They called us rage moms, but our anger didn't end with the election

How the double-bind of fucksgiving requires women to be both hard and soft in the world

"In the United States, we have never been taught how noncompliant, insistent, furious women have shaped our history and our present, our activism and our art. We should be,” Rebecca Traister

(I write at length about many of the ideas below in my new book, “Fired Up: How to Turn Your Spark into a Flame and Come Alive at Any Age” out in June. Pre-order now and enroll for free in Firestarter University starting in the Fall.)

During every election cycle in America, a new kind of “mom voter” emerges. Sometimes those mythical mothers represent an actual voting constituency, but other times, they end up being figments of candidates’ imaginations. The increasing diverse bloc of suburban women vote, and they’re a target for political parties and politicians because they’re traditionally a persuadable group that can swing between party affiliations.

In the 1990s, the term "soccer mom" emerged as a political shorthand for white, suburban, college-educated, married women with children. Viewed as a swing voting bloc, these women were characterized as moderate mothers concerned with education, safety, and family economics. And then, in the early 2000s, “security moms” became a political term describing married, suburban women with children whose top voting concern was national security in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The next election cycle, that mom group gave way to "hockey moms," signaling a shift from safety and protection to education and family economics.

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Then, in 2024, “Rage moms” became the new, hot voting bloc. The anger and frustration of these suburban mothers over having to juggle multiple roles—teacher, caregiver, employee, and parent—without a safety net fueled political activism and protest. Fed up moms were seen as a crucial political force, particularly for Democrats, to push back on a lack of quality, available childcare; the banning of abortion and threats to IVF availability; and broader frustrations with Donald Trump, including his obvious hatred of women.

Monikers describing millions of women as a voting bloc can be descriptive and even empowering, but they can also be sexist and derivative. “I’m so conflicted about the term ‘rage moms’ because that combination of words and ideas is only used to describe women defending themselves and their interests. Nobody calls men, as citizens, with political concerns as ‘rage dads,’”

Soraya Chemaly

, author of Rage Becomes Her, told me. “If a woman is feeling really angry, I think it’s helpful to assess what the sources of that anger are as honestly as possible. Is the anger about domestic inequality? Social injustice? Political anxiety? All of the above? Figuring this out can help focus attention, energy, creativity, and also, importantly, seeking out help in the right and most useful places.”

Rage is a visceral and logical emotional response to immoral, dangerous, and disordered behavior, and a logical reaction to chaos, cruelty, and corruption. But study after study has shown that anger among men is perceived as strong, decisive, credible, and, of course, powerful, while women who express that same emotion are perceived as “difficult” or “shrill.” Anger and rage clash with our feminine ideal and as such must be suppressed, the cultural narrative tells us. The persistent double standard infiltrates not only our psyches, but also our politics—something I call the double-bind of fucksgiving.

In order to make change in the world—to protect and nurture your family, community, and country—you need to give all the fucks. But to protect yourself—to have a tough exterior that can withstand the blowback you’ll get for being an angry woman—you have to learn to give zero fucks; to stop caring what others want from you or what they think about you. It’s a pathological predicament that requires women to be both hard and soft in the world. We must be both impenetrable and vulnerable.

I have no remedy for this dilemma because I know firsthand that it is almost impossible to strike an acceptable or tolerable balance of fucks. But I do know that it’s women’s anger that motivates successful activism and advocacy. After all, rage is what urged me to create Moms Demand Action after the shooting at Sandy Hook School ignited my most visceral instincts, and I knew there was no returning to the person I had been before it happened. The only way for me to stay sane was to channel my unadulterated anger into action.

Similarly, Dr.

Annie Andrews

, a pediatrician who ran for Congress in South Carolina, told me “It’s my mom rage that got me off the sidelines. And that’s what keeps me going, and willing to do really big scary things like run for office. The shared experience of motherhood crosses racial/demographic lines. Even though our lived experience and perspectives vary, we all have a shared goal: doing what’s best for our kids. Moms need to channel their rage into action, shed their insecurities and get involved in ways they never imagined. Together, we could be the most powerful voting bloc in the country.”

The power of American moms’ rage was, unfortunately, not enough to prevent Trump from getting elected. Yet again, a majority of white women voted for the Republican candidate in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. But even though Trump’s support was strong among non-college-educated white women (over 60 percent in this group voting for him), there was a silver lining: college-educated white women—aka, rage moms—trended toward Kamala Harris, outperforming their 2020 election votes for Biden by five points.

While the presidential outcome was influenced by many factors, the rage mom movement contributed to a shift in political discourse, making parental concerns central to state and local races and policy discussions. And now, six months after the election, rage moms are still raging. There’s a notable increase in mothers running for and winning elected office, with organizations like Emerge and Run for Something reporting record numbers of women signing up for training to run in the future. And activist moms and organizations, like Moms First and Supermajority, are successfully creating national conversations about women’s issues, including reproductive rights and equal pay.

It’s difficult to be a woman in the world right now without rage because there’s so much that needs to be fixed. Currently, the United States is the only industrialized nation that does not mandate paid family leave. A reported 63 percent of full-time working parents have a hard time paying for child care — for low-income parents, the percentage increases to 95 percent. Currently, moms are paid 75 cents for every dollar a father makes. But it’s important that instead of turning our anger against ourselves or others, we channel it into righteous rage. As Dr.

Pooja Lakshmin MD

, a women’s psychiatrist, says, anger is easier to act on when it’s viewed as information: "When we feel it, we learn something about ourselves and our world. We feel anger when we feel slighted or when we notice injustice. This gives us valuable information about ourselves and our world."

Anger is an emotion that weaves through the lives of countless women, shaping our experiences, influencing our choices, and sometimes, defining our identities. It shouldn’t be a source of shame, but a catalyst for justice and equality. The more we embrace our anger and wear it as a badge of honor, the more we enhance our power and use our emotion to become effective agents of change. And, hopefully, we forge a future where all women are free to be fully and authentically themselves, in all of their glorious rage.

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My new book Fired Up: How to Turn Your Spark Into a Flame and Come Alive at Any Age, is available for preorder! Out in June 2025, Fired Up will give you the formula for finding your unique spark and show you how to use it to start fires in your life. By preordering, you can enroll for FREE in Firestarter University, a year-long online program that includes live monthly workshops, workbooks and resources, accountability check-ins, and a community to help you succeed.