Despite the best efforts of the manosphere, our feminist rage is not going anywhere
By Mya Duffy
Mya Duffy unpacks Sara Ahmed’s concept of the ‘feminist killjoy’, and why more than ever, our feminist rage must be channeled into driving collective action.
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You might have seen the idea of the man-hating feminist being animated by the manosphere - the echo chamber of red-pilled, men’s rights activists who feel any progress for women is a loss for men. It’s a collective for whom women, and especially those they dub “woke lefties”, are positioned as the enemy of men’s mental health - the culprits behind the so-called ‘men’s loneliness crisis’ and evil orchestrators of masculine demise. Yes, the manosphere is a hothouse for extremist ideology and misogynistic terrorism. But this online misogyny seeps into our everyday interactions as well.
Have you ever been at a Christmas lunch or a house party, surrounded by friends and family spouting sexist, racist, ableist comments, and felt unable to hold your tongue? You’d know that something shifts when you speak up. The violence of what was said goes unnoticed, and it’s you who has spoiled the jovial atmosphere. You’ve become the problem. You’re a ‘killjoy’.
I am a feminist killjoy. When I first read about the concept in British-Australian writer and scholar Sara Ahmed’s The Promise of Happiness, I felt seen. The feminist killjoy disturbs the happiness of others by pointing out sexism, or any of the ‘isms’, in an everyday context. By refusing to be agreeable, coy, and nice, which are all characteristics attached to the dominant conception of femininity, we puncture that bubble of happiness.
Feminist killjoys disassemble happiness narratives like marriage, motherhood, and the justification of lower-paid feminised jobs that serve to keep women and minorities in their place. We do not always find joy in the scripts written for us, so we are ascribed as the origin of negativity.
Our anger is a rational and justified response to gendered violence and injustice; it is necessary for dismantling the patriarchy. Anger is an act of resistance.
The stereotype of the angry feminist can be seen in climate activist Greta Thunberg. From her polemic speech at the UN climate summit in 2019 to boarding the Freedom Flotilla delivering humanitarian aid to Palestinians in June, Thunberg has been scrutinised for her radical activism. The infantilisation and pathologisation, accusations of witchcraft, and being told to smile are all tired misogynistic attempts to delegitimise her anger and authority. But her interests lie with fighting ecocide, environmental imperialism, genocide, and climate collapse - not the social balm of women’s niceties.
Like women themselves, emotions have historically been relegated to the private sphere. The second wave feminist mantra, the ‘personal is political’, unearthed women’s feelings, emotions, and experiences from the private and pinned them on the political map. Emotions are not confined to the sphere of biology, but act as a mirror for learned gender roles and hierarchies. They are bound up in the political.
While society often portrays rage as counterproductive, it is also a signal of moral trespass, a warning, a lament from deep within. Rage is simultaneously all-consuming and clarifying, like when a fire dies out and you’re left to see markings on the earth below. Our anger, especially that of women of colour, is weaponised against us to maintain the misogynistic image of a ‘good’ woman. When a woman gets angry, she is hysterical. When a man expresses anger, he is powerful.
As Audre Lorde discusses in ‘The Uses of Anger’, when approached purposefully, rage is an instructive and energetic source of clarity, and when channelled into collective action, it serves as a method for consciousness-raising. Anger has birthed countless movements: the Civil Rights movement, the Suffragettes, second wave feminism, #MeToo, Invasion Day rallies, the pro-Palestine movement, and so many more. Reframing anger as an emotion worth listening to is fundamental for encouraging social change. It’s not coming from a place of hatred or chaos, but of clarity and change.
Having to make a choice between anger and pragmatism is an added layer of oppression that Amia Srinivasan calls affective injustice. Performing happiness under the guise of gender definitions and racist archetypes, suppressing our anger and letting it ferment inside us is an affective injustice. We have been taught to bottle it up. We are told to smile. But why are we not allowed to feel anger toward our oppressors and the systems that support them?
We can trace the history of feminism as a history of getting angry, and if we do not get angry, we will be erased. Like Greta Thunberg says, “The world needs more angry young women”.
About the author
Mya Duffy
Mya is a writer, feminist, and human rights activist from regional NSW. She has completed a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Writing/English Literature and Sociology at the University of Wollongong. You can find more of Mya’s work on her Substack.
