The sweet, warm scent of pollen 
is not the only thing that fills the air 
on campus during April. Along with 
its arrival comes end-of-school-
year stress, fears over what to do 
after the semester ends and the 
dreaded backpacking season. 
After reflecting on the fall 
semester during course selection, 
I realized that I felt empty from 
a lack of music in my life. While I 
enjoyed the one-credit chamber 
music class I was taking and felt 
grateful for the opportunity to play 
my clarinet with others even just 
one day a week, I missed the three-
plus hours I would spend on music 
each day in high school.
It felt like my desire to have 
more music in my life was seeping 
out of me. My fingers would tap 
restlessly, longing for the repetition 
of practicing a challenging run on 
the clarinet over and over again. I 
missed being immersed in a single 
four-beat measure, playing the 
scale it was based in, switching 
up the rhythm and trying to trick 
myself into making a mistake — 
until the pads of my fingers knew 
only the right motion. I missed 
the pulsating feeling in my lower 
lip after a long practice session, a 
reminder that I’m alive and I get to 
create. 
While I had no intentions of 
pursuing a major or minor in music, 
I felt empty without having several 
hours of music in my day. After 
feeling like part of my identity was 
missing, I joined the University 
Band and an a cappella group 
second semester, and found others 
who share the same sentiment. 
Indeed, there are many students 
in different colleges across campus 
who dedicate much of their time 
to music — who feel that it is such 
an intrinsic part of their identity 
they cannot let go of — but who’ve 

decided against majoring in it. 
Some of these people grew up 
always being around music, while 
others stepped into their musical 
pursuits when they were drawn 
in by the welcoming community. I 
spoke with students who connected 
their craft with their studies of 
technology and politics, and who 
have found a bit of home in the 
music scene at the University of 
Michigan.
***
Freshman Michael West is a 
member of the Marching Band, the 
Basketball Band and the University 
Band, and he plays the trombone 
and euphonium — all while being 
a computer science major in the 
College of Engineering. 
In terms of comparing the 
amount of time he spends on school 
versus his music extracurriculars, 
he explained, “Last semester when 
marching band was happening, 
I’d say it was probably 50:50, with 
the time load of marching band 
compared with … the homework for 
the coding class I was in.” 
“I’d say right now, because I’m 
a freshman and my schedule is 
basically just core engineering 
classes that aren’t CS specific, I’m 
spending more time doing music,” 
West said.
For students like West, their 
passion for music and their non-
music major are not isolated, but 
rather, they complement each 
other. They bridge the gap between 
their studies and the music that is 
intrinsic to their identity.
“My Engineering 100 section 
is called Music Signal Processing. 
Our final project is to build a music 
app based off of what we’ve learned 
in the class. And it’s all about like 
learning the physics and the coding 
behind music,” West explained.
West told me about research 
currently 
being 
conducted 
at 
the University that connects the 
fields of music and engineering 

with machine learning models 
that create computer-generated 
chorales:
“Basically you give a computer … 
a bunch of chorales, and in that case 
it would spit out its own chorale 
in that style. It learns the rules 
and patterns by itself and tries to 
recreate that or something similar.” 
Claire Arp, an LSA sophomore 
majoring 
in 
economics 
with 
an intended minor in Native 
American studies, plays several 
dozen instruments as an auxiliary 
percussionist and a guitarist. 
At 
the 
beginning 
of 
our 
conversation, Arp proudly showed 
me her recent purchase. 
“It is a Squier Stratocaster.”
She held up a shiny electric 
guitar, turning it so I could see the 
instrument from all angles. 
“It’s very pretty … if I was given 
the choice to save it or my own life, 
I would have to think about it for a 
little bit.”
Arp, whose main interests are 
political advocacy and policy, also 
found little dissonance between 
her musical passion and her non-
music major. She noted the parallels 
in how she approaches her study 
of music and of politics, and the 
similarities between the fields. 
“The way that I have learned 
how to do music is mostly through 
finding some type of music that I 
really enjoy, some song or album 
or artist that I really like, and just 
absorbing that and figuring out 
what they are doing in particular. 
And that is what I started doing 
with 
politics 
— 
I’m 
finding 
political figures and advocates and 
commentators that I like ... and kind 
of absorbing how they do things,” 
Arp said. 
These kinds of modeling, intense 
observation skills and desire to pull 
things apart and find meaning, 
works across disciplines. 
In my own statistics class, 
I’ve noticed that the process of 

