Abstract
We used a social constructionist and feminist framework to examine how young women negotiate gendered rules for anger in their romantic relationships and how such negotiations are associated with women’s power in these relationships. We analyzed 24 interviews using a grounded-theory methodology. Our analyses indicated five women resisted gendered rules for anger as they accepted their anger, attributed shared responsibility for their anger, and expressed their anger externally and directly. The other 19 young women followed gendered rules for anger as they distanced themselves from their anger, ambivalently attributed responsibility for their anger, and kept their anger in and expressed it indirectly. Women who resisted gendered rules for anger narrated being engaged in egalitarian relationships, while women who followed gendered rules for anger seemed to participate in nonegalitarian relationships. The findings of this study offer a feminist conceptualization of women’s anger in terms of social rules for anger experience and expression.
Women’s experiences and expressions of anger have significant implications for women’s physical and psychological health (Thomas, 2005). Women who suppress or neglect their anger have greater probabilities of developing physical health problems such as cancer, cardiovascular disorders, and high blood pressure (Harburg, Julius, Kaciroti, Gleiberman, & Schork, 2003; Thomas, Groer, Davis, Droppleman, Mozingo, & Pierce, 2000). Similarly, women who suppress their anger are at a greater risk for somatization (Liu, Cohen, Schulz, & Waldinger, 2011), perfectionism (Aruguete, Edman, & Yates, 2012), depression (Rude, Chrisman, Burton Denmark, & Maestas, 2012), and suicide attempts (Daniel, Goldston, Erkalin, Franklin, & Mayfield, 2009).
Furthermore, women’s experiences and expressions of anger have implications for couple and family relationships. High levels of indirect anger expression in female partners have been associated with higher propensity of male partners to engage in verbal and physical aggression toward female partners (Lafontaine & Lussier, 2005). In addition, women who suppress their anger at their husbands or romantic partners are frequently aggressive toward their children or other less powerful family members (Jack, 2001).
Although women’s anger has important implications for women’s health and for couple and family relationships, research on women’s anger has been limited. First, most studies on anger assume a gender difference approach positing that women and men have different individual anger traits—either by biological or social causes (e.g., Evers, Fischer, Mosquera, & Manstead, 2005; Kopper & Epperson, 1996). Second, the few research studies on women’s anger have investigated women’s anger in general ways without considering particular contexts, relationships, or stages of the life course (Eatough, Smith, & Shaw, 2008; Jack, 2001; Thomas, Smucker, & Droppleman, 1998).
The present study is a contribution to a more nuanced understanding of women’s anger from a feminist perspective. The study expands previous knowledge on women’s anger by attending to the underlying gendered social rules for women’s experiences and expressions of anger and how young women in romantic relationships obey and resist those rules.
A Social Constructionist and Feminist View of Anger
Professionals in the social sciences agree, for the most part, on the characteristics of the emotion of “anger” as it is understood by individuals in contemporary Western society. Anger is triggered by frustration, threats to autonomy, disrespect, norm or rule violation, or a sense of injustice (Izard, 2010; Potegal & Stemmler, 2010). Anger is associated with strong physiological changes such as “increased blood pressure, total peripheral resistance, and facial warming” (Potegal & Stemmler, 2010, p. 4). The anger literature describes anger as a tool for maintaining hierarchical social structures (Potegal & Stemmler, 2010) and also sometimes as a mechanism to challenge hierarchy when responding to transgressions and attempts at subordination (Jouriles, Simpson Rowe, McDonald, & Kleinsasser, 2014; Stemmler, 2010).
Regardless of the agreements about the characteristics of what constitutes anger, social scientists place emphasis on different elements in their conceptualizations of anger. Some social scientists emphasize anger as primarily biological, developed by the human species to adapt to survival circumstances, and associated with specific physiological, cognitive, and social processes (e.g., Izard, 2010). Other authors emphasize that social processes are an essential factor in the experience and expression of anger (Averill, 1982; Hochschild, 1979). Yet some contemporary researchers in the field emphasize the value of a more comprehensive understanding of psychological processes, including anger, which recognizes their evolutionary and biological origins, as well as their socially constructed ones (Eagly, Eaton, Rose, Riger, & McHugh, 2012; Eagly & Wood, 2011).
Within the social constructionist perspective, social processes are not just viewed as a context that sets rules for how to express anger, depending on the target person and the social situation. A social constructionist view of anger considers that both the rules for the experience and the expression of emotion are social in origin (Averill, 1982; Hochschild, 1979). Within a social constructionist framework, we assume anger to be primarily guided by those social rules that determine how to feel with regard to a particular situation or toward a specific person and dictate how to express those feelings. We also agree with sociologists and social psychologists that many of those social rules vary according to the stratified relations between men and women structured at different levels of society (Hochschild, 1979). In this study, we use the concept of gendered rules for emotion to examine how young women obey and/or resist those rules with regard to their anger in romantic relationships. This concept is based on Hochschild’s (1979) concept of feeling rules, that is, the set of socially established rights and duties for the extent, direction, and duration of emotions given a particular social situation.
