I feel angry. We're not encouraged to be angry as women. It's not acceptable, is it? Even now in this day and age. Anger is regarded as a negative emotion for men and women. We're taught to control our anger, correctly in many instances. But anger management is different to stuffing it down, which is what women tend to do.  

 

Do you remember when you were young? What were you told if you lost your temper? And was it different to what your brother was told if he lost his temper? Or if he felt a burning anger? 

 

We've been taught to stuff it down and many of us keep stuffing and stuffing and stuffing. Sometimes we do it through eating. Sometimes we do it through drinking. Sometimes, it's just stuffed in there and comes out as depression, because anger turned inward very often turns into depression. 

 

But the thing is, we hit menopause and we don't have the same hormonal balance that we used to have. We don't have the oestrogen balance and we don't have the serotonin. And the serotonin is something that helps us to control anger. So very often women report that when they go into their perimenopause years, one of the most difficult symptoms to deal with is anger - rage that comes out of nowhere. 

 

Well, I'd like to put another spin on that. I think it does come from somewhere. And I think if you're not angry at what's going on in the world today, then you must be asleep. Maya Angelou said, anger is healthy. Anger, if it is to do with injustice, is a healthy emotion. It's one that we should feel. So when that pressure cooker valve comes off when we go into menopause and the anger all spills out, we need to harness that.  

 

Now, I'm not going to stand here and tell you how to stuff down your anger. We've been doing that for years. And look what's going on in the world. I want to talk about women's rights. I want to talk about what's happening to women and girls all over the world. That 

is what's really making me angry.  

 

Just a little bit of a backstory. When I was a girl, I remember at the age of about 16, my mum coming in with a cup of tea for my dad. And as she went out the room, he called after her and said, "you haven't stirred my tea, Carol". And she came back in and stirred his tea. And I remember sitting there.with my mouth hanging open and I actually challenged my dad. mean you didn't challenge your dad in those days did you? And I said, "Dad, stir your own blooming tea!" And he looked at me and he said, "Don't you come in this house with all your feminist nonsense." 

 

Now, at that time when I was 16, that would have been 1977. Only two years before that, the Sex Discrimination Act was passed in Britain. That meant that before 1975, a woman could not open her own bank account. it took time for all these changes and these equality directives to filter through, and for the institutions to take them all on. In 1977, which was two years after the Sex Discrimination Act, I would still, as a single woman if I wanted to get a loan or a credit card, have to take my dad with me to act as guarantor. Women couldn't get mortgages on their own account. We're talking about in our lifetimes. This is 1975.  

 

Now, if you're watching and you're 20 or 30 you'll be laughing at me and saying but that's an age ago, and, of course, yes it is. But to us in our 50s and our 60s and our 70s, that's a blink of an eye ago. And since then, we've fought for women's rights and women's rights have become a mainstay of a civilised society. If the women are treated properly, society on the whole is clearly a better place. 

 

So what's happening now? Over the past 90 days, women's rights have been set back significantly. So there have been policy regressions, for example, on reproductive rights, cultural pushbacks. The United Nations says that 25 % of countries reported a rollback in women's rights in 2024.  

 

There's been a widespread backlash. Discrimination, weakened legal protections, reduced funding for supportive programs. There's been conflict and displacement. Think of Afghanistan. The women there have been erased from society. They're not allowed to work. They're not allowed to go to school. Women who need female doctors can't be treated because women are not allowed to practice. The women's rights in places like Afghanistan have been wiped out of the vocabulary. There is no such thing.  

 

The third thing that the UN identifies as being a reason for this rollback in women's rights and our idea of women's rights is the digital space. Social media, AI, all seem to be pushing this idea of stereotypes for women.  

 

All through my adult life, I've seen things get better for women. It's become unacceptable to make sexist remarks. It's unacceptable, in a workplace, to have topless calendars on the wall. It's unacceptable to touch a woman or to make remarks about her body in the workplace. It's even, in this country become illegal for builders to wolf-whistle. Now, I know that some women regret that and feel that it's harmless and that we've gone too far. But when you think about it, it's about respect. It's about feeling safe when you're walking around the streets.  

 

When a woman reports a rape, the onus is still on her to prove that she didn't "ask for it". 

What were you wearing? Why were you walking alone? You know, we're told to look after our daughters and protect our daughters, but we're not telling people to educate their sons. 

 

What's really worrying is that there are social media influencers now that are taking hold of young boys' imaginations and teaching them such outdated and patently wrong attitudes towards women. It's recently been reported in the UK that a poll of 5,800 teachers were asked if they felt that social media was having a detrimental effect on young people. Three out of five said yes. One teacher reported that a group of 10 year old boys in her class - 10 year old boys - refused to speak to her and would only speak to her male teaching assistant. 

 

Young boys have been feeling disenfranchised for a long time and we've not done anything about it. We've yammered on about it, that they're being left behind at school, that girls are pulling forward. Girls have been making up the gap, they've been making up the difference from the previous decades of discrimination. But in some cases the boys have been left behind. So what have we done? 

 

Have we made sure that those boys that are being left behind are brought up to speed? 

Or have we left them for toxic social media influencers to teach them that women are objects to be used, abused, given a slap if they don't cooperate? 

 

What are we coming to? What on earth is happening? This is why I'm angry and I don't apologise as a woman for being angry. I want everyone to be angry, men and women. Anyone who cares about women, who cares about children, who cares about people.  

 

How can we harness this anger? Well, Maya Angelou. again said, write, paint, dance. 

campaign. I'm adding in box if that's what your thing is. Do some martial arts. Get it out of you. March. Vote. Keep talking about it. That's what's so important. We must talk about these things and we mustn't be ashamed of being angry. We have a right to be angry with what's going on at the moment in the world.  

 

Gloria Steinem said, "Women grow radical with age. One day an army of grey-haired women may quietly take over the earth."  

 

Why quietly? This is not a time for us to be quiet. This is a time for us to band together and make our voices heard. And if that frightens you, if that makes you think, because I for one am not someone who is naturally shouting on a street corner, there are so many other ways that you can add your voice, whether that's holding space for people who need you, writing letters to your MP, to your local paper, expressing yourself in whatever way you best express yourself. Please express your anger. 

 

You have a right to be angry.