Ted Talk Final, Spring 2024

WHY I THINK WOMEN NEED TO GET ANGRIER

(Before I begin, I want to make it clear: I can only speak from my limited personal experience, and there are many intricacies of intersectionality in feminism. As such, in my research for this, I did my best to find as many Talks as I could from as many different kinds of women as possible. I watched trans women, queer women, Black women, Asian women, old women, young women, women from all continents, and the more I watched, the more I realized that they came down to very similar conclusions. However, my perspective is still limited to me, a 36-year-old, white-passing, cisgender woman. There are so many extra layers of complexity and difficulty that are added to feminism if you happen to be LGBTQ+ or BIPOC, so for the sake of this talk, I will be keeping it at gender. Also, noticing the fact that these highly educated women say things way more eloquently than I ever can, so I will be quoting them a lot.)

 

Hello, my name is Anastasia Pena, and here’s my Ted Talk on why I feel women need to get angrier.

My inspiration for this Talk was the treatment of Serena Williams during her 2018 US Open match where she raised her voice at a ref for a bad call.

Some of the top-rated comments under a YouTube video said things like “instantly the gender card’ or called her a ‘brat’, ‘hypocrite’, ‘emotional’, a ‘spoiled child’, ‘a disgrace to the game’. One good one was, “She never cheated, apart from 20 years of doping and hiding from drug testers.” Come to find out, over her 23-year career, Serena Williams is one of the most drug-tested athletes in the history of the sport, male or female. I decided then that not reading the comments was self-care.

When I was growing up, John McEnroe was one of the most talked-about tennis players of the time and quickly made explosive outbursts his ‘brand’. After all, why wouldn’t he? Ratings went up by 74% whenever he played. His YouTube comments had a whole different vibe than Serena’s and they always read as a reasonable response to an obviously bad call, as being passionate for this sport he has trained so long and hard for. McEnroe went on to make a career out of a reputation for tantrums, often poking fun as his own volatile behavior.

This should make ALL of you enraged, not just the women here.

Anger is natural, and a universal part of the human experience. It warns us of indignity, threat, insult, and harm. “Severing anger is severing the emotion that best protects us from injustice,” says Soraya Chemaly, who wrote the book Anger Becomes Her. “The life cycle of a woman starts with spoiled princess, to hormonal teen, to high maintenance, to shrill nags. Therefore, indignity becomes imminent in our notions of femininity.”

I found a study that said women report feeling anger more frequently, more intensely, and for longer periods of time than men do. It’s not that we’re not angry already. We don’t need another march; we’ve already figured out we’re not alone. I think we just need to get angrier.

Why should we get angrier? Because a thousand times a day, we must deal with the choice to either be labeled a ‘feminazi’ or be complicit in our own dehumanization. Women are taught to pick from a certain array of socially palatable expressions of emotion. No matter how justified a woman’s anger is, it is unfounded, rude, and most of all, unlikeable.

At best, we are told we is getting a ‘little out of hand’, at worst, we face abuse, isolation, abandonment, blacklisting, even death. I’m especially angry that for many women worldwide, silence is still a requirement for their survival.

I used to tell guys when I entered a new relationship: “You don’t need to be worried when I’m angry. Being angry means that I still care. It’s when I am silent, you know you have a big problem.”

Paula Stone Williams, a transgender activist who once lived as a finance bro (her words), says this: “I have the unique experience having lived life from both sides and I’m here to tell you the differences are massive… Apparently, as a female I have become stupid… It’s either that or I’m as smart as I ever was it’s just now I’m constantly being subjected to mansplaining… The more you're treated as if you don't know what you're talking about, the more you begin to question whether you do, in fact, know what you're talking about.”

Before we go on, let’s get one more thing straight. I do not hate men, I hate bad men. So, guys, don’t put that shoe on if it doesn’t fit. It’s not that men are fundamentally more or less moral, it’s that there are almost universal-- sometimes purposeful-- blind spots, and a society that systematically upholds them. What I hate is oppression, the frustration of knowing that men are capable of more.

Audre Lorde says: “There is great information to gain from our anger. To be angry is to hope for something better.”

You must remember that women’s treatment not only ignites a current fire, but it lights up a whole range of historical fury. This is a vehemence that has been building for a millennia. “My anger is mine. But it is also my mother’s, it was my grandmother’s, it is the women before me related or not, it is all women of all time. If you don’t know why we’re mad, you certainly have not been listening.” (Chimamanda Ngozi)

Why am I angry? Because I watched a few women-led Ted Talks and now all I’m getting are bra ads? It’s deeper than that, even if capitalism is the root of it all.

