The Power of a Pissed Off Woman

Why losing your shit when useful is the ultimate path to liberation.

This rage is not chaos; it is clarity sharpened by experience.
~ Sima Keemo Kazi

I’ve got stories. Decades of rage-inducing stories.

Warning, they may be triggering because I can guarantee that every woman who reads this will have their own versions of these stories.

I know this because the moment I move past superficial pleasantries with a midlife woman, anger inevitably becomes part of the deeper conversation. It’s built into the modern female experience. By the time we reach midlife, we have navigated decades of absolute nonsense.

In my twenties,

I lived in New York City. As a young woman in a city made for walking, street harassment was a guarantee. One afternoon, as a man walked past me, he said, “I want to lick your pussy.”

Now, I lucked out. I inherited my father’s deep, cellular comfort with his anger. So it didn’t take more than a nanosecond for me to turn around and follow him down the street as I screamed at him asking, “Who the hell do you think you are?” He looked like a lost puppy with his tail between his legs, shocked that a woman had broken the pattern and attacked back. Men are always surprised when you refuse to absorb their public disrespect and abuse.

In my thirties,

I now lived in Los Angeles on a busy street. One day, I walked out to my car and found a note on the windshield from a man in the neighborhood. It asked me to be his Valentine. We’re trained to see this as a compliment. I found it enraging. It meant he was watching me; he knew my car; and he likely knew where I lived. He didn’t care about my safety or comfort; he only cared about his needs. The next time I saw him, I lit into his ass right there on the street. Again, total shock. He thought he was being a romantic lead; I turned him into a villain.

By my forties,

public harassment was slowing as I aged. Fine with me, but that didn’t mean it completely went away.

A long driveway runs along the windows of my home. Because of the busy street situation, men would occasionally wander up the driveway seeking privacy so they could urinate. Before we finally installed a gate, I spent years throwing open my window and yelling, “People live here! This isn’t a public restroom!” as they frantically tried to tuck themselves back in mid-stream. They were sufficiently embarrassed, and so I’d move on.

But one day, when a man came up the driveway and I did my normal routine, he took longer than usual to skedaddle. Once he left, I discovered the reason for the delay. He had left a pile of human feces behind. I think it’s important to note this was not a mentally ill homeless person. I had seen him at the grocery store by my house earlier soliciting signatures for something.

A couple of hours later, now dark outside, I heard a voice by my window calmly saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” It was the same man. Our earlier interaction must have led him to believe I was a woman who lived alone, and so he could behave however he wanted.

I completely lost it. I was on the phone with my mom at the time, and she panicked as she listened to me march out the front door and chase that motherfucker down the sidewalk. My mom was telling me it wasn’t safe and to let it go while I screamed at this asshole to come back and clean up his shit. LITERALLY!!!

Okay, deep breath.

Now in my late fifties,

the sexual harassment has pretty much stopped, but the subtle disrespect from men who function from the societal understanding that it’s okay to treat women as less than remains. And so does the built-up rage from decades of navigating this bullshit.

And that is why I share these stories—to lay the groundwork for why I believe women need a space to explore, express, and ultimately use our collective rage as a path to liberation.

But to liberate ourselves, we must first shine a light on the centuries-old tactic to shame women for expressing our rage. We must practice letting go of the idea that when we are angry, we are being rude and unlikeable.

I have worked as an actress and filmmaker for over forty years. My job has required me to connect with the deepest corners of human emotion. To highlight how entrenched this conditioning is, I have watched talented actresses struggle when a script demanded their character be angry. The conditioning is so tightly wound into who we are as women that, even when given permission to be angry, we struggle.

Some of you may be thinking, like my mom did, that it’s not safe to get angry. I never want to diminish the very real fact that women must constantly analyze the situations they’re in for danger. But have you ever wondered why it has been so ingrained in us that getting angry is bad, or dangerous, or unattractive?

I’d like to suggest we’ve been convinced our anger is bad because our rage holds the key to our power. Think about those rare times when survival instinct kicks in and we turn into mama bears protecting those we love. Nobody messes with a mama bear. But outside of mama bear behavior, we tend to shut down in other situations where expressing our rage would be useful.

Recently, I came across a Substack post that broke down a biological reality: rage is a weapon we can use to protect ourselves.

The author, Maria Cassano, shares a research study where inmates charged with violent crimes against women were shown videos of women and asked which one they would choose as their target. The inmates all chose the same few women not based on how they looked but on how they walked. As Maria shares,

“According to the inmates, the women who walked as though they were anxious and insecure (shorter gaits, heads down, arms wrapped around themselves or swinging awkwardly) made the best victims. The women who walked confidently and with purpose did not make good victims.

“Why? Because the former seemed physically and emotionally vulnerable, while the latter seemed like they’d put up a good fight.”

In other words, losing it when threatened makes you dangerous. Assholes who want to cause harm sniff our vulnerability. They do not want to deal with the woman who is ready to blow shit up.

One day, while going for a walk in my neighborhood with a girlfriend, we came across a guy enjoying the sunshine. He was lying on a lawn with his dog, topless. Familiar with my neighbors, I knew this wasn’t his lawn.

I stared at him in awe. He had zero concerns. No fear for his safety, no threat of being catcalled or attacked. He was just existing. That is what I want for us.

Expressing our anger is not a failure of character; it is an act of cultural resistance. It is the wild but also wise part of ourselves that allows us to reclaim our freedom and our joy.

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Got rage? Come to the Holy Rage salon.

Forty years working as an actress gave me a luxury most women never experience—a protected place to rage. I’m hosting this salon so you can have a safe space to rage too.

I designed the Joybellion salons to nurture curiosity, community, and self-expression. Over two virtual sessions, we will gather as midlife women to voice what we’ve been forced to push down and transform it into power.

We come together on Wednesday, July 29th.