writing code for a graph is just 
like working through a fast run 
on the clarinet. When I’m coding 
a graph, I start by cleaning the 
data, adding rudimentary labels to 
my variables and filtering out the 
ones I don’t want, along with any 
responses where the answer was 
“N/A.” Once the data set is cleaned, 
I write \n in my labs() command to 
give myself a symmetrical title, use 
stat_smooth() to make the graph 
less noisy and change my colors 
to make it as visually pleasing and 
easy to interpret as possible. 
I work through the same steps 
when practicing the clarinet: I 
first have to go through the basic 
motions of learning the notes and 
counting out the rhythm so that 
I can play it cleanly. But then it’s 
on to smaller elements. I have 
to make sure that the frenetic 
movement of my fingers does not 
get sloppy and allow for a listener 
to hear the metal keys hitting the 
wood joints. And I make sure that 
I don’t change my embouchure 
and air speed as I meander above 
and below the register. Just like 
I might experiment with geom_
violin or geom_bar commands to 
see how my data looks on different 
types of graphs, I try out alternate 
fingerings that give me a smoother 
sound. It is the practice of focusing 
on these small elements that makes 
all the difference. 
Fitting in 
When I came to campus, I quickly 
became aware of the stereotypes 
surrounding each major — of what 
it meant to be a business major 
or an engineer, a math major or a 
musical-theater student. 
When thinking about what to 
study, I considered the associations 
people have with each major and 
whether I fit into them. 
A fun and notably accurate 
example of these characterizations 
is found on the Instagram meme 
account @cccb_umich. The page 

takes 
characters 
from 
“Peppa 
Pig,” “Mean Girls,” “Monsters 
University” and “Sesame Street” 
and assigns them to a major that fits 
their personality and overall vibe. 
I 
enjoy 
scrolling 
through 
these posts and seeing if I or the 
people I know are similar to these 
characters. After all, Peppa is 
undeniably film, Janis Ian is clearly 
sociology and of course, Big Bird, 
with his curiosity and big smile, is 
environmental science.
But beyond these light-hearted 
categorizations of students based 
on their interests are harmful 
preconceptions. 
Trying 
to 
encompass all of the personalities 
and layered interests of people in 
each major into one archetype can 
make people feel that the major 
isn’t for them. 
But majors and the labels they 
come with don’t necessarily box 
people in. For some people, the 
opposite is true. 
Quinn Newman, a sophomore 
majoring in RC drama and film, 
television and media (FTVM) and 
minoring in music, explained that 
their music and theater-oriented 
majors gave them an opportunity to 
lean into their full identity. 
“The 
performing 
arts 
are 
definitely 
a 
very 
safe 
space 
for people who are queer and 
nonbinary like me … I think when I 
started theater and music I had no 
idea what being gay or nonbinary 
was, I was that young and I did not 
have that sort of education. But you 

know, the (theater) community … 
does tend to gear towards a lot of 
people in the LGBTQ community, 
so it’s definitely a place that I feel 
like really allowed to be myself,” 
they said. 
They spoke about a recent 
production in which the structure 
of the roles allowed them to 
perform as their authentic self. 
“As someone who is nonbinary, 
it’s 
definitely 
been 
a 
great 
opportunity here to play roles 
that aren’t necessarily specifically 
gendered ... Recently I played Love 
in the RC Players production of 
‘Everybody,’ and I think almost 
every character in that show 
has no gender, because they are 
all concepts like friendship and 
kinship and love and death so, it 
was such a great and versatile play 
to do because anybody could have 
been cast in any role. And I think 
it was really great to play love as 
myself rather than as a prewritten 
version of love,” Newman said. 
A validating connection between 
oneself and art can form in all sorts 
of spheres, regardless of whether or 
not you happen to be majoring in 
that genre of art. Arp, for example, 
highlighted 
the 
connection 
between her identity as a trans 
woman to hyperpop, a modern style 
of music.
She described hyperpop as “the 
modern autotune track type of 

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, April 20, 2022 —6
S T A T E M E N T