I’m angry that growing up in my patriarchal, Christian led home fed me on a steady diet of ‘You’re being dramatic’, ‘sensitive’, ‘overreacting’, or my personal favorite ‘it’s just a joke’ and that no man would like me unless I was a ‘chill girl’.

I’m angry that I have to worry about what I wear, or what my getup says about me, or if it will allow passage into the fabled land of being taken seriously.

I’m angry that our society makes women feel as though by being born a female they are already guilty of something. That it feels like all we teach girls is to feel ashamed of themselves. “Cover yourself up”, “close your legs” or “she was asking for it.”

I’m angry that Weinstein’s case was overturned, even after sparking all the #MeToo outrage, I’m still fuming about Brock Turner, like, what the fuck?! More specifically, I’m angry that less than 1% of rapes lead to felony convictions. That men don’t treat ‘no’ as a full sentence. That they are constantly receiving the message that this kind of behavior is okay.

I’m really angry at the so-called nice guys, you know, the ones that think if they put in the nice tokens that sex is just supposed to fall out. That blue balls as a concept exists, that the friendzone is even a thing to be named, that I’m not allowed to be upset at the fact that my guy friend just spent the better part of a decade just pretending to be my real friend.

I’m angry at “men that are under the illusion that saying the mystic words “I am a feminist” casts a magical force field around them through which no claims of sexism may pass.” (Stone Williams again)

Women make up for slightly more than half of the population on this planet, and direct 83% of buying power and influence in the economy. They make up 2/3rds of post-secondary education and graduating from higher education at twice the rate men do.

In the corporate sector, women at the top, C-level jobs, board seats -- tops out at 16%. The numbers have not moved since 2002 and are going in the wrong direction. In group settings like meetings, men are more likely to speak up, and interrupt 2.6 times more than women. Studies have shown that a woman who speaks more than 30% of the time as “dominating the conversation”.

I’m angry that just by having a male-sounding name, you have a much higher likelihood of getting a job, getting an academic mentor, getting a good review, or getting an award in your field.

I’m angry that administrative work is still the #1 job for women, the same as in 1950. God help you if you’re a woman in STEM.

That as we get older we are spinsters or cat ladies while men become silver foxes. That even if I do everything right in the marriage there is still a 38% chance they will leave me for a younger woman. Don’t get it twisted, we are still initiate 70% of divorces, 90% if college educated.

I’m angry that in a 21st century classroom, woman account for 1 in every 10 names referenced in the entire K-12 Social Studies curriculum. We are repeatedly written out of history.

That we STILL get, on average, 77 cents for every dollar a man makes, and yet we still have to suffer a pink tax for necessary products.

I’m angry that artificial hearts fit 80% of men but only 20% of women, and that is just one example of healthcare catering to men while treating women as if they are smaller men. Did you know they didn’t map the clitoris until 2005? I guess men just couldn’t find it?

I hate we are not even trusted with our own bodies. Dozens of women complained of torturous pain as their vaginal walls were punctured during an egg retrieval process. They were getting saline instead of anesthesia. Got chest pain? You’ll wait 27% longer for treatment. These statistics only rise with intersectionality.

I’m angry that we still have urinals in our so-called unisex bathrooms. I hate that we still have equal-seized bathrooms designed to suit the needs of the single man, usually straight, who is not breastfeeding, not pregnant, doesn’t have his period, and doesn’t have a pelvic floor issue and isn’t expected to change a baby so why the hell does he need all his space when Lord KNOWS he DOESN’T-EVEN-WASH-HIS-HANDS?

I’m angry that because I’m female I’m expected to aspire to marriage, and that once I’m married, I get asked, when are you having kids? And then when we have a baby its “when are you having another one?” Then proceed to forget about us after we have one.

I’m angry that I get told to go make me a sandwich like I was born with a cooking gene, when in fact, men also eat and have two hands, for God’s sake.

I’m sick and tired that Serena William’s legacy is always accompanied by an asterisk. This is one of the most decorated athletes in history.

I’m angry that in 190 heads of state -- 9 are women and hold just 27 of government seats nationwide. Globally, women make up only 13% of parliament. I’m sick of OLD, WHITE men telling me what I can and can’t do with my own body.

