Why are British women so angry?

A while back, for fun, I searched my text archives for the phrase “I can’t stand it,” which brought up pages and pages of results. Some recent things I can’t stand, in no particular order: the word “outrage”; an obviously fabricated anecdote in a long-form article about a celebrity in a reputable magazine; someone’s passive-aggressive use of the word “whatever” in an email; a colleague of a reporter friend who, every time she finishes a story, goes into the system and changes two little things so he can squeeze his name in next to hers in the signature; David Beckham fawning over the royal family; Jimmy Fallon’s big face; the opening episode of Russell T. Davis’s “Tip Toe”; the weather, especially strong winds.

If I was angry about all this, I assumed it was because of my age. It’s hard to ignore the vast amount of content circulating about menopause these days, telling us how age is making us angry. While menopause, supposedly, remains a taboo subject – it could be even more taboo! As it turns out, it’s not just me and other middle-aged women who are angry, but British women in general, and to a degree that surpasses their peers in other countries. I take surveys with a grain of salt, but this particular survey was extensive: it was organised by a global health initiative that asked 76.000 women around the world to answer questions about their physical and emotional wellbeing. The results were released last week, including the fact that British women are among the angriest in Europe, angrier than Germans, Swiss, French and Dutch women, and that they are getting angrier every year.

This cannot be discussed without resorting to national stereotypes, so first of all: are we angrier than French women? Seriously? And Italian women?! Whenever I go to Italy, Italian women seem quite angrier! The only European women angrier than us are Czech, Maltese, Greek, Albanian and Spanish women - interpret that however you want.

A more astute sociologist than I would carefully study the cultural norms in each country to determine the different thresholds for what is considered anger. In other words: from living in the US, I know that there are certain kinds of family arguments, for example, that seem catastrophically angry to a Brit, but are considered ordinary conversation in some American social circles, forgotten two seconds later. I, meanwhile, have not recovered yet.

We really like to resent this country, and we find it fun to resent everything and anything - so maybe that explains why we're at the top of the survey. But can recreational anger still be called anger? The fact is that "anger" is probably too broad a term here to mean anything. To get an accurate picture, the Hologic Global Women's Health Index pollsters would have to break down the test into subcategories that would distinguish between "quiet simmering resentment", "mild annoyance", "25-year-old resentment" and "still obsessing about something from yesterday because it really gives me pleasure".

The bottom line is that British women are unhappier than their European counterparts, and while that may be the case, in my opinion, anger is the wrong metric. I think boredom is much more reliably associated with unhappiness than anger. Passive indifference - that's the problem. A sense of defeat, of powerlessness, of fear, of insecurity.

But anger can be motivating and fun. We should be angry! There's a lot wrong with that! And while there's no survey data on how angry Brits are, it's safe to assume that they're influenced by the same cultural norms that we are, with the caveat that - I daresay - Brits are one of the reasons why British women are so angry. If anger simmers in this country, it's because we can't get it out because we're all so preoccupied with keeping up appearances. Thanks, I'm fine.

What exactly are we angry about? The poll doesn't offer an answer, but I'd bet it's not geopolitics or economics, although one can assume that both create a tense backdrop against which petty qualms are more pronounced. I may be angry that interest rates in this country have skyrocketed, but it's only when I step on a Lego brick that I'll truly roar with rage.

I'm angry about the recent rise of Reform UK, but it won't bring me to a breakdown like, say, someone pestering me to hang out even though I've already said no. Or the sight of Meryl Streep giggling with Jenna Bush Hager. Or when someone I haven't seen in 15 years shows up to ask for a favor. I could go on like this for a long, long time.

The text is taken from The Guardian.

translation:NB