In following a feminist approach, we understand gender as a social structure and a social construction (Risman, 2004). Gender is a social structure that influences social institutions, social relationships, and individuals, providing greater power and privilege to men than to women (Risman, 2004). At the same time, gender is a social construction as it is enacted and contested in daily life by individuals in interaction (Risman, 2004). Women and men in different societies and social locations perform gender in their families, their work, and other areas of their lives (West & Zimmerman, 1987). Individuals also contest, resist, and transform gender by acting differently to what is expected of them according to gender norms (Deutsch, 2007).
In looking at gendered rules for anger from a feminist perspective, we understand that these rules are the product of a society structured by gender, that is, a society where at the institutional, relational, and individual levels, most men have more power and privilege than women. Therefore, we expected to find that gendered rules for anger would privilege men with regard to emotional experience and expression and not privilege women. At the same time, our understanding that gender is socially constructed and deconstructed (Deutsch, 2007) by individuals in their daily lives provided us with an open perspective to finding a diversity of ways in which women related to those social rules for anger.
Gendered Rules for Women’s Anger
Qualitative studies provide indications of what are some gendered rules for women’s anger, although other authors have not labeled them in this way. Three main gendered rules women often follow can be inferred from the findings of these studies: (a) anger storage, (b) indirect anger expression, and (c) anger as inappropriate.
Anger Storage
Qualitative studies on women’s anger indicate a gendered rule regarding the need for women to keep anger within their bodies. A phenomenological study by Thomas et al. (1998) including interviews with 21 Caucasian women between 21 and 66 years of age in different occupations, found a major theme for women’s anger was the experience of anger storage. Furthermore, Thomas et al. (1998) evidenced that women perceived themselves as powerless for keeping anger in, as they associated this process with a lack of dignity.
In a similar fashion, Cox, Stabb, and Bruckner’s (1999) Anger Diversion Model, developed through clinical observations and discussions, suggests anger containment as a predominant anger expression strategy women use. The authors propose anger containment involves women’s efforts at restraining any expression of their anger (Cox et al., 1999). Cox, Van Velsor, and Hulgus (2004) examined women’s anger expression strategies and how these different strategies were associated with mental health symptoms in a sample of 514 college women of diverse racial and cultural backgrounds. The findings from this study confirmed many women engage in anger containment and that anger containment is positively associated with anxiety levels.
Indirect Anger Expression
Jack’s (2001) study with 60 women of a variety of ages, sexual orientations, occupations, and racial backgrounds about how women bring anger in or keep anger out of their close relationships evidenced the variety of ways in which women express their anger indirectly. Jack (2001) proposed that one strategy women use to bring anger into their relationships is through “masking anger” (p. 391). Furthermore, Jack (2001) identified four ways women in her study masked their anger: quiet sabotage, hostile distance, deflection, and loss of control. In quiet sabotage, women acted as if they were not angry or in disagreement, but engaged in actions to sabotage the other’s goals (e.g., “forgetting” to do things). In hostile distance, women kept quiet and distanced as a way to express their disagreement. In deflection, women expressed their anger in a different relationship, frequently with their children or other less powerful family members. Finally, women expressed their anger through different means but disavowed responsibility for it by expressing they were out of control (e.g., because of the effects of the menstrual cycle).
Anger as Inappropriate
Eatough et al. (2008) intensively interviewed five inner-city women in the United Kingdom about their experiences of anger and aggression. The women in this study ranged in age from 28 to 32 years; all were married or cohabitated with a partner at the time of the interviews, and all but one were mothers. Among other findings, Eatough et al. (2008) identified a sense of guilt for anger in their participants’ narratives. Women expressed feeling guilt after anger outbursts and regretting their acts when angry.
In the Anger Diversion Model (Cox et al., 1999), anger internalization, one of the five ways the authors proposed women deal with their anger, involves women taking responsibility for all the events that triggered their anger and an attempt to suppress and/or deny their anger. The process of anger internalization also includes feeling guilty and punishing the self for anger. In their empirical study, Cox et al. (2004) confirmed anger internalization as a strategy used by some women to manage their anger. Also, this study evidenced that women with higher anger internalization experienced higher levels of somatization.
Finally, Thomas et al. (1998) also found evidence of women’s perceptions of anger as inappropriate. Women in this study talked about expressing their anger externally as “not normal.” Furthermore, they displayed difficulties in identifying themselves as the ones who were saying and doing things while angry. Thomas et al. (1998) noted a similar experience of women feeling a sense of “not-self” (p. 316) when they were angry. Such a relation to anger speaks of women identifying anger as something that should stay distant and foreign to them.
Resisting Gendered Rules
In addition to uncovering the ways that women follow gendered rules for expressing anger, qualitative studies have also illustrated another rule that women may follow in their anger in relationships. These studies reveal that when women can express their anger openly and directly, they resist or counter normative gendered anger rules.
Open and Direct Anger Expression
In the study by Thomas et al. (1998), some participants narrated that they felt comfortable expressing their anger openly and directly, although this happened less frequently in the interviews as compared with how much women spoke of other anger perceptions and experiences. However, in those few moments when women spoke of expressing their anger openly and directly, they narrated experiencing a sense of power within their interpersonal relationships because of the possibility of restoring reciprocity when it had been broken. Consistent with these findings, Jack (2001) found that one of the ways women brought anger into their interpersonal relationships was “positively and directly.” These women also reported a sense of empowerment. They expressed feeling relieved and happy about restoring closeness in their interpersonal relationships when they were able to talk openly about their anger.