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

You open up Spotify and start to 
type “feminist” into the search bar. 
Four letters in, and the first two 
playlists that pop up are “feminist 
rage” and “angry feminist music.” 
You watch on live television as 
Lady Gaga says, “I don’t believe 
in the glorification of murder. I 
do believe in the empowerment 
of women.” You scroll through 
YouTube, listening to feminist 
poetry, and notice that nearly every 
woman either starts yelling or 
describes scenes of violence in her 
writing. Halsey does it at the New 
York Women’s March. You watch a 
woman scale the Statue of Liberty 
on TV to protest the separation of 
immigrant families.
If you’re like me, you may see 
these things and begin to notice a 
trend. The women and feminists 
you see on TV and online are often 
portrayed as angry, especially 
when 
fighting 
against 
their 
oppression. Mainstream 
media has fashioned 
our 
21st-century 
feminist to be 
synonymous 
with 
the 
dreaded “angry 
woman” trope.
But if you’re 
like me, you may 
also 

begin to see how feminism is often 
linked with anger, and how rage 
is may actually be pushing the 
movement forward.
The origins behind women’s 
relationship 
with 
anger 
are 
tricky. Oftentimes, women are 
told that anger and its subsequent 
expressions 
are 
“unladylike,” 
while their male counterparts 
are applauded and praised for 
it. It seems like anger is a source 
of power for men, when for me, 
as a woman, I’ve always felt it 
as a weakness: It’s something I 
shouldn’t be feeling, something I 
should be hiding, something that’s 
never gotten me anywhere. Once, 
I got a little heated in a fight with 
a friend, and turned around and 
found that my friends were saying 
I was acting “crazy.” I tried arguing 
with a group of boys my age, once, 
about an issue I was passionate 
about. When I started to get mad, 
they just started to laugh.
I’m not the only one who feels 
this way. In her song “The 
Man,” 
Taylor 
Swift 
adds 
a 
melody to this 
phenomenon 
when 
she 
says, 
“it’s 
okay if you’re 
mad” (only if 
you’re a man). 
Rebecca 
Traister, 

author of “Good and Mad: The 
Revolutionary Power of Women’s 
Anger,” said in an interview with 
C-SPAN that while anger is a 
driving force for male politicians, 
it often hinders female politicians. 
Traister points out that the media 
will often harp on women in power 
(the Hillary Clintons and Michelle 
Obamas) for not smiling or being 
mildly impolite.
Studies have shown that when 
men show anger, they’re applauded 
for it. When women do it, they’re 
shamed, shunned and avoided. 
It’s suggested that, during their 
competing presidential campaigns, 
Donald Trump was allowed to 
be as angry as he wanted, but the 
moment Hillary Clinton slipped 
up, she was crucified.
And yet, anger remains a core 
part of the modern feminist 
movement. In the second wave 
of American feminism, female 
activism was characterized as 
“angry” and “unladylike,” and that 
carried on throughout the other 
three waves of feminism. And yet, 
the movement grew to be even 
more angry in response. Women 
led 
protests 
for 
reproductive 
rights and the Equal Rights 
Amendment. It was likely in this 
early rage that women found their 
power — it was harder to ignore 
them when they were mad. That 
anger still exists now. Since the 
’80s, expressions of feminism and 
female empowerment in media 
are often tied to anger, and 
sometimes the utmost 
culmination of anger: 
violence.
Lady 
Gaga’s 
quote 
says 
enough 
— 
sometimes, 
violence 
in 
movies 
serves 
as 
the 
primary 
expression 
of 
female 
rage 
and 
is 
an 
empowering 
force for female 
characters. Think 
of the plotlines in 
“Gone Girl”, “Kill Bill” 
or “Promising Young Woman” — 

their anger is the narrative arc. 
So 
why 
is 
feminism 
so 
inextricably linked to anger?
I’ve dabbled in poetry, and I’ve 
found that most of my poems find 
their way to an angry place. I’ve 
also found that these pieces are 
some of the hardest for me to share. 
Why? Because I don’t want to be 
seen as angry? Because society has 
taught me that anger isn’t for me, 
because it’s not attractive?
And yet I still get angry. In fact, 
I get angry a lot. I listen to angry 
music, write angry poetry, I scream 
and cry in the mirror. And you 
know what? I’ve found that anger 
is liberating. I feel as if I have been 
told all my life that anger is not for 
me — so reclaiming those feelings I 
have been told not to have has not 
only made me feel better, it has 
made me feel human.
That’s why I think feminism is 
angry. Because feminism is about 
change, but it’s also about making 
women feel better. And guess what 
— anger does that.
The Anger-Cry
When I get angry, I cry. And that 
sucks.
Crying when you’re angry is 
a perfectly reasonable response 
to an emotional situation. Tears 
are supposed to relieve emotions 
when you become overwhelmed 
by them, and anger is not excluded 
from that. And yet, crying when 
you’re angry is one of the hardest 
things to experience because you’re 
effectively undermining yourself. 
In my experience, crying isn’t 
perceived as an expression of anger 
— it’s an expression of weakness, 
of sadness, of vulnerability, which 
isn’t exactly how you always want 
to be perceived when you’re mad. 
And then you get mad at yourself 
because you’re crying, and because 
you’re mad at yourself, you start 
crying even harder. It can be a 
vicious cycle.
But how else would I express my 
anger? By yelling, screaming? I’ve 
never felt confident in that form 
of expression — but why? Why do 
traditional forms of anger feel so 
foreign to me?
The most I can gather is 
because at the origins of women’s 
relationship with anger is the 
systemic 
mistreatment 
and 

