Carol Tavris, in her work Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion, essentially attempts to reclaim anger as a healthy rather an unhealthy emotion, and to show how it can be experienced and expressed in ways which will not be destructive to the individual or to others. Tavris attempts as well to come to a clearer definition of anger than has been forged to date in the field of psychology:
Clinicians devote a considerable portion of their energies to helping their clients "deal" with anger, yet few of them distinguish anger from rage, hatred, violence, or chronic resentment, and even fewer conduct experiments to see how these phenomena might differ (23).
As a result of these flawed perceptions and definitions, and the dominance of psychology in determining our understanding of anger and its proper place in a healthy life, a number of deeply entrenched myths have emerged. Two of the most important and most misleading are the assumptions that "anger and aggression are inextricably, biologically linked; anger is the feeling and aggression its overt expression," and "if the outward expression of anger is blocked, anger 'turns inward,' where you feel it as depression, guilt, shame, anxiety, or lethargy" (24).
In other words, there are numerous myths which have sprung up around the "misunderstood emotion" of anger and which prevent us from truly appreciating what the experience and expression of anger can do to make our lives more satisfying and authentic.
The author's examination of the relationship between anger and the evolution of the women's movement reveals not only significant facts about women's anger but also many of the most essential points Tavris is trying to make about anger in general. In addition, her review of the changing roles of women in society illustrates the turbulence of a society confused by the emotion of anger and its expression or suppression.
In examining this relationship between the women's movem...