Finally, the studies by Cox et al. (1999, 2004) also indicate a social rule that promotes open and direct expression of women’s anger. According to Cox et al.’s (1999) Anger Diversion Model, another one of the five ways in which women express their anger is assertive expression. For the authors, assertive anger expression is observed when women identify and directly express their anger at the target person with the purpose of resolving a conflict (Cox et al., 1999). Cox et al. (2004) further demonstrated assertive anger expression as one of the ways young women use to express their anger. Even more, this last study evidenced that women who assertively expressed their anger had lower probabilities of exhibiting mental health symptoms (i.e., depression, anxiety, obsessive–compulsiveness, and somatization) as measured by the Brief Symptom Inventory.
The Present Study
Previous qualitative studies have provided indications for some of the gendered rules for women’s anger. The present study is an attempt to expand the research on this topic from a social constructionist and feminist perspective, with a sample of women from a particular stage of development, and in a particular relational context. Specifically, the study was guided by the following research questions:
Method
Participants
Twenty-four young women between the ages of 18 and 25 years participated in this study (M = 22, SD = 2.2). Seventeen participants were Caucasian, 4 were Asian, and 3 women had more than one racial background. Two participants identified as Hispanic/Latina. All participants resided in the same U.S. Mid-Atlantic geographic area at the time of the interview. Participants were not asked to report on their sexual orientation, but one woman identified as bisexual during the interview. Of the 24 participants, 22 were enrolled at a university at the time of the interview. In terms of socioeconomic status, participants indicated that they were predominantly middle class.
All participants in the sample were involved in a romantic relationship with a man for at least 4 months at the time of the interview. Participants had been involved in the romantic relationships between 4 months and 7 years (M = 31.65 months; SD = 12.79). Seven women cohabitated with their partners. Many of the participants narrated engaging in periods of long-distance relationships with their current partners, but only four of them were living apart from their boyfriends at the time of the interview. Four participants were engaged to be married to their boyfriends. Young married women were excluded from the study considering that the majority of emerging adults perceive marital relationships to be qualitatively different from nonmarital romantic relationships (Thornton & Young-DeMarco, 2001). Even more, emerging adults view partial and full cohabitation with romantic partners, in contrast to marriage, as mainly serving pragmatic considerations (e.g., convenience, living arrangement, and financial matters) rather than qualitative differences in the relationship (Sassler, 2004). For details on demographic and relationship characteristics of participants, see Table 1.
Demographic and Relationship Characteristics of Each Participant.
Procedures
Recruitment
Once the research project was approved by the institutional review board, we advertised the study through flyers posted on bulletin boards in the campuses of three higher education institutions with different student populations (one major land grant university, one local public university, and one community college) in the same Mid-Atlantic geographic area. We also sent electronic flyers to list serves, faculty, and administrative staff at these institutions. We intentionally sent recruitment materials to minority student groups (including minority groups by racial and ethnic backgrounds and sexual orientation) and honor societies with the purpose of recruiting a diverse sample. In addition, we posted recruitment flyers in different public spaces (e.g., libraries, coffee shops, grocery stores) in several towns in the surrounding area including those with a predominantly rural background.
Potential participants who contacted us through e-mail or telephone were contacted back by telephone within the next 2 days. During the telephone call to potential participants, the first author screened for inclusion (i.e., age between 18 and 25 years and current involvement in a romantic relationship with a man for at least 4 months) and exclusion criteria (i.e., marriage, children, hospitalization for a mental health issue within the past 12 months, and current involvement as victim or perpetrator in physical or sexual violence in their current romantic relationship). The first author thanked those women who did not meet the criteria for the study, and scheduled an interview appointment with those who fulfilled the criteria.
Instrumentation
In the interview appointment, participants read and signed the informed consent for the study and then were interviewed by the first author. Interviews lasted between 45 and 95 minutes and were conducted in a private office space. In interviewing participants, the first author followed an interview guide with open questions and probes, and included additional questions according to the flow of the interview (Patton, 2002). The interview guide was piloted with two young women involved in romantic relationships. We made adjustments to the questions and probes according to the pilot participants’ feedback. The main questions we asked the participants elicited women’s descriptions of their romantic relationships and of their anger in romantic relationships. Some of the questions designed to elicit descriptions of their romantic relationships were “How would you describe your relationship?” “How do you and your boyfriend make decisions?” “Who has more power in the relationship?” and “How would you describe yourself in the relationship?” Examples of questions we asked participants about their anger in their romantic relationship were “Tell me about your anger in your current romantic relationship” “Can you tell me about a recent time you felt angry in your romantic relationship?” and “What do you like most about your anger in this relationship?” All interviews were transcribed verbatim and participants’ names were replaced by pseudonyms to guarantee participants’ cofidentiality.
