Hell Hath No Fury Like a Nation Full of Angry Women
Debra Rienstra
Did you feel it last Sunday? Did you feel the world shift?
President Biden withdrew from the campaign and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. Within hours, record amounts of money poured into her campaign—$250 million in about 18 hours, including contributions from almost 900,000 small donors. Endorsements flew in: Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, AAPI Victory Fund, eight labor union groups representing millions of workers in the trades and education. By Monday night, she had far more than enough delegates to secure the nomination.
It was an impressive display of unity and organization across the party’s various apparatuses. Clearly, the Dems had the fundraising texts teed up and ready to go, as well as a press and social media blizzard. Most impressive to me, however, was the instantaneous avalanche of social media celebrations of Harris herself, all created by regular people.
What’s going on?
Well, I’ll tell you what I felt: a sudden, joyous release of anger. I’m certain I’m not alone. Let me assure you: women have a LOT of pent-up anger in this country.
Every woman who has ever been assaulted, insulted, disrespected, underestimated, afraid, denied, condescended to, trapped, threatened, sneered at, leered at—we have all been living with our anger. (To be clear, I have not personally been physically assaulted, but everything else in that list: sure.) We have watched men (including in churches) get away with abuse for years. We have watched men run exploitative global companies and rake in profits while sacrificing people and planet. We have watched women who are smarter and more qualified still lose to the much less worthy male candidate. We have watched men who assume they are right-er than others grab power and ruin things we love. We have watched in horror as men who think they deserve authority just for being cocky threaten to take away rights and opportunities that women have clawed for. Oh yes, we are angry.
And so right now, in a burst of released anger-turned-hope, we celebrate powerful and honorable women.
Often women live with anger without even knowing it. After all, if you express it, you’re punished by being called a bi**h. When I was in tenth grade, a senior boy asked me to the prom. I agreed to go. It was OK. Afterwards, he asked to kiss me. I said no—I didn’t feel that way about him, and I wanted my kisses to be honest. I guess he deserves some credit for not forcing me (why do I have to give him credit for that?). But he got his revenge: he took my yearbook and wrote a nasty, crude “poem” across the whole back page, the gist of which was, You should appreciate that I didn’t demand more. What did I do about it? Nothing. What could I do? I didn’t even understand how insulting and misogynist that kid was. Who taught him to think I “owed” him and that he could write that stuff in the yearbook of a 15-year-old girl? I hope he’s straightened up since then. But the “poem” is there to this day, in ink. And now I know enough to be angry.
It’s interesting to me how close to the surface my anger has been this summer, just underneath that thick layer of depression. And I’ve lived a charmed life! I’ve avoided most of the serious horrors women suffer and obstacles women face. I am so lucky/blessed to have many good and wise and funny and supportive men in my life, including the one I’m married to. Still, living in a woman’s body is a different experience from living in a man’s. For that reason, women do often feel a sense of solidarity with other women—young and old, of every race and class. As even the luckiest of us know, it’s not just the big, bad things. The subtle things build up, too.
Ron and I went to see the new movie Twisters this past weekend. I came out of the theater furious. Why? After all, the special effects were cool! Here’s why: even though the movie is supposed to have a female protagonist, the whole story was about the male gaze. Same old thing. We’re supposed to care about this doe-eyed, tiny blond “scientist” with a spark of adorable spunk—who is totally unbelievable as a tornado chaser and, frankly, uninteresting. Never mind: the camera lingers longingly over her, silhouetted against the stormy sky. Enter a swaggering, chisel-jawed dude with a big belt buckle who leers at her, condescends to her, all but calls her “little lady.” She wants to “tame” tornados, while he wants to “wrangle” them. Oof. At first she puts him off, but by the end, she realizes he has a heart of gold and… she falls for him. Of course she does. Gag.
No big deal, I know. The anger that boiled up in me this past weekend is not really about the movie. The movie just helped trigger everything else, from what’s happening to the institutions I’ve personally served all the way to the machinations of global politics. You keep it tamped down just to get through the day, but sometimes, it slams you. Last fall, I was chastised by a male authority figure and, in a moment of empathy, he said, “I know it’s hard to be the mature one when others are behaving badly.” I replied: “Oh, I’ve been swallowing anger all my life. That’s nothing new.”
