Journal Article — Sociology of My Anger: A Single Mother’s Struggles to Survive in A Patriarchal World — by Jennifer Pike

I have a laundry list of social problems but the one which currently most threatens my goals of upward social mobility and psychological well-being is my anger. In this article I use sociological theories and concepts to explore my anger. My anger is the rage of a mother unable to protect her children from poverty and social stigma. My anger is fury at a society which throws obstacles in my path and calls them my fault. My anger erupts out of alienation, an “experience of isolation and misery,” (Macionis 303) from living in a patriarchal society which first encourages powerlessness in women then condemns them for relying on aid from the state. At the same time this same society condones their husband’s or boyfriend’s right to walk out on them and their children if he judges her too fat, too old, too much the same as yesterday. My anger despairs at the norm-starved state of chronic anomie gripping the modern American society. Depression is most often a sign of repressed anger, and anger usually signals repressed fear. These are also classic hallmarks in the stages of grief over the loss of a marriage as well as loss through death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I did not take the traditional path in regard to my loss perhaps because I began with denial, then moved on to bargaining, followed by depression and then anger. But I think I now have found a path to the acceptance which will set me free.