At the end of the interview, we asked participants to complete a demographic questionnaire. The questionnaire asked participants about their age and their partner’s age, their race and whether they were Latina/Hispanic, which university they attended, their major, and their year in college or graduate school. To collect socioeconomic status information, the questionnaire included questions regarding mothers’ and fathers’ educational level, and the annual income of participants’ family of origin. After completing the interview and the demographic questionnaire, we provided participants with a $20 gift card.
Data Analysis
We analyzed the 24 interview transcripts using a constructivist grounded-theory methodology (Charmaz, 2006). This methodology included three coding processes: open coding, axial coding, and theoretical coding. During the coding phases, we engaged in different processes to address biases and guarantee the rigor of the analyses. Such processes included memo writing and reflexivity. We used memo writing to define criteria for categories and subcategories, as well as to challenge criteria we had previously established but in reviewing the raw data did not fit what participants said (Charmaz, 2006). In addition, in our group discussions, we encouraged each other to question our beliefs and prejudices toward the participants, the content of the interviews, and the coding to promote reflexivity in the coding process (Mruck & Mey, 2007). For example, the first author was often reminded by the other two researchers to consider places where women were resisting gendered rules for anger.
Open Coding
We conducted three rounds of reading, reviewing, and reacting to the interview transcripts based on the research questions, the theoretical framework, the literature, and our subjectivities as researchers (Charmaz, 2006). The first author conducted a first round of line-by-line open coding on the transcripts. Then, the second and third authors conducted open coding on the already coded transcripts and raised questions about the first author’s open coding. For example, in coding Haley’s interview transcript, the first author noted “Takes initiative in resolving anger” with regard to the following lines.
Sometimes, I come out of it right on my own without him having to do anything. But if it goes longer, usually he can pick what he did to upset me, and if he knows it’s not his fault, he lets me alone until I work through it, and I act normal again.
The second coder posited the following questions: “Isn’t some of what she is doing just avoiding conflict?” and “Doesn’t it sound like she has a lot of pressure not to be angry?” Finally, the first author did a third round of open coding based on the two previous rounds.
Axial Coding
After the three rounds of open coding, we engaged in the process of identifying the main themes that emerged in the interviews in relation to the research questions and began applying them to the data (Charmaz, 2006). This process included reviewing all the comments and initial codes that resulted from the open coding and attempting different groupings that best answered how women follow and resist gendered rules for anger in their romantic relationships. We developed four coding schemes, before reaching consensus on a fifth coding scheme that best captured participants’ perspectives. See Table 2 for the final coding scheme. This coding scheme contains 4 categories and 11 subcategories.
Final Coding Scheme for Axial Coding.
Theoretical Coding
To further answer the research questions, we used theoretical coding to identify how young women’s power in romantic relationships, their relation to anger, their meaning making of anger, and their anger expression were interrelated. Our discussions of the findings of the 24 women in terms of their anger in the romantic relationship, the similarities and differences between the women, and our guiding theory of women’s anger experience and expression as socially constructed resulted in an identification of two paths describing how young women relate to anger in their relationships. One path involves resisting gendered rules for anger in romantic relationships. The second path includes following gendered rules for anger, but in complex and contradictory ways.
Findings
The analysis of the 24 in-depth interviews evidenced two general paths in how young women are relating to gendered rules for anger in their romantic relationships: resisting gendered rules and following gendered rules. We describe below how young women following each of these paths (resisting and following) relate to, make meaning of, and express their anger. We also explore how women in each of these paths perceive and describe their power in romantic relationships. We provide examples from the interviews as illustration.
Resisting Gendered Rules for Anger
Out of 24 women in the sample, 5 were resisting gendered rules for anger. As demonstrated below, these women accepted their anger, attributed shared responsibility to their boyfriends and to themselves for anger, and expressed their anger outwardly and directly.
Accepting Anger
When asked about their anger, women in the resisting gendered rules for anger path were not reluctant to use the words “anger” and “angry,” or similar ones such as “mad,” in their responses. For example, Julie used the word “mad” on several occasions when describing her anger at her boyfriend. She said, “I’m the type of person that if I’m mad about something I need time to cool off” and later emphasized, “And he’ll know I’m mad.” In her responses throughout the interview, Julie demonstrated not being scared about talking openly about her feelings of anger in the romantic relationship. Similarly, Meredith spoke openly about her anger during the time her relationship was long distance.
Most of my anger came from feeling left out and being jealous that I wasn’t here, getting to do all the things that we used to do. I was worried about safety a lot, which was where I got really angry.
Sharing Responsibility for Anger
The five women resisting gendered rules for anger validated their anger and attributed responsibility for their anger to their boyfriends and themselves in a balanced way. For example, Kim identified the time she was most angry at her boyfriend as the time they had an argument over moving close to her family when they graduated (what Kim wanted) or moving somewhere else (what Kim’s boyfriend wanted). In her description of the situation, Kim began with, “We both said things that we shouldn’t have because we were both slightly intoxicated but the real issue was there.” Kim went on to explain her boyfriend’s perspective that “the real issue was that he didn’t have the support system growing up and his mother always asks him for help in regards to money and things like that,” therefore, making an effort to understand why her boyfriend would not like to move near to his family or to her family, and why family was not as important to him. Then Kim presented her own perspective.