Well. I think what we’re seeing right now, in the wake of Harris’s rise to the top of the ticket, is anger released into energy. Joyous energy. I love seeing men joining into this as well. Good and wise men have been angry, too, and they also rejoice for their mothers and aunties and wives and sisters and daughters. They want a better world for women, because that’s a better world for all of us.
It’s a lot to bear for Harris—all these expectations, all the responsibility to carry this joyous energy to an election victory and not screw up. But it’s not all on her. Millions of people, clearly, have been waiting to put their energy and hope into change. Harris just has to ride that wave well. And put up with a whole lotta ugly that’s coming her way fast.
Obviously, I’m not saying all women are wonderful and all men are bad. That is not the case, and besides, I’m a Calvinist, so of course all have sinned, and so on. But let’s admit that we’ve seen a lot of bad men get away with a lot lately. Millions of us are well and truly fed up. It’s time for a reckoning and some positive change. I hope we can do it with dignity and justice.
Here’s my favorite TikTok from the past week. Maya Angelou reads her poem “Still I Rise” while we see images of Taylor Swift, Simone Biles, Malala, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Greta Gerwig, Beyoncé, Oprah, and many more. This little video captures what so many of us feel: pride in all that women have accomplished against tough odds, and hope that we are witnessing (and creating!) a moment of huge change. The world can shift. [Sorry–this video cannot be recovered anymore. Shame. It was a good one.]
Image credit: Noah Berger/AFP via Getty Images/npr.org
Hamnet is getting excellent reviews, deserved in many ways. Beautiful cinematography, excellent acting, quiet and intensely sad—you can plan on a couple Oscar nods for this one. As your resident Shakespeare professor, however, I will suggest—no surprise here—that the film is only tangentially related to the actual Shakespeare.
In a world threatened by drought, fire, and soil erosion both literal and metaphorical, we are working together here to create a healthier ecosystem of thought and reflection.
Our final episode of Season 4! This week, we travel to Hawaii with a whole troop of good people to visit some remarkable refugia spaces near Kaneohe Bay on Oahu. This episode, produced by Colin Hoogerwerf and Jim Stump, first aired on the Language of God podcast in April of 2025.
Hell Hath No Fury Like a Nation Full of Angry Women
Did you feel it last Sunday? Did you feel the world shift?
President Biden withdrew from the campaign and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. Within hours, record amounts of money poured into her campaign—$250 million in about 18 hours, including contributions from almost 900,000 small donors. Endorsements flew in: Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, AAPI Victory Fund, eight labor union groups representing millions of workers in the trades and education. By Monday night, she had far more than enough delegates to secure the nomination.
It was an impressive display of unity and organization across the party’s various apparatuses. Clearly, the Dems had the fundraising texts teed up and ready to go, as well as a press and social media blizzard. Most impressive to me, however, was the instantaneous avalanche of social media celebrations of Harris herself, all created by regular people.
What’s going on?
Well, I’ll tell you what I felt: a sudden, joyous release of anger. I’m certain I’m not alone. Let me assure you: women have a LOT of pent-up anger in this country.
Every woman who has ever been assaulted, insulted, disrespected, underestimated, afraid, denied, condescended to, trapped, threatened, sneered at, leered at—we have all been living with our anger. (To be clear, I have not personally been physically assaulted, but everything else in that list: sure.) We have watched men (including in churches) get away with abuse for years. We have watched men run exploitative global companies and rake in profits while sacrificing people and planet. We have watched women who are smarter and more qualified still lose to the much less worthy male candidate. We have watched men who assume they are right-er than others grab power and ruin things we love. We have watched in horror as men who think they deserve authority just for being cocky threaten to take away rights and opportunities that women have clawed for. Oh yes, we are angry.
And so right now, in a burst of released anger-turned-hope, we celebrate powerful and honorable women.
Often women live with anger without even knowing it. After all, if you express it, you’re punished by being called a bi**h. When I was in tenth grade, a senior boy asked me to the prom. I agreed to go. It was OK. Afterwards, he asked to kiss me. I said no—I didn’t feel that way about him, and I wanted my kisses to be honest. I guess he deserves some credit for not forcing me (why do I have to give him credit for that?). But he got his revenge: he took my yearbook and wrote a nasty, crude “poem” across the whole back page, the gist of which was, You should appreciate that I didn’t demand more. What did I do about it? Nothing. What could I do? I didn’t even understand how insulting and misogynist that kid was. Who taught him to think I “owed” him and that he could write that stuff in the yearbook of a 15-year-old girl? I hope he’s straightened up since then. But the “poem” is there to this day, in ink. And now I know enough to be angry.