pathologizing of women. Female 
expression of anger has historically 
been 
linked 
with 
hysteria, 
forcing angry women into mental 
institutions or undermining their 
concerns. If you think that that was 
a long time ago and is no longer 
prevalent now, might I point out 
that women who express their 
anger now are still labeled as “crazy 
bitches.” Which, again, undermines 
the valid thoughts and feelings that 
push women toward anger.
Soraya 
Chemlay, 
author 
of 
“Rage Becomes Her: The Power 
of Women’s Anger,” claims that 
girls are rarely taught to be angry, 
which rings true to my experience. 
I can’t recall my parents ever 
talking about anger. Sadness, yes, 
happiness, of course, but never 
anger. As Chemaly also claims, 
women are often pushed to find 
out how to express anger through 
watching other people.
But how does one do that? My 
mom was never one to get angry, 
and neither were my grandmas, my 
aunts, my female cousins. I watched 
TV, and only the female characters 
I was supposed to dislike (the 
Regina Georges and the Cruella de 
Vils) ever showed anger, and when 
they did they were labeled as a 
“bitch” or “crazy.”
All this points toward a clash 
between traditional ideas of how 
women should act and how we 
should be expressing our anger. 
Women experience anger, no doubt 
about it, and yet we’re usually not 
taught how to express it. The only 
ways in which women are taught 
to be angry are through the media, 
which 
encourages 
women 
to 
express their anger in unhealthy 
ways.
What might this all culminate 
in? A feeling in most women that 
we can’t be angry, that anger isn’t 
meant for us, that even if we do feel 
it, we must hide it, shove it back 
down our throats, even when it’s 
choking us.
It seems like the modern feminist 
movement has decided it’s time for 
the Heimlich.
Anger as Revolutionary
When women are told that they 
can’t be angry, being angry becomes 
a revolutionary act in and of itself. 
That is why 21st-century feminism 

chooses to recognize anger as 
one of its most valuable weapons. 
There’s something liberating in 
doing something we’ve been told 
to suppress, to freely express our 
emotions to their fullest potential.
I think that’s why so many 
women like myself find comfort 
in angry media. I snap for the 
poet standing on stage, shouting 
about her life experiences. I’ve dug 
through the internet to find better, 
more accurate representations of 
female anger. I watch these women 
and live vicariously through their 
anger. I express my own anger by 
watching, by listening to them. You 
might do that too, and that’s alright.
Chemaly, a prominent feminist 
author, pointed out in an interview 
that anger is just another human 
emotion, and that it doesn’t have 
to be negative unless we make 
it so. When people turn anger 
into real violence, or express it 
negatively, anger pushes us back. 
But when people express their 
anger in healthy ways, through art, 
it can become a powerful tool for 
expression and change.
I think feminism might be doing 
that for women. By providing 
women a space to be angry, the 
movement might just help liberate 
them, or at least make them feel 
better. I know that when I’m 
angry and upset, if I listen to that 
“feminist rage” playlist, or I listen 
to that angry poetry, I feel better. I 
feel seen. I feel like I can brave the 
world, like I’m finally coughing up 
the thing that’s been keeping me 
from breathing.
Maybe you can do that, too. Next 
time you have a bad day, let yourself 
be angry. Next time you feel like 
you’ve been wronged, be angry. 
Don’t let anyone take those feelings 
away from you. Feel what you feel 
and turn it into something useful. 
Write a poem. Draw a picture. Fall 
onto your bed and scream into your 
pillow. Whatever you do, just make 
sure you’re doing one thing: being 
angry. 
Anger is a powerful thing, and so 
are you.

RILEY HODDER
Statement Correspondent

An ode to musical non-music majors

CAITLIN LYNCH
Statement Correspondent

Design by Ruby Lewis 
Page Design by Sarah Chung

Women are angry: Here’s why

Design by Leilani Baylis-Washington 
Page Design by Sarah Chung