Over the next day or two I was still really angry and I still wanted to break up with him because that was a huge thing. That is a major game changer for me. I’m not going to marry someone that doesn’t enjoy being with my family.
Kim ended the narration of this event with, “he’s getting better in that regard and I’m getting better in understanding where he’s coming from.” Thus, Kim demonstrated an understanding of both her and her boyfriend’s responsibility in the argument and the tension regarding their relationship with Kim’s family of origin. Furthermore, Kim validated both her own and her boyfriend’s anger in this situation.
Expressing Anger Externally and Directly
Finally, women resisting gendered rules for anger expressed their anger in their romantic relationships in direct and external ways. Most women related talking about the issues that bothered them without letting too much time go by, and sometimes yelling or raising their voices in doing so. Meredith described her way of expressing anger at her boyfriend in the following way. “It looks more like I come out with it, and I’ll say what it is, and what I would like to be different.”
Following Gendered Rules for Anger
Women following gendered rules for anger distanced from their anger (Category 1: relation to their anger), ambivalently attributed responsibility for their anger or blamed partner for anger (Category 2: meaning making of their anger), and kept their anger in and expressed it indirectly (Category 3: anger expression). Nineteen of the 24 young women in the study displayed these characteristics about their anger. In contrast to the resisting gendered rules path where all five participants displayed the same three subcategories for their relation to anger, their meaning making of anger, and their anger expression, in the following gendered rules path, the 19 participants displayed different combinations of subcategories associated with gendered rules for anger (see Table 3 for details). For example, regarding Category 2: meaning making of anger, some women demonstrated ambivalence about attributing responsibility for their anger (n = 15), while others blamed their boyfriends for their anger (n = 4). It was also the case that some young women in this path displayed two subcategories consistent with following gendered rules and one subcategory consistent with resisting gendered rules, thereby evidencing the diversity and complexity of the following gendered rules path.
Subcategories by Participant.
Distancing From Anger
Seventeen of the 19 women in the following gendered rules for anger path distanced from their anger. Some of the women carefully framed their anger as not frequent or not too intense. Saliha said, “I usually don’t get angry.” Likewise, Cindy expressed, “It takes a lot to make me angry.” They also distanced from their anger as their narratives focused on expressing anger calmly and keeping it under control. For example, Haley’s first sentence in response to the question about her anger was “I try to stay as calm as possible.” Within the same answer Haley repeated this sentence one more time, and in her next answer, she reiterated, “I stay calm by trying to think it through and not being rash or getting out of hand right off the bat because there’s sometimes that I don’t like what he’s doing.” Two of these 17 women, however, distanced themselves from their anger completely to the point of denying the experience of anger. Diane said, “I don’t . . . it’s weird like I was telling my mom that I was going to do this and she was like ‘you don’t really get angry’ and I don’t.”
Ambivalently Attributing Responsibility for Anger
Fifteen of the 19 women in this path evidenced ambivalence regarding their own and their boyfriends’ responsibility for their anger. During most of the interview, these 15 women excused or justified their boyfriends for what they did that made the women angry. In these ways, women invalidated their own anger. However, there were exceptional points during the narratives where these women were able to attribute responsibility to their boyfriends for the actions that made them angry without doubting or holding back. For example, for most of her interview, Brittany engaged in a monologue where she expressed her anger at her boyfriend, took responsibility for it, and then justified him in the next sentence. This example reveals Brittany’s ongoing monologue.
I get angry when he makes this sort of decision. And I probably take it more personally than I should. For example, when he first told me that he was planning on joining the Air Force I took it like, he doesn’t care about any of my ambitions and just wants to do what he wants to do. Which just isn’t true. You know, he is doing this because, obviously because he wants to, but, I mean, to think that he decided totally disregarding me is just, it’s just not really possible. I know that he factored me into it.
Although most of Brittany’s interview moved in this zigzagging pattern between asserting her anger, doubting, and justifying her boyfriend, there was one time in the interview where Brittany spoke with more conviction about her anger in the relationship.
One time he said something that I just didn’t agree with and I got really frustrated. It was silly. But he said something that just kind of struck a nerve, and I was really upset about it. And I just got really mad. I was just very frustrated, yelled at him and stormed out of the room.
Blaming Partner for Anger
Four women of the 19 who were following gendered rules for anger attributed full responsibility to their boyfriends for issues that made them angry. These women were angry about their boyfriends not doing things the way the women would like them to. Participants in this subcategory were unable to identify their part of the responsibility for issues that made them angry.
For example, Shelley expressed feeling angry with her boyfriend because he would not do chores the way she likes them to be done, that is, early in the morning before going to work. Shelley described, I like it when he gets up in the morning and he goes to work. He works in a lab where they just work 8-hour days. He has the keys so that 8-hour day can be from 11 am to 7 pm or it can be from 8 to 4. And I’m a morning person so I’ll wake up 6:30, 7 o’clock, and I’ll have things I know I can do for the day but if he’s like lolling about and just like laying on the couch until 10:30 before going to work then I feel like my morning has been robbed from me.
