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Posts by Giovanna Rossi

365: Reclaiming Women’s Anger with Gemma Hartley

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What if the anger you have been taught to hide is actually pointing you toward the life you want?

Gemma Hartley is a freelance journalist, writing coach, and author of No One Loves An Angry Woman: an Exvangelical Coming-of-Rage Story and Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward. She is a distinguished speaker who has presented everywhere from corporate conferences to festivals at the Sydney Opera House. Her essays have appeared in Harper’s Bazaar, Women’s Health, Glamour, The Washington Post, Good Housekeeping, and many others. She lives in Reno, Nevada.

Gemma first joined us in November 2020 to talk about Fed Up, her book on emotional labor. Returning guests are rare on this show, and I’m glad to welcome her back for her new book.  

Gemma is a clear-eyed feminist writer who is also willing to be personal. She does not stay in theory. She traces her own anger back to the moment the message she heard as a child that no one would love her if she showed it, and she explains how the cultural scripts behind emotional labor are the same ones that teach women to stay small, quiet, and agreeable. Her story starts in evangelical culture, but the anger she writes about belongs to anyone who has been socialized as a woman.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

  • Why Gemma wrote the title essay in 2019 and waited years before publishing the book
  • How women learn to suppress anger and prioritize being agreeable
  • The connection between emotional labor, anger, and staying small
  • How to honor anger without immediately acting on it
  • What it can mean to maintain relationships while making room for anger
  • The challenges of expressing anger at work and within systems that treat women’s and men’s anger differently
  • Why telling the stories that feel hardest to share can be transformative
  • How Gemma supports writers in telling the stories they are afraid to write
  • Why well-being includes anger alongside love, joy, and contentment

This conversation is a reminder that wellness is not about being calm all the time. It is about being whole. When we make room for every emotion, including the ones we were told to hide, ease and joy have somewhere real to land. Here is how this episode connects to our four guiding words:

✨ Ease: Gemma shares that ease grows when we stop performing comfort for everyone else and start creating it for ourselves.

✨ Joy: We cannot pick and choose our emotions. Allowing anger opens the door to deeper joy, love, and contentment.

✨ Impact: Anger signals that something is wrong and something needs to change. If honored well, it becomes fuel for changing the systems we work in.

✨ Self-trust: When something whispers to us, we can listen early. Gemma invites us to write the dangerous thing down and trust what it shows us.

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Resources Mentioned

Connect with Gemma Hartley

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364: Just Giovanna: What Gloria Steinem Taught Us About Mothering Each Other

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What does it mean to truly support another woman? And what becomes possible when we feel heard, valued, and encouraged by the women around us?

In this episode, I reflect on a powerful idea from Gloria Steinem: that women can become each other’s mothers. To me, this is about more than a metaphor. It is an invitation to consider how we help one another feel seen, build self-trust, and begin to repair the places where we may have felt unsupported.

I think often about how much we ask of ourselves as women, particularly when we are leading, caring for others, and working to create meaningful change. We are often expected to be capable and resilient, even when we need support ourselves. But we were never meant to do everything alone.

In this episode, I explore:

  • What Gloria Steinem meant by women becoming each other’s mothers.
  • How being listened to and affirmed can shape our sense of worth.
  • Why sisterhood and community matter, especially for women who are used to being the ones others depend on.
  • What it looks like to support another woman without taking responsibility for everything she carries.
  • How we can practice recognizing one another’s strengths and helping each other feel less alone.

I invite you to think about one woman in your life whose presence has helped you feel more understood or more fully yourself. What did she offer you? And how might you offer that same kind of encouragement to someone else?

A small practice to take with you: Tell one woman something true and meaningful that you see in her. Go beyond a surface-level compliment. Let her know what you value about who she is, how she shows up, or what she makes possible for others.

Because when we help one another feel heard and valued, we create the conditions for greater self-trust, connection, and collective change.

Resources

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If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the Well Woman Show on your favorite podcast platform and leave us a review. Share it with a woman who needs to hear this. Your support helps us keep bringing you stories and reflections on what it takes to build a life with more ease, joy, impact, and self-trust. 

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