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Boiling point
Feeling furious? Women are prone to bottling up anger, which can have repercussions on their health. Christine Aziz reports
We know the signs - the sudden heightening of colour, the tightening mouth and raised voice. This is a woman losing her temper but, however brief her loss of control, she also risks losing face and her dignity.
It takes a special skill for a woman to lose her temper well, and pharmacist, Carla Wright, 29, from Norwich knows she has yet to acquire it. 'I throw things when I get really angry,' she says miserably. Her partner, Jonathan Glass, 32, ducks and then screams back. 'It's always over such little things,' says Carla. 'For example, we share a car and he always leaves in it a mess, even though he knows it irritates me. It's a little thing, and I don't say anything for a while, until the crisp packets and fag ash pile up and I come in banging and slamming doors and start screaming at him. Then everything else that irritates me comes up and he gets defensive. I even threw a chair at him once.'
Afterwards Carla is left feeling remorseful and Jonathan hurt and resentful. 'She says such nasty things that I feel like emptying a dustbin into the car. I don't know why she can't be reasonable. When she loses her temper, she picks on every little thing and shouts.'
While anger is an emotion we are all familiar with, women are often labelled out of control, uptight or highly-strung when they lose their temper. That's in contrast to men who can come across as strong and assertive if they lose theirs, however inappropriately. After an outburst women usually end up making exaggerated apologies. In Carla's case, she finds herself constantly whimpering, 'I don't know what came over me.'
Research carried out by psychologist Sharon Cahill, while a Ph.D. student in psychology at Glasgow's Caledonian University, showed that, despite decades of feminism and greater equality in the workplace, society still has a negative perception of angry women.
We know the signs - the sudden heightening of colour, the tightening mouth and raised voice. This is a woman losing her temper but, however brief her loss of control, she also risks losing face and her dignity.
It takes a special skill for a woman to lose her temper well, and pharmacist, Carla Wright, 29, from Norwich knows she has yet to acquire it. 'I throw things when I get really angry,' she says miserably. Her partner, Jonathan Glass, 32, ducks and then screams back. 'It's always over such little things,' says Carla. 'For example, we share a car and he always leaves in it a mess, even though he knows it irritates me. It's a little thing, and I don't say anything for a while, until the crisp packets and fag ash pile up and I come in banging and slamming doors and start screaming at him. Then everything else that irritates me comes up and he gets defensive. I even threw a chair at him once.'
Afterwards Carla is left feeling remorseful and Jonathan hurt and resentful. 'She says such nasty things that I feel like emptying a dustbin into the car. I don't know why she can't be reasonable. When she loses her temper, she picks on every little thing and shouts.'
While anger is an emotion we are all familiar with, women are often labelled out of control, uptight or highly-strung when they lose their temper. That's in contrast to men who can come across as strong and assertive if they lose theirs, however inappropriately. After an outburst women usually end up making exaggerated apologies. In Carla's case, she finds herself constantly whimpering, 'I don't know what came over me.'
Research carried out by psychologist Sharon Cahill, while a Ph.D. student in psychology at Glasgow's Caledonian University, showed that, despite decades of feminism and greater equality in the workplace, society still has a negative perception of angry women.
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