Keeping Anger in and Indirect Expressions
Most women in this path (14 out of 19) made important efforts to keep their anger in or expressed their anger in indirect ways. Jena described, I know that, he’s told me before, when I get angry, I don’t talk. I don’t explain why I’m angry necessarily. He can tell that I’m angry because I won’t talk, like I just look angry I guess. But yeah, I just don’t talk about it and I tend to keep it in and I don’t do anything about it. And sometimes I’ll bottle it up until something happens and I finally tell him.
Although Jena, as most participants in this subcategory, spoke of finally expressing their anger, this only happened after keeping their anger in for an extended period of time (e.g., hours, days, weeks). This final expression of anger after extended accumulation seems to be problematic for women, as it does not directly address the original issue that bothered participants. In this regard, Jena commented, He would just keep doing things, and it would just be little things and I would bottle it all up and it would come out at once over something very small but it’s really because of everything. And we’ve both realized that’s what it is and I would get angry about a lot of little things. It’s not because “you didn’t shut the refrigerator door” that I got upset and started to cry. It’s because of all these other things.
In some cases, like Olivia’s, it was also problematic in that women only expressed their anger after their boyfriends insisted on it. This seemed to portray young women as requiring permission or authorization from men to express their feelings. Olivia described this pattern as, I don’t say anything or I just kind of stop talking. He’ll be like “What’s wrong? Why are you not talking anymore? Why aren’t you hanging out?” And I’ll be like “I’m just tired” or “it’s nothing.” . . . And then if he keeps asking about it, I either start crying because I get sad or I get like really angry.
Some participants in this group also talked about passive-aggressiveness as one of the ways in which they expressed their anger. For example, Carrie declared, “Sometimes I can be passive-aggressive about things or just keep thinking about it for a while and then we might discuss it.”
Power Distribution and Its Relationship to Following and Resisting Gendered Rules
In addition to providing insights into the dimension of anger in relationships, the data also illustrated different facets of how women perceive and describe their power. The women’s generalized statements about power varied in the extent to which they were consistent with specific events women described. By comparing women’s generalizations about power to their descriptions of how power played out in specific events, we noted several power combinations related to a generalized sense of power in a relationship (I share power, I have too much power, or I don’t have enough power) and specific examples (events demonstrate sharing power, events demonstrate having more power, or events demonstrate having less power).
In our analysis of the data, we found four combinations of generalized descriptions of relationship power and examples that described how power played out in specific events: All of the five women resisting gendered anger rules fell into the following category: (a) the general perception that I share power and specific events that demonstrated examples of shared power (consistent general descriptions and specific events); in contrast, 18 of the 19 women who followed gendered anger rules fell into one of the following categories: (b) the general perception that I share power but specific events are inconsistent with this belief; (c) the perception that I have too much power and feel ambivalent but events are inconsistent with this belief; and (d) the perception that I don’t have enough power and feel ambivalent and events are consistent with this belief.
Power Among Women Resisting Gendered Rules: I Share Power, Events Are Consistent
In terms of power, the five women resisting gendered rules for anger seemed to be involved in egalitarian relationships with their romantic partners. They narrated sharing equal power with their boyfriends in the romantic relationship, felt comfortable with this distribution of power, and displayed consistency between their descriptions of the relationship and their perceptions of their power. Rachel stated, “I really feel like we share power. I have never felt like he was overpowering me. And I don’t feel like I do that to him. It’s kind of just mutual.”
According to our interpretations, these five women exhibited consistency between their general statements of their power and their descriptions of the relationship throughout the interview. In describing particular events with their partners, these women portrayed the relationship as one where both partners influenced each other’s emotions, ideas, and behaviors (Komter, 1989). For example, Kim used persuasion to explain the process of decision making in her romantic relationship: “As far as big decisions go if we have disagreeing points I’ll usually persuade him to my side of the story or he will persuade me to his side of the story and it usually works out.” Here, Kim made explicit how both partners have the possibility of influencing the other through persuasion.
Furthermore, women resisting gendered rules for anger demonstrated independence and confidence in their stories, suggesting a limit in boyfriends’ influences on women’s ideas and behaviors. For example, Layla described holding on to her beliefs.
He went online and he was researching Clouds and he was “you know this is a cult?” and I was like “no, it’s not.” And so we got into this huge fight . . . and I was mad at him for trying to tell me about a club I’ve been in for 10 years; I was like “I’m pretty sure I know better than you.”
Power Among Women Following Gendered Rules: Inconsistent Perceptions and Events
In terms of power, 18 out of the 19 women in the following gendered rules for anger path evidenced inconsistencies between how they perceived the general power distribution in their romantic relationships versus how we interpreted power played out in their description of specific events. Only 1 of the 19 women in the following gendered rules for anger path (Patricia) stated she was involved in an egalitarian relationship with her boyfriend, and narrated events that seemed consistent with this statement. Therefore, we evaluated Patricia’s experience as an exception among the group of women following gendered rules.
Regarding the other 18 participants, their boyfriends seemed to have a greater influence over their emotions, ideas, and actions than the women did over their boyfriends’ emotions, ideas, and actions (Komter, 1989). For example, Sarah declared how she spent time with her boyfriend and his family during graduation week, but he did not reciprocate: “My family wanted to go downtown and his family had already left. He wanted to go downtown with his friends, and he wouldn’t stop by for a drink.”
