Reclaiming “Nasty”: A Review of Janet Zuckerman’s Nasty Women: Reclaiming the Power of Female Aggression

“Nasty Women” — Reclaiming the Power of Female Aggression

This paper addresses the complex relationship between women and aggression: one that is troubled by numerous cultural biases that pressure women to be nice, to avoid self-assertion, and to never get angry. These forces have silenced women throughout time, reflecting a powerful patriarchy that has existed for centuries. I begin with a personal vignette reflecting struggles with aggression, followed by two clinical examples in which my female patients were able to mobilize aggression for constructive use. I also explore cultural and developmental factors that inhibit women’s aggression and discuss the ways therapy can help women integrate a healthy aggression. References to the 2016 presidential election and the 2018 Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing of Justice Brett Kavanaugh are included as examples of the powerful psychological and sociocultural factors that infiltrate women’s struggles with aggression. Integrating these elements tempers the tendency of psychoanalysis to separate the individual from the social, the intrapsychic from the political, and the private from the public.

This chapter concerns the complex relationship between women and aggression, one that is troubled by numerous cultural biases constraining women to be nice, never angry, and avoid aggressive self-assertion. These social forces shaped by a powerful patriarchy have silenced women throughout time.The author discusses a personal vignette reflecting struggles with aggression, as well astwo clinical examples in which female patients worked to mobilize aggression for constructive use. The chapter then explores the cultural and political underpinnings of a powerful patriarchy that subjugates women by sanctioning their aggressive voices.

Performa Punch: Subverting the Female Aggressor Trope