Social Proof Girls Aren’t Really Supposed to Be Angry
The available stock photos speak volumes about our society.
“If the camera is predatory, then the culture is predatory as well.” Nina Menkes
I’ll keep my words brief on this one. The images speak for themselves.
To keep a long story short, one day I was working on an essay about the stories we tell ourselves, and how that affects our experience.
So I went looking for a stock photo of an angry little girl.
This is what I found.
1. Unsplash
It’s not your fault exactly, Unsplash.
It’s the social context in which we live. Unsplash is my go-to for great blog post images. But when I went there today and searched for “angry girl,” this is what you had to show me.
The pissed-off women at the top are a welcome addition to the rest of the collection. While a few ladies look genuinely pissed, most of the shots are of women that don’t look angry at all. Some of them are even clad in hotpants and posed provocatively for the camera.
This wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. Smoldering at the camera is not the same as being angry. My anger should not look sexy to you. Stop it.
While women are sometimes told that we’re sexy when we’re angry, our anger is always more important to us than your opinion of our potential fuckability.
Heard?
Compare the screenshots above with the results of a search for “angry boy,” shown below
Do you notice any difference?
Both in quantity and posture, there are PLENTY of examples of boys and men in the pose I was looking for.
Where the women are often objectified by the lens of the camera, the men are often, if not always, shot as the subject of the photo. They also look ANGRY.
Most of these shots aren’t likely to be mistaken as provocative or sexy, at least in my opinion. A few of them seem to have mistaken anger for dominance, abuse, and violence.
Actually more than a few of them.
I don’t want to hang out with any of these dudes.
With the exception of that one shot of the muscular dude sitting on the shoulders of the other muscular dude in the middle of a waterfall that looks more free than gay. I wanna go hang out with those dudes. But they’re the only ones.
The rest of them just look mostly mean.
This isn’t an absolutist rant
I acknowledge that there are a few authentic photos of actually angry women and a few strangely oversexualized shots of men.
But the point is that the camera lens of our culture is MUCH more comfortable seeing men as angry than women. The bias is clearly expressed by these images.
Moving on to the next platform…
2. Wikimedia Commons
Evidently, the wiki sticks to mostly historical illustrations on this topic.
Here are the image results for a search on “angry little girl.”
How about that line drawing of the angry pig with wings, hmm? Looks like a little girl to me.
Or is that just how our culture is trained to see angry girls — maybe where that saying about when pigs fly has something to do with the fact that most if not all angry girls are marginalized, mocked, told they’re crazy, and ignored?
Greta is the first angry girl I’ve ever seen get the world’s attention. She showed it could be done in the modern era.
Now little girls, grown women, and people all over the world are blowing on their embers of holy, healthy anger — everywhere in the world — igniting the flames of the goddess in their hearts.
They’re rising up with the rage of mother earth on their tongues — and dammit, they need appropriate stock imagery to represent the revolution!
For the record, searching on “angry mad little girl” returned zero results here.
3. Google Images
Of all the search engines, Google Images actually gave me a LOT more pictures of slightly pissed-off-looking little female children. The raw search produced several — showing that angry little girls DO exist, and have been photographed in the wild.
When I filtered the images by Usage rights and selected Creative Commons licenses, this is what I got back.
Most of these girls look sad, scared, or traumatized. None of these girls look empowered, and rightfully in their power to change things to me.
What do you think?
I think the lens of the camera is powerful!
Anger is a powerful emotion of transformation. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together realizes that it’s not a gendered thing.
But somehow our society has tried to limit who is allowed to express anger.
While others are told that anger — acted out in patterns of dominance and violence is the only emotion they ARE allowed to express freely. It’s fucking BS and I’m calling it out right here.
#MeToo & #MenToo should be hastags that are friends. Not enemies.
I believe men are the most hidden victims at the very rootstalk of the patriarchy.
They are its central-most victims, and for this special role, they are also taught to play the roles of villians and perpetrators in the system.
They are at the head of the tree of violence and domination PRECISELY BECAUSE they are steeped in the isolation and emotionally stunting bullying culture of the #manbox — which we see growing ever more extreme. Read this amazing piece from Mark Greene if you want to dig into this topic.
How does this underlying theme play out in our media?
Nina Menkes made headlines this year on this topic at the Sundance Film Festival with her powerful documentary Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power. In the film, she deconstructs the nature of the gaze of the camera.
Here is an interview of the artist speaking about her work.
Anger is UP as women are reawakening
Some of my favorite writers have been writing about the topic of anger lately. Specifically women and rage. Yael Wolfe, Shani Silver, Toni Hargis, Lilly Dancyger, Elle Beau ❇︎, and Desiree Driesenaar are just a few of the women who come to mind.
Anger is ONE of many necessary emotions
Anger is the fire of emotions. It plays a part in the cycle of birth and death. It is an elemental force that brings transformation.
No one wants to be angry all the time. But all of us should be allowed to be angry some of the time. It’s necessary!
And stuffing it down just makes the fire burn hotter. This may be why there is this uprise of anger and sexuality in women that you can see just about everywhere these days.
Allowing anger to pass over and through you
The Bene Gesserit litany against fear, for my fellow Dune nerds, speaks the truth. It’s talking about fear, but the philosophy can just as easily be applied to the emotion of anger.
It was wrong. It is always wrong. And I’m not going to hide it anymore. I will not be silent.
This time is OVER.
We can choose to let this holy flame rise up us and pass through us if we want to get to the other side.
So here’s to more angry women. And fewer men that feel like anger is one of their only options. And to the transformation that could happen if we stopped fucking around and trying to control one another on this little planet of ours.
There is work to be done. And I’m not going to be silent for one day longer!
© Kaia Tingley February 2022