Although these 18 women who were following gendered rules seemed to be in nonegalitarian relationships and their general perceptions of their power in the relationship were inconsistent with this perception, they differed in their perceptions of how power was distributed. Women’s perceptions of their power in the relationship were distributed in the following way: 12 women perceived they equally shared power with their partners, 4 women perceived they had more power in the relationship than their partners, and 2 women perceived their boyfriends had more power than they did in the relationship.
I share power, inconsistent with events
These 12 women described themselves in general as having equal power to their boyfriends, expressed comfort with this general perceived power distribution, and integrated elements of equality discourses in their narratives. However, these women also spoke of specific events in which they narrated having less power or influence on an issue than their partners. This pattern suggests that their generalized sense of power may be inconsistent with the events they chose to share. When asked directly about power, they offered a statement about sharing equal power, as exemplified by Brittany, “It’s very balanced . . . it’s just very balanced.” As they expressed their general perception of sharing power with their boyfriends, they displayed no discomfort with such distribution. Nonetheless, in the specific events these 12 women described, they indicated that they were not able to influence their boyfriends’ values and actions (see examples of having less power in the previous section on women following gendered rules).
I have too much power, ambivalent, and inconsistent with events
Four of the 18 women following gendered rules for anger perceived themselves as generally having more power than their boyfriends in the relationship and expressed discomfort with this distribution of power. For example, Francesca stated, “I think I’m kind of the boss. I make a lot of the decisions . . . if it comes down to it, you know, I’m the one who decides. I call the shots, I guess.” Yet, at a different point in the interview, Francesca expressed not feeling comfortable about having more power and stated her desire for her boyfriend to influence her. For example, she talked about wanting him to correct her and tell her what not to do, saying, “I don’t like that he never corrects me. That should be something that I like, but I can recognize when I’m doing something wrong but I wish he would say it sometimes.” In addition, their general statements about having more power than their boyfriends were inconsistent with how they described their influence in examples of specific events (see examples of having less power in the previous section on women following gendered rules).
I don’t have enough power, ambivalent, and consistent
Two of the 18 women following gendered rules for anger emphasized a patriarchal discourse supported by their Christian church and perceived themselves as having less power. For example, Olivia expressed, I would say he is the leader in the relationship. Even though I don’t really like that because I don’t really believe there should really be a leader in the relationship, but I think it just has to be because you can’t have two people leading. I definitely let him make the big calls, but if he does something that I don’t agree with or if he makes me mad I don’t hesitate in telling him how I feel.
In this statement, Olivia illustrated her general belief that her boyfriend has more power. While she expressed doubts regarding this traditional distribution of power and mentioned that she sometimes expressed her disagreement, she ultimately cedes to him most initial decision making. Thus, while these two women perceived having less power in general and their perception was consistent with their descriptions of specific relationship events, they were also ambivalent and uncomfortable with this patriarchal distribution of power, as indicated by their perception that they did not have enough power.
Discussion
In the following sections, we discuss our findings in relation to our two research questions and the existing literature on women’s anger. Furthermore, we highlight the contributions of our findings to the study of women’s anger from a feminist perspective. In addition, we indicate limitations of our study and future research questions on the topic of women’s anger, gender, and power.
Following and Resisting Gendered Rules for Anger
The findings of this qualitative study suggest that, in the context of romantic relationships, some young women were resisting gendered rules for anger, but the majority continued to follow them. Our findings also suggest those women who were resisting gendered rules for anger were doing so in a clear-cut fashion, such that their ways of relating to, understanding, and expressing anger were all aligned. In contrast, women who were following gendered rules for anger were doing so to different degrees and in different ways. Therefore, it is possible to talk about a spectrum of ways in which women were following gendered rules for anger.
Our findings are consistent with the literature on women’s anger that indicates most adult women tend to keep their anger in and express it indirectly (Cox et al., 1999, 2004; Jack, 2001; Thomas et al., 1998). The descriptions provided by participants during the interviews also match to a large degree those reported by qualitative studies with diverse, and often heterogeneous, samples of adult women (Cox et al., 1999, 2004; Eatough et al., 2008; Jack, 2001; Thomas et al., 1998). From a feminist perspective and a social constructionist view of anger, the similarities in the findings across the aforementioned studies and ours suggest that in different stages of adulthood and in a variety of relationships, women predominantly follow gendered rules for anger expression.
Furthermore, our grounded-theory approach brought to light additional aspects of young women’s anger not previously identified by the literature. First, our findings suggest young women relate to their anger in romantic relationships in a less negative fashion than fully adult women in diverse relational settings. Although most of our participants distanced from their anger in the romantic relationship, there was not a sense of guilt or “not-self” reflected in their narratives as described in the studies by Eatough et al. (2008) and Thomas et al. (1998).
We hypothesize that this difference in the findings might evidence a subtle change in gendered rules for anger between cohorts, such that emerging adults (between 18 and 25 years) in 2012 might have been exposed to more moderate gendered rules for anger than those of adult women a few years and decades ago. These differences are probably consistent with the development of a discourse of egalitarianism in American society, and to young women’s exposure to more moderate gender attitudes in their families of origin (Fulcher, Sutfin, & Patterson, 2008).