This is the paradox of feminism, because our society rewards the women that play by the patriarchy’s outdated rules, and has a litany of punishments for those that don’t. Until we get angrier, there will be no change. Men, you need to give us the benefit of the doubt that we know what the fuck we’re talking about. I hope women dare to get angrier and feel the right to take up space, because the other half of the population have a monumental right to be heard, and until then, we living in an unjust world. Trust me, we tried saying it nicely, and we got left on ‘read’. Now, ladies, it’s time to scream it.

Thank you.

 

 

WORKS CITED:

https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/6/27/15879520/john-mcenroe-serena-williams-greatest-controversy

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/sep/09/serena-williams-again-bears-brunt-double-standards-tennis

https://www.thecut.com/2015/01/manslamming-manspreading-microaggressions.html

https://www.vox.com/2018/9/10/17837598/serena-williams-us-open-umpire-carlos-ramos

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/03/625746829/deadspin-serena-williams-is-one-of-the-most-drug-tested-tennis-players

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/13/feminists-do-not-hate-men

 

 

Post Amputation, Pre - Life

The truth of the matter is what I can't say to anyone, lest they worry, lest they make a too much of a 'big deal' out of things, lest the feeling is temporary and I have to live with the fallout long after the feeling passing. The truth is, I want to be dead, and unfortunately, I have wanted it for a long time.

But I won't ever actually hurt myself, because I'm too afraid of the concept of hell that has been instilled in me since childhood. But I used to pray for death to happen to me. I used to beg for it, imagine what a drift into oncoming traffic would be like. I don't know who I was praying to, maybe God, even though a large man with an omniscient hand on the universe was a concept I had always doubted. After all, He was the bringer of hope, and hope, as I have known it in my life, was the bringer of harsh disappointments. They key is not to get your hopes up, and you won't have to deal with the bitter taste of disenchantment and the 'life isn't fair' reasonings in order to keep going.

Believing in religion and then bad things happening to you was the recipe to blame a higher power you weren't sure existed in the first place. Did I not believe hard enough? What kind of Loving Master would stand by and watch as I was sexually assaulted, once as a child, then again and again when I got old enough to know better? Why would he let the first man that proposed to me take his own life? Why would he let dobermans rip my dog I had raised from a handheld pup get ripped to shreds before my eyes? Give me a big heart, a forgiving nature, an addictive personality, and a string of bad boyfriends? I wasn't over one thing, before there was another problem piled onto my back to deal with.

So, if you can't blame God, or the Universe, or Fate, then you have no one to blame but yourself. To take responsibility for how your life has been thus far. So, on top of the crippling anxiety, the PTSD, you get depression.

And then, and then, and then.

You meet this person. This life-changing person that makes your heart permanently in your throat, shows you how to be brave, to be sexy, to love yourself. You're in a different state, away from everyone who could ever have judged you, and for the first time, you are truly free.

In the wake of  your divorce, you have this moment. Riding on the back of his motorcycle over a bridge, Young the Giant playing in your ears, the scent of pine trees and fresh rain in your nose, and for a single moment, you let your arms fly out beside you, your eyes closed, free. You can almost see the full trust and thrill of love being tattooed on you in this very second. You get a maddening relief from an entirely haunted existence. You want another hour, another five minutes, another two seconds of being around his celebrity. And you don't know that even though this moment is the best thing you've ever felt before in your life, its one true highlighted moment of bliss, you don't know that it will make the rest of time fade to darkness by comparison.

He cheats on you. When he is suddenly ghosting you, gaslighting you. When you have the audacity to have a pregnancy scare. You're alone in a new state, stalking his social media masochistically, and comparing yourself to his new girl[s]. You go on dates with other men, other men that don't make you feel even close to the way he did. You want that feeling again so badly that you let him back into your life, just to let him break you in half, all over again. And your halves get halved. 

Suddenly, you're a shell of any confidence you ever knew, and a ghost of a person. You stop eating, you start to accidentally hurt yourself bumping on your own protruding bones, you lose the strength to even go to the store and buy food. You live on water and cigarettes and binge watching mindless TV. You're throwing up every morning and your gag reflex is so agitated that you can't even brush your teeth without provoking another bout of vomiting.

And then, you're on the floor of your apartment, face down into the ugly brown carpet, starving, nauseated, breathing in the dirt and dust, and you're crying so hard that your eyes are swollen beyond seeing. and you are the closest you've ever felt to dying. Somehow, you pick yourself up off the floor, pack your things, and drive back down to the people who would give a shit if you died.

These stories are all relevant to the story of why I bought a Vespa. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do for myself, that I could drive over bridges listening to indie music and get that feeling back in my own way, on my own terms.

