, I think the gender divides are heightened, exacerbated, and deeply worrisome.
On a good note, though, I do think that people are equipped today to understand what's happening. They have a language, they have intellectual frameworks. The democratization of media has a lot of very negative and deleterious effects, but it also has tremendous positive effects that we won't even understand for generations. People having the tools they need, having information and being able to share and to join communities, when otherwise they would be isolated are all bright lights.
That’s definitely hopeful. One of the huge takeaways I got from your book is the idea that emotional competency is paramount for each of us. Would you share one of your daily methods of grounding yourself in emotional competency?
Sure. I think it's important to say that in terms of my own experience, I don't remember a time when people's perceptions of me as a girl did not determine how they treated me. I was quite a pretty young girl, and the expectation that came with that was that I should be pleasing, and I should be smiling and happy. Not confrontational, and certainly not aggressive and not challenging. I was brought up in a Catholic family and went to Catholic schools. There's a whole traditional approach to [being a girl]. I learned if I wanted to have my ideas taken seriously and get people to listen to my words, I had to downplay emotionality, [and] all the feminized attributes that were undermining my ability to be heard.
So when I think of what grounds me, it is to reject all of that, because it's bullshit, right? Because once you really start to understand the way cognition works, [and] once we dispose of the silly stereotypes, then we can really appreciate what it means to use our emotions to create understanding, to build bridges, to share information. The idea that people have no emotions, or that they don't bring their emotions to their relationships, or their work or their identities, is pretty outrageously funny to me at this point. So mainly, I try to get out of my own way. I have to remember that of course I can reason, but implicated in my reasoning is my feeling.
I don't remember a time when people's perceptions of me as a girl did not determine how they treated me. I was quite a pretty young girl, and the expectation that came with that was that I should be pleasing, and I should be smiling and happy. Not confrontational, and certainly not aggressive and not challenging.
Provocative, I love that! The theme of our first issue is flourishing. And I'm wondering if there is a particular activity, state of mind or part of the world in which you flourish?
I'm from The Bahamas, and I flourish when I go back. If you have had the great benefit of happy times [in your] childhood, where you felt safe and loved, there is an embodied sensation that's related to the temperature, and the wind. I think that flourishing has to mean that you are comfortable in your own skin, and that you are loved and wanted and embraced, and people are striving to understand you and support you. That has to do with yourself, your internal self-compassion, and with your relationships to other people. But I firmly believe that we just discount how much of it has to do with the way we relate to our physical environments.
Definitely. How does wisdom manifest at this stage of your life?
I think probably in equanimity. I'm actually quite interested in that. I don't really feel it's something I've particularly sought out in my life. I think it would look like a willingness to listen more. I always try and listen, but I have also gone through periods where I feel pretty confident that it doesn't matter if I listen. So I'm really just trying to think, okay, what is equanimity? What does it mean? How do I approach that? And also really altering the way I think about time and the expectations we put on ourselves, the standards we were expected to perform.
What is an aspect of your character that you've grown to love, and one that you still struggle with?
I think they'd be the same thing, aggression. I think aggression is really, really hard for women, the fact that it gets confused with anger. [It’s] doubly hard for women, [because] being assertive makes people think women are aggressive.
I think that this conflation of anger, aggression and assertiveness, is very tricky. I'm quite comfortable with my aggression, and I think that's because I have a pretty acute sense and experience of my aggression being a pivot of discrimination. Because I know that I have always been able to sit in a room with a man I love and respect and work with. And if we act in the exact same ways we will be treated differently. So I have no compunctions at this point, at my age, with being aggressive, because I understand what's happening. In fact, in many situations, I know that in order to be perceived as aggressive all I have to do is walk in a room. So if I'm gonna be aggressive anyway, I might as well have fun and really be who I want to be.
[It’s] doubly hard for women, [because] being assertive makes people think women are aggressive… in many situations, I know that in order to be perceived as aggressive all I have to do is walk in a room. So if I'm gonna be aggressive anyway, I might as well have fun and really be who I want to be.
Is there a female figure from your childhood that had a powerful impact on you, positive or negative?
Yes, I had a great aunt who I think ultimately saved my life just by being a kind of wise, stable, safe, funny, adult. I grew up in a lot of chaos, a lot of love, but tremendous chaos. But I just always knew I could be with her and not have that chaos, so I just really appreciated it.
Will you share an event from your life that created a distinct before and after, and what kind of wisdom you gained from the after?
My husband was diagnosed with a very serious illness a few years ago. Thankfully he's fine, but that definitely was a ‘before and after’ moment. It really crystallized what's important. All the busyness, all the work, all the desire or ambition and everything you pour into various aspects of your life, the balance of everything changes. And I just think that was super important.
I'm wondering if you have any wisdom from your perimenopausal or menopause experience that you think would be helpful to others?
Oh, my God yes! First of all, I'm Gen X. Didn't didn't know the first fucking thing about perimenopause. I have long called it peri-fucking-menopause. I remember going to the doctor and saying, ‘You know, I really think this is what's going on. Things are not right’. And my doctor, the last male doctor I ever had said, ‘Oh, no, you're too young for that!’ And I was like, ‘No, I'm not. I'm not too young for that!’ I was so unhappy. I was [asking], what is happening? And he literally looked at me and said, ‘You look great!’ and I was like, that's it. You're done. So I found a woman doctor 10 years older. I need an older woman. I don't want to jump through these stupid rings of trying to explain to someone what it is I'm experiencing. I just need someone to listen to me, and then give me some guidance. I'm genuinely so excited. I know several women who have recently written books about this, and I'm so happy they're doing it, you know?
The more we share our experiences, the better for all of us! Is there a woman in your life who currently inspires you, and why?
Jacklyn Friedman inspires me, she and I've worked a lot together on different activism projects. She had this great vision. We were talking [recently] about being older, and having the appreciation of the fact that this work is intergenerational. You have to be willing to understand that, and plan for that. I'm on the board of an organization she just started called EducateUS, which is dedicated to scientifically accurate progressive sex ed across the nation. That is generational work. She's very honest about the ups and downs, which we all have. It's not unrelenting positivity, which I really can't abide. You can go back and forth. I work with a lot of feminists who are in their 80s. And when I'm tired, because it's exhausting, I think, okay, they're 30 years further in. I have to pause and remember that.
Lastly, will you share a book, snack or some kind of life hack that you're currently enjoying?
I love blackberries and I love mango popsicles. It's just mango. There's no added sugar. There's no added flavoring. It's like it's almost a pulp. That's the best.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Soraya can be found via her website, and you can also grab your new bible, “Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger”
Great interview! A must-read. I am fascinated by the confusion that persists for women in this ever-conflating stewpot of perceived ambition, aggression, anger, and assertiveness. I have an old Gotham Girl post called "Day One of Ruth Langmore Assertiveness Training" that still makes me cackle.