Differentiating Female Rage from Plain Anger
Commonly mistaken for textbook-definition anger, the term “female rage” is complex and relies on an understanding of the different ways women and men exist and are perceived in the world to be truly understood. What is now considered female rage was once considered hysteria and, quite barbariously, used to subdue women under the guise of a mental issue or ailment.
In 20th-century popular culture, male audiences would constantly insult female-empowering artists like Alanis Morrisette, because that was the discourse at the time. Though female rage was no longer considered an “ailment” to male-centered audiences, it was now considered a choice. If women didn’t play into the weak, helpless damsel-in-distress dream that men demanded them to be, then they were written off. However, when you have an artist like Morrisette ignoring that male perspective and singing about how much she truly despises her former partners, she won’t “fade as soon as you close your eyes.” She’s angry, and she’ll be heard, even if you don’t want to listen.
That is the gist of female rage as a 20th-century abstract concept. How it presents itself in 21st-century internet culture amidst the AI-slop and brainrot content is very different, in part, thanks to TikTok fan editors.
‘No, It’s Not Hysteria’: Fictional Female Rage in Film
Fan editors of all ages clip scenes from movies, both new and old, and piece together a beautiful abstract of what it feels like to be a woman in a world that prioritizes men. Scenes from Possession, Jennifer’s Body, Midsommar, and Girl, Interrupted, among dozens of others, are pasted into a highlight reel that functions as an aesthetic display of “female rage”. It’s in our nature to aestheticize the good, the bad, and the ugly, and fan editors have found the perfect formula for crafting a precise narrative. “Female rage” is as tragically beautiful as it is a representative of a response to a fundamental wrong. Though 21st-century video editing savants serve social media users watered-down clips with edgy, non-diegetic audio, the films used in these reels provide the context needed to understand why these leading women are rageful in the first place.
Most popularly, Andrzej Żuławski's 1981 film Possession, follows the life of a woman who admits that she is having an affair, and subsequently leaves her husband and their child. The film takes on a Cronenberg-esque turn of events, where it’s revealed that, aside from her brief affair with a human man, the woman has been deriving intimate pleasure from a monster-like creature, akin to the likes of monsters you’d find in The Fly or Videodrome. The most popular scene in the film showcases the woman having an emotional meltdown, repeatedly hyperventilating as she screams about “Sister Faith” in an empty subway. Though the demise of the woman’s marriage is a direct result of her own behavior, the scene is a hyperbolization of the intense need her character has for pleasure and, in a certain way, the inability to deal with her own existentialism as a woman. What screams female rage more than that?
Sticking with the abstract, the late 2000s birthed a cult-classic film that, to this day, prompts feminist discourse: Jennifer’s Body. The film utilizes one of the it-girls of the industry at the time, Megan Fox, to tell the story of a girl who is lured into a van by a male band, and they offer her up as a demonic sacrifice. Long story short, this backfires, and she becomes a succubus-like being who eats boys. This gives her power, beauty, and most importantly, satisfaction. Fox’s character, Jennifer Check, in tandem with her sidekick “Needy,” portrayed by Amanda Seyfried, emotionally relies solely on the only other main female character in the film. Eating boys and a confusing female friendship make for the perfect plot for a female rage story. Men all of a sudden realized that “pretty girls” get angry, too. At the time, this film received mixed reviews because it was misrepresented in its trailer, and male audiences didn’t realize that the plot painted them in a poor light. Oh well.
Fictional characters aren’t the only women who get angry though.
Real Rage by Real Women: Music Tells the Story
You must pay your respects to the female artists who continue to be influences for the popular female musicians we listen to today. Circling back to Alanis Morissette, her album Jagged Little Pill was and still is made up of rageful anthems targeted at the world and, more specifically, at men. This helped set up the stage in 2025 for Olivia Rodrigo’s album Guts or even Sabrina Carpenter's Man’s Best Friend. However, there was a time when angry women didn’t get good record deals because it simply wasn’t palatable to the male-dominated society.
Female rage is synonymous with Fiona Apple. The singer-songwriter used her platform from the very beginning in the late ‘90s to rail on her ex-boyfriends for hours on end, taking a more liberal stance on love and dating than what was popularly seen in the music industry at the time (like Morissette). In one of Apple’s later albums in the early aughts, one song stands out in particular: “Not About Love.” The song focuses on how she is not in love, and more so, finds it impossible to love as a result of a strenuous relationship. Apple writes,
“‘What is this posture I have to stare at?’ / That’s what he said when I’m sitting up straight… / Take all the things that I've said that he stole / Put 'em in a sack, swing 'em over my shoulder / Turn on my heels, step out of this sight / Try to live in a lovelier life…”
The absence of love and inability to feel it as a result of a man’s actions is female rage in its purest form, and even goes beyond rage by delving into light misandry. Some would argue that female rage is misandry. However, for a long while, male sexism against women was only labeled as abnormal. In all, Apple encapsulates how female rage manifests itself in different forms, two of these being anger and apathy.
Lily Allen’s early works and most recent album, West End Girl, opt for the anger angle. Allen’s publicized marriage and divorce to Stranger Things actor David Harbour is the focal point of her newest project, where she confesses that Harbour had a long-term affair throughout the duration of their marriage. The album clearly takes inspiration from Allen’s earlier works, but stings a little bit more, knowing the innermost details of the messy breakdown of her relationship with Harbour. Singing about a fresh divorce and calling the cheater out repeatedly on an album takes grit, and that’s exactly what Allen has been portraying since her debut in 2006.
The Point? To Get Even
Female rage isn’t about taking it up a notch and going out of one’s way to make men’s lives more difficult. It is about making the world fair and getting even with those who’ve wronged women and never so much as thought about the implications of why they treat women the way that they do.
Raging against the ma(n)chine is a tale as old as time. The difference nowadays? Instead of men being the loudest and labeling women as defective and hysterical, women have even louder female voices in the audience to rage with them. So, before you turn on your Olivia Rodrigo, think about the Allens and Apples of generations’ past.
