Inequality can lead to anger but also to change

Who can blame today's women for being more than a bit angry?

Sure we talk about equal rights. And we have come a long way in redressing the inequities in the ways men and women are treated in our society. In our marriages, on the job, in politics - women now can take for granted rights that a hundred years ago would have been unimaginable. Yet …

• Married women are still often treated as "junior partners" by their husbands, not participating equally in decisions about money or other shared concerns.

• Married women who work continue to do most, sometimes all, housework. Mothers who work often do most of the parenting as well.

• Women still usually earn less for the same job as their male co-workers.

• Women are much more likely to be physically or sexually assaulted, often by the very men they live with.

• In divorce, women require many more years to regain their pre-divorce standard of living because of child care responsibilities, inadequate education or job training (often given up or deferred because of family needs), and unrealistic distribution of marital assets.

• And, finally, though our society maintains publicly that women ought to have equal rights, there remains a bias against women who are assertive in claiming these rights. Women have been told they are equal, yet they continue to confront situations in which they must insist on, even fight for, such equality (and are sometimes harassed for their efforts). It is as though the rule book has been changed, but the game is still played the same.

Actually, even with full equal rights, there would still be any number of things for women to get angry about. Historically, our culture has strongly emphasized such typical "masculine" traits as individualism, rationalism, competition, aggression, and so on. More "feminine" traits like connectedness, wholeness and cooperation have had much less emphasis. (The idea of "masculine" and "feminine" traits is even misleading; women can be as rational as men; men can be connected just as much as women. Such differences are more a matter of training than biology). Our cultural one-sidedness has resulted in a society that is too often disconnected, emotion starved, predatory and violence prone.

What are today's women doing with their anger? For some, it remains bottled up, seeping out in how they treat themselves and others. In counseling, I've worked with many such women. Often they behave in self-destructive ways (overeating, abusing alcohol) or struggle with chronic depression. Or their anger may come out in sarcasm, cynicism or passive-aggressive manipulation.

Other women express their anger through aggressively rejecting or attacking our culture as a whole, or through avoiding marriage and other relationships with men in which they are likely to be treated unequally.

And, finally, some women work for change "from within," participating fully in our culture and in male-female relationships, while at the same time assertively claiming their equal rights and responsibilities. Their anger provides motivation and energy in their efforts.

I believe our best hope for the future is that women will continue to work for change in this way. We - all of us - desperately need to learn from women about their unique understandings about life and about relationships. Let's hope today's women have the perseverance and patience to teach us.

• Dr. Ken Potts is on the staff of Samaritan Counseling Center in Naperville and Downers Grove. He is the author of "Mix Don't Blend, A Guide to Dating, Engagement and Remarriage With Children."