Second, our findings provide tools to understand how women make sense of their anger within a relationship. We identified women’s understanding of anger in relation to others, specifically, in relation to a male romantic partner. Women in our study demonstrated three different ways in which they made sense of their anger in their romantic relationship in terms of the relation between self and other. They spoke of sharing responsibility for anger, ambivalently attributing responsibility for anger to self and other (i.e., excusing the other for things that made them angry and simultaneously attributing shared responsibility), and blaming the other for one’s anger. These characteristics of women’s anger in romantic relationships add more nuance to other relational understandings of women’s anger (e.g., Jack, 2001).
Following and Resisting Gendered Rules for Anger and Women’s Power
Our findings indicate women who resisted gendered rules for anger had a general perception of being involved in egalitarian romantic relationships that was confirmed by events narrated in the interviews displaying partners sharing equal power. In contrast, women who followed gendered rules for anger made general statements about being involved in egalitarian romantic relationships while also holding ambivalent perceptions and/or narrating events that demonstrated a lack of egalitarianism. These findings are similar to those reported by other researchers who have found that there is a nonegalitarian norm in romantic relationships where men have more power and privilege than women, although some movement toward egalitarianism can be observed (Gerson, 2009; Sassler & Miller, 2011; Sprecher & Felmlee, 1997). Our findings are also consistent with findings from studies examining emerging adults’ imagined futures, where women participants have reported a mixture of realism and optimism regarding egalitarianism in their future couple relationships (Fetterolf & Eagly, 2011; Orrange, 2003). Although young women are aware of existing general inequalities between men and women, they are optimistic about their capabilities of being able to achieve more egalitarian arrangements than the previous generation (Fetterolf & Eagly, 2011). The experiences of heterosexual spouses in husband-older marriages provide similar evidence of social change in marital attitudes and behaviors. Specifically, Pyke and Adams (2010) found that life course changes, such as remarriage or a midlife transition, can lead to more egalitarian relationships, after having first experienced traditional gendered power arrangements.
With regard to the relationship between anger and power, these findings complement those by Fischer and Evers (2011), who used a sample of adult married couples but only examined strategies of anger expression as measured by a quantitative questionnaire. They found that married women in egalitarian couples tended to express their anger out, while married women in more traditionally gendered couples tended to keep their anger in and express it in indirect ways. Our findings strengthen the claims about differences in anger meanings and expressions along heterosexual couple relationships that display diverse power arrangements.
Moreover, these findings call attention to how women’s power and women’s anger interact in early adulthood when, like this sample, many people have not yet entered into a committed stage such as marriage or long-term cohabitation (Arnett, 2004). Such early relationships may have long-term implications, as women are enacting rules and establishing new patterns that will shape their future romantic relationships and their sense of self through the life course (Halpern & Kaestle, 2014). The disconnect between many women’s perception of power in a relationship, their feelings about that power balance, and their description of how power events have actually played out in the relationship show a great tension surrounding traditional gendered anger rules and power relations. Perhaps, this tension will lead to changes in how these women conduct relationships in the future, or perhaps maintaining such tension indefinitely will result in poor relational or mental health outcomes. Regardless, this tension certainly highlights gendered anger rules as a site of ideological conflict relating to larger issues such as power (Komter, 1989).
Limitations of the Study
An important limitation of the study was the sample. Although we made significant efforts to increase the diversity of participants in the sample (i.e., posting recruitment flyers and sending e-mails to different universities and colleges in the area, targeting diverse ethnic and racial groups during the recruitment stage, and using personal contacts to recruit diverse participants), the sample was predominantly composed of White, middle-class young women attending college in the same Mid-Atlantic public university. The sample is limited in terms of lack of diversity in terms of sexual orientation, class, disability, language, nationality, and religion. Out of the 24 women, no one identified as African American and 2 identified as Latina/Hispanic. In addition, some of our exclusion criteria (e.g., not including young married women) could have further excluded the experiences of young women from diverse backgrounds. As a consequence, researchers and professionals need to be cautious in using the findings of this study in their work about and with non-White middle-class, young, unmarried women attending college.
We believe this study also has some important strengths. First, it contributes to expanding a feminist understanding of women’s anger and how women’s anger in couple relationships is associated with power distribution. Second, the richness of the data and the grounded-theory analysis allowed for a detailed description of the diverse ways young women are following and resisting gendered rules for anger.
Directions for Future Research
This study on young women’s anger in romantic relationships poses a number of questions that could be examined in future research. First, a research study examining young men’s perceptions and experiences of their power and anger in romantic relationships could provide complementary information about gender, power, and anger in romantic relationships. Second, a longitudinal study following women through adulthood could help understand changes in women’s anger in romantic, cohabitating, and marriage relationships through different stages of adult development. Finally, a study including a more diverse sample of young women might expand the understanding of how women in different socioeconomic statuses, from different ethnic backgrounds, and with different sexual orientations and gender identities understand, relate, and express anger in romantic relationships.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.