It’s interesting to me how close to the surface my anger has been this summer, just underneath that thick layer of depression. And I’ve lived a charmed life! I’ve avoided most of the serious horrors women suffer and obstacles women face. I am so lucky/blessed to have many good and wise and funny and supportive men in my life, including the one I’m married to. Still, living in a woman’s body is a different experience from living in a man’s. For that reason, women do often feel a sense of solidarity with other women—young and old, of every race and class. As even the luckiest of us know, it’s not just the big, bad things. The subtle things build up, too.
Ron and I went to see the new movie Twisters this past weekend. I came out of the theater furious. Why? After all, the special effects were cool! Here’s why: even though the movie is supposed to have a female protagonist, the whole story was about the male gaze. Same old thing. We’re supposed to care about this doe-eyed, tiny blond “scientist” with a spark of adorable spunk—who is totally unbelievable as a tornado chaser and, frankly, uninteresting. Never mind: the camera lingers longingly over her, silhouetted against the stormy sky. Enter a swaggering, chisel-jawed dude with a big belt buckle who leers at her, condescends to her, all but calls her “little lady.” She wants to “tame” tornados, while he wants to “wrangle” them. Oof. At first she puts him off, but by the end, she realizes he has a heart of gold and… she falls for him. Of course she does. Gag.
No big deal, I know. The anger that boiled up in me this past weekend is not really about the movie. The movie just helped trigger everything else, from what’s happening to the institutions I’ve personally served all the way to the machinations of global politics. You keep it tamped down just to get through the day, but sometimes, it slams you. Last fall, I was chastised by a male authority figure and, in a moment of empathy, he said, “I know it’s hard to be the mature one when others are behaving badly.” I replied: “Oh, I’ve been swallowing anger all my life. That’s nothing new.”
Well. I think what we’re seeing right now, in the wake of Harris’s rise to the top of the ticket, is anger released into energy. Joyous energy. I love seeing men joining into this as well. Good and wise men have been angry, too, and they also rejoice for their mothers and aunties and wives and sisters and daughters. They want a better world for women, because that’s a better world for all of us.
It’s a lot to bear for Harris—all these expectations, all the responsibility to carry this joyous energy to an election victory and not screw up. But it’s not all on her. Millions of people, clearly, have been waiting to put their energy and hope into change. Harris just has to ride that wave well. And put up with a whole lotta ugly that’s coming her way fast.
Obviously, I’m not saying all women are wonderful and all men are bad. That is not the case, and besides, I’m a Calvinist, so of course all have sinned, and so on. But let’s admit that we’ve seen a lot of bad men get away with a lot lately. Millions of us are well and truly fed up. It’s time for a reckoning and some positive change. I hope we can do it with dignity and justice.
Here’s my favorite TikTok from the past week. Maya Angelou reads her poem “Still I Rise” while we see images of Taylor Swift, Simone Biles, Malala, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Greta Gerwig, Beyoncé, Oprah, and many more. This little video captures what so many of us feel: pride in all that women have accomplished against tough odds, and hope that we are witnessing (and creating!) a moment of huge change. The world can shift. [Sorry–this video cannot be recovered anymore. Shame. It was a good one.]
Image credit: Noah Berger/AFP via Getty Images/npr.org
Hamnet: Quiet Grief, Sentimental Speculation
Hamnet is getting excellent reviews, deserved in many ways. Beautiful cinematography, excellent acting, quiet and intensely sad—you can plan on a couple Oscar nods for this one. As your resident Shakespeare professor, however, I will suggest—no surprise here—that the film is only tangentially related to the actual Shakespeare.
Beavering Our Way, Reformed Style
In a world threatened by drought, fire, and soil erosion both literal and metaphorical, we are working together here to create a healthier ecosystem of thought and reflection.
Angels At Large
“Ha ha. Anyway, I’m OK. Actually, I’m in a better place now, you know? Having ‘Angel At Large’ status for a while isn’t so bad.”
Refugia Podcast Episode 40 Kipuka to Kipuka: Islands of Life, Faith, and Restoration
Our final episode of Season 4! This week, we travel to Hawaii with a whole troop of good people to visit some remarkable refugia spaces near Kaneohe Bay on Oahu. This episode, produced by Colin Hoogerwerf and Jim Stump, first aired on the Language of God podcast in April of 2025.