We try not to make a certain face too often, one that we can’t really risk. It’s an unattractive face. It’s a terrifying look — and it’s one that glowed from every page this week as a lady who had nothing to apologize for showed her raw rage.
The clinched teeth, the thickly bitten bottom lip, the narrowed eyes, the scornful, gaping mouth: it’s kind of stunning to realize how frightening it is.
We don’t mind when a full-fledged athlete flashes that face — anger and competition colliding in a brilliant glare — but the rest of us don’t like looking like that, and we certainly don’t want you to see us looking like that.
Grace Tame’s furious visage, Brittany Higgins’ high-chinned disdain, and unmasked wrath infuriated all the typical commentariat members — nothing more confronting than an angry woman’s uncontrollable threat.
The desire to effect change is raging
But you know what made their rage, that visage, so subversive, dangerous, and transformative? Because we know what that face signifies and how much rage it shows, and its concealment goes to the heart of a deep, unexpressed fear: that once unleashed, we won’t know where or how that anger will finish, it upset so many of us, so many other women.
Rosie Batty, the ever-brave Rosie Batty, held that position for all of us this week on Q&A. She told us before the show about a dinner gathering she attended with largely 70-year-olds after the fiery Press Club affair.
Grace’s rage had made her feel uneasy, and it turned out that it had made all the other ladies at the table feel similarly uneasy.
