Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?

This morning, my daughter Holland came to me with a big idea.

“Mama, I want to learn guitar. I want to sing for the talent show.”

Now, this wasn’t entirely surprising.

Holland grew up sitting in my lap while I strummed a guitar, playing with the strings, messing with my hair, humming along to the songs. She has a beautiful voice, too.

I was thrilled by the idea, and I told her so. I also told her to make a list of the songs she wanted to play.

A little while later, she proudly handed me her playlist.

I glanced at the paper, nodding approvingly.

Because this playlist?

It was a vibe.

The songs were fierce, defiant, powerful. They coursed through your veins with estrogen. A little Stevie Nicks, some The Cranberries, Taylor Swift, and a really cool song about emotional labor that made me chuckle at just how much my little girl was feeling it.

“I’d like to add some more artists,” Holland said, “but I don’t know any other songs like this.”

So, I typed her list into the search bar, adding the phrase, “songs like.”

We clicked on a few more, added some to the playlist, and then a prompt popped up on the screen.

“Would you like more songs about Feminine Rage?”

I blinked at it.

Feminine rage?

I laughed.

Holland has a pretty chill life.

The angriest I’d seen her in the last couple of weeks was when she got beef ravioli instead of cheese. Or there was last night, when she got pretty pissed because her brother, Ben, snagged the last Capri Sun in the fridge.

Rage? That’s one helluva word.

And yet, somehow, this music had already found its place in her heart. She may not have fully understood the lyrics, but she fully identified with their essence.

The fire, the defiance—she felt that.

We clicked on a few more songs, added some to the playlist, but nothing quite hit as hard as the one she kept coming back to.

“You know what, Holland?” I said. “I think you should sing Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me. You keep coming back to it.”

She had this adorable ferocity when she sang the chorus, Who’s afraid of little old meeEeeeeE? And this little growl in her voice when she landed on the words you should be.

She was into it. She felt it. And in my heart, I knew it would be an epic moment for her.

But shook her head.

“No.”

“Why not? You love it.”

She hesitated.

“Because people will make fun of me if I sound angry.”

That stopped me.

“Sweetheart, your friends will sing along. They love Taylor Swift.”

“Oh, my friends won’t make fun of me,” she said. “My girlfriends, anyway.”

And there it was.

Eight.

Eight years old.

And she had already learned the rule.

That a girl expressing anger—even if it wasn’t her own, even if it was just a song—was something that could be laughed at.

And she already had a suspicion of who would be laughing.

“Baby,” I said, “you know what? I was pretty weird in school.”

I paused dramatically.

“Please try to act surprised.”

She laughed.

"There were a couple of times when I wanted to do something and express myself, but people at school made fun of me. And what I thought that meant was that what I was doing was silly. That it wasn’t serious. That it didn’t matter.”

Holland tilted her head.

“But what I’ve learned, baby,” I continued, “is that when people make fun of you, it’s not because they think you’re silly. It’s because they already take you seriously. They just don’t understand you. And that makes them uncomfortable. So they make fun of it.”

She thought about it.

“I think I’m going to do the song,” she finally said.

I smiled.

“That’s a good choice, if you feel comfortable with it. I just wanted to give you some perspective.”

After I dropped her off at school, the moment continued to stay with me.

What is it about feminine rage that makes people so uncomfortable?

I think it’s because, unlike plain old anger, feminine rage is demanding.

It shows up with fire and says something has to change, or everything’s about to burn.

It is power.

Which means it’s going to make people uncomfortable.

Have you ever noticed how when women express anger, it is almost always minimized?

It becomes cute, dramatic, or an overreaction.

Our anger is treated like something that should be tamed or controlled, patted on the head and sent to bed early.

We are called hysterical, unhinged. We are scolded for being too much.

Because if people took a woman’s anger seriously, they’d have to take women seriously too.

And that’s the real problem, isn’t it?

People don’t mock what they think is meaningless--they mock what they find threatening.

The people who are afraid of your anger are afraid of how you will use your power.

They don’t know what it would look like if women woke up and acknowledged our entire experience—our discomfort, our anger, and maybe even our rage.

What kind of ideas would we get in our heads?

What kind of changes would we demand?

They don’t know what that would look like.

But I do.

I saw it for myself a few years ago in New York City on International Women’s Day.

I found myself standing at Bowling Green in Manhattan, staring down the Charging Bull statue.

People were gathered from all around.

And there she was, the Fearless Girl.

Hands on her hips, unmoving.

She wasn’t attacking. She wasn’t raging.

She was standing firm.

And the bull?

Massive. Powerful.

A symbol of strength and aggression. Of finance and capitalism. Of all the things in this country that have traditionally belonged to men.

And yet, on that day, women stood before it—not in destruction, not in battle, but in defiance.

And they left something behind.

Flowers.

They draped them over the bull’s horns, set bouquets at his feet, left petals scattered around his hooves.

Because women don't want to stand in rage. They want to move through it towards Joy. And when women step into our power, we don’t destroy worlds—we transform them.

We don’t want to burn anything down. We want to make it more beautiful.

And what I am realizing is some people have no idea what to do with that—a footprint of flowers.

Later that afternoon, I picked Holland up from school.

She came pouring into the car, a chaotic blend of smiles and giggles, books spilling out of her backpack, her ponytail lopsided on her head.

“I recruited a bunch of friends to sing the song with me,” she said. “We’re going to perform it together. It’s going to be EPIC!!!"

And I felt a little flame flicker in my chest.

My fearless girl.

The one who is so soft and sweet, yet fierce and strong.

The one who will absolutely take up space.

The one who will keep both her fire and her flowers.

When we got home, she ran inside, and a few minutes later, I heard the guitar being pulled from its case, awkward strums filling the house—chords that weren’t really forming, but her beautiful voice soaring above them.

“Who’s afraid of little old me?” she sang.

And I thought to myself,

…they should be.

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Dear friends,

It means everything to me that you’re here. Writing is not only my work—it’s my way of connecting with you, and I’m deeply grateful for that. I’ll always keep my words open and accessible because encouragement should never come with a price tag.

For those of you who choose to support this work financially, thank you for keeping the lights on. FOR REAL. It is so appreciated.

With love and gratitude,

Mary Katherine