Clare Wright, left, and Rebecca Traister, at the Athenaeum Theatre in Melbourne — Photo: Emily Harms

‘The stories aren’t simple. They’re nuanced. And it’s our job to insist on that nuance – and not let everything get turned into a t-shirt.’

Rebecca Traister

Rebecca Traister is an American journalist, polemicist and New York Times-bestselling author who writes at the intersection of feminism, politics and culture. Her latest book, Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger, investigates the potential and complexity of women’s anger as a political and social tool – both historically, and in the reinvigorated contemporary women’s movement in the West. How have women’s expressions of emotion been framed to delegitimise or condemn them? How can conflict and tension within and between factions of the women’s movement make the broader collective stronger?

Traister tracks the transformative force of female fury (and its suppression) through abolition, suffrage, temperance; through the labour and civil rights movements, and from now into the future. Are our perspectives on women’s anger changing? How can women use their dissatisfaction to progress their rights?

In April of 2019, Traister joined Clare Wright in conversation at the Athenaeum Theatre.

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