Noor Wazwaz and Ashley Brown produced and edited this story for broadcast. The kind of anger that women are feeling in this moment around Kavanaugh is going to be part of a far longer story that's going to extend deep into our future. And this is part of a long process - social movements take a long time. I think that it's the anger that women are feeling across the country that is having a catalytic connective impact. It's that it's very often politically potent and yet we're told not to take it seriously, still. My argument is not that women's anger is always righteous. On why the power of women's anger is not limited to a progressive partisan agenda But in fact, all of that is foregrounded by women of color whose stories so often get lost or kind of erased. I don't say that to diminish the experience or the reality of the harm they sustained. And then when the #MeToo movement erupts - I think it's really important that we understand that the first people to get attention were very wealthy white actresses. It's Tarana Burke, who in 2006 pioneers and leads the #MeToo movement. In 1991, it was Anita Hill, whose testimony against Clarence Thomas, claiming that he sexually harassed her, sort of cemented the idea that sexual harassment wasn't individual behavior but damage done to a class. She describes a buildup of anger - her own anger, the anger of other women that spilled over from the 2016 election of President Trump, and anger at many of the white women who voted for Trump in that election - as a catalyst for her book. She says the idea for the book came to her just before the 2017 Women's March. Traister's new book, Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger, is a deeper exploration of that dynamic. Christine Blasey Ford - I can't imagine a scenario in which she would have gone into that hearing room armed with that same weapon, that same tool that she could yell and be furious in her retelling of what happened to her,' Traister tells NPR's Rachel Martin. 'He had in his arsenal the ability to use anger, fury, tears in a way that he felt confident would resonate with the American people. Traister says Ford's polite and constrained demeanor was in stark contrast to Kavanaugh's use of a full range of expression. How?įor author and New York magazine writer Rebecca Traister, Thursday's contentious hearing highlighted important differences in the way Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who testified to the allegations, told their stories. Your purchase helps support NPR programming.

Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Good and Mad Subtitle The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger Author Rebecca Traister

Good and mad