And the Vespa is relevant to how I lost my leg. I wave to my roommate goodbye to go to work, put on my cute little star helmet and biker gloves, and head to work like any other day. After the shift is over, several coworkers told me I had such a happy work day, smiling and cheerful, as if trying to highlight the stark difference between then and what my life has become afterwards.

I'm not even going to talk about the long journey in the hospital, the drug induced insults to my supportive friends, the tears of my parents, the almost complete absence of my siblings, the nightly screaming for three straight months... The real hard part is the limited time you get to grieve your old life, when society says you are supposedly 'healed' now. The realities you face after the loss.

High heels? Forget it. Pants? Good luck. The beach? I'm not even going to try. Any social event that requires standing for hours? Depends on what kind of day you're having, between the ever-present pain and the willingness to be seen and become half-charming to others through said pain.

You were always uncomfortable with unwanted stares, now you have a neon sign that shouts at people as you walk by. Children point and tug on their mothers. Everywhere. Every time you step out your front door. Disneyland used to be a means of grasping at that small firefly of happiness before it floats on, now you can't walk Main Street. Europe, namely London, was always a dream, but now you fear to even attempt to travel for so many different reasons.

God forbid you had any mind's eye of what the perfect body looks like, because that's out the window. Maybe you never had a hope of perfection before, but it's so far beyond your attainability now that it's insulting.

Then you experience new kinds of hell as you watch your friends that don't know what to do for you. That try to laugh with you, try to make jokes, try to bring some light in a crappy situation. Or those ones, that try to convince you that you're still capable of that thing you just said you were afraid you couldn't do anymore. They mean well, at least. And it's definitely better than the ones that say nothing at all, out of fear to fall in such a category.

And the friends in your day to day, then ones that called you family, that supposedly had your back, the ones you spent every holiday with for years. That one friend that kept you company every time you went to Target, sat next to you in every night at the theatre, the friend whose mom buys you gifts at Christmas. The friend that taught you that it's okay to cry, to write what you want, who binge-watched TV and split meals with you. Maybe acts that profound were just another day to them, and you're the only one that it meant so much to.

All you know is, this is a whole new heartbreak, as they start to close their bedroom door every time they come home. As they eat more and more meals out. That continue those TV shows without you that you used to enjoy together. That don't come to help you after the umpteenth time you fall on your face in the hallway.

Communication solves everything, so, you broach the subject. But you only make it worse for yourself, because why can't they take time to 're-center' themselves without answering to you? Why can't they have a little bit of time for self-care? After all, they experienced hardship through this whole event too, right? After all, you're not their boyfriend or blood relation.

And just like that you've ruined your relationships with those closest to you by squeezing too hard. It was selfish of you to expect them to act any certain way. After all, you've worked so hard to be okay with everything that's happened.

You have no one to blame but yourself.

And you just feel, in a word, shitty. You're a shit human for needing help in the first place. You feel so guilty for burdening others, that you run. You run as far away as you can so you don't have to feel like a burden to a single friend within hundreds of miles.

People don't want to hear about your struggle. They aren't paid to. They want to hear about how well you're doing in the face of such a loss. They want you to be positive, and for the most part, I'm really good at it. Genuinely being positive, that is.

But sometimes you're so positive that it cusps down into the other direction, it overshoots by telling yourself that you should be grateful for all the blessings you DO have, that other people have it way worse, that you have no right to feel this way, adding to the guilt of feeling bad to begin with. Perhaps it was conditioning to keep a straight face, who knows, doesn't matter now. As you stare into the night sky, smoking your ceremonial menthol night after night, you are no longer hoping for happiness, just the next second of relief.

Those lows... Those lows... They seize you by the lungs, and they scream things so dark that you laugh at the person who was on that carpet not three years ago.

I walk around as a person who might be triggered by a certain string of words, mannerisms or expression that makes me have to stuff down images back to the pit I banished them to, in order to pass as a human being that's remotely 'regular'. I don't feel regular. I know I am not regular.

Not anymore.

Things have always been easier to put down in words than to say out loud. I often stumble over words in person, stammering, saying the wrong thing, or juggling syllables around. I just want to get things out sometimes, in a way that feels eloquent, so writing becomes the balm.

This is surely another a low point, being without medication, without therapy, and experiencing self-imposed banishment on top of everything else. God forbid in these times I get hungry, or tired, and risk starting a spiral. But this was something I needed to have said regardless. To allow myself the minute to fume, to vent, to finally feel everything. All of it.

I'm still trying to figure out the recipe for lemonade.