Try as they might, misogynists have, since ancient times, tried to tame the dragon, the monstrous female serpent, forcing it into submission and euphemism. However, what they have really accomplished is to drive it underground to its cave, where it growls, and gnaws, and grinds its teeth in the heart and collective memory of every woman. When it has the least opportunity, it leaps like lightning, lashing its armored tail upon the solid ground of betrayal and abuse, and unleashes its fiery fury on all the minions of the collective Xerxes’s, Jasons, Agamemnons, and Philips of the world.
Anger is always a manifestation of fear turned outward, so when the order of the private world—where it has been cloistered—is disturbed or threatened, the dragon invades the public world from which she was banished. When vengeance and retribution have been satisfied, sparks from the fiery spirit subside, the private world is restored to order, and the dragon sleeps—always with one eye open.
© P.D. Sargent, Power Women: Lessons From the Ancient World.