Womens March, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Sign, US Congress, Washington, DC, USA. Demonstrators carry signs with the image of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (/ oʊ ˌ k ɑː s i oʊ k ɔːr ˈ t ɛ z /; Spanish: oˈkasjo koɾˈtes; born October 13, 1989), also known by her initials, AOC, is an American politician serving as the U.S. Representative for New York's 14th congressional district since 2019. Ocasio-Cortez subsequently called on Cruz, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), and other GOP inciters to resign. Cruz, you must accept responsibility for how your craven, self-serving actions contributed to the deaths of four people yesterday,' she tweeted on January 7, hours before United States Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died from. Ocasio-Cortez hits DHS chief for 'images of my violent rape' in Facebook group. By Rachel Frazin - 07/19/19 07:56 AM EDT. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez GOP congressman.

In her first extended public statement since last week’s deadly, Trump-incited Capitol riot, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) detailed her personal experiences during the chaos, the “acts of betrayal” inside the Capitol building and admitting that she feared being kidnapped or harmed in some other way. She passionately spoke of the injustice, the devastation caused by Trump but what stood out the most was her obvious and admirable anger

You can sense it from the start. The US Congresswoman is warm and welcoming until, of course, she gets to the Capitol riots. You can hear the anger, see the frustration. She minces no words. Justifies nor apologises for displaying this emotion. She is right. What have we left now, if we cannot get angry at the senseless, selfish violence that Trump deliberately sought out? It is something to admire, this obvious rage as she explained the fear and chaos she experienced and witnessed.

“I had a pretty traumatising event happen to me. I had a very close encounter where I thought I was going to die,” she said at the start. “And you have all of those thoughts at the end of your life, all of these thoughts come rushing to you. And that’s what happened to a lot of us on Wednesday.”

She explained she “did not know if I was going to make it to the end of that day alive. And not just in a general sense, but also in a very very specific sense,” and added that “there was a sense that something was wrong, obviously with the violence, but there was a sense that something was wrong from the inside.”

Her anger was palpable; during the remarks, she specifically criticised two Republican senators, both of whom voted against the certification of the 2020 election just hours after the riot ended. AOC said the two “cast that vote not out of genuine belief,” and were motivated purely by “political ambition.”

“You will never be president. You will never command the respect of this country, never. Never. And you should resign.”

Gendered emotion

What makes her anger all the more admirable is that it’s so raw. Because, as women, to express this is to be called “nasty”, “unlikeable” or “aggressive” – anger is a gendered emotion where women fall victim to the stereotype. Yet male figures, even Trump who displays anger during rallies might make what press describe as a “rousing speech.”

Headlines described AOC’s Instagram as “firey.” But it wasn’t firey. It was a perfectly regular display of normal emotion, especially given the events of the past week.

Prior to Wednesday, Trump was said to use a “grammar of persuasion” when going off the cuff during his speeches. In 2017, one article said he was “articulate.” Another said he rambled but used “impassioned, targeted conversation” to connect with voters. This all downplays that he essentially shouts every word of every speech. But hey, that’s just part of who he is, right?

Dismantling the ‘angry woman’ stereotype

Anger is a powerful emotion. it warns us of threat, insult, indignity and harm, writer and activist Soraya Chemaly explained during a TedTalk.

Ocasio-cortez Image Results

“But across the world, girls and women are taught that their anger is better left unvoiced. Anger is a human emotion, neither good nor bad. It is actually a signal emotion. It warns us of integrity threat insult and harm. And yet, in culture after culture, anger is reserved as the moral property of boys and men.”

“In anger, we go from being spoiled princesses and hormonal teens to high maintenance women and shrill ugly nags.

In the talk, she explores the dangerous lie that anger isn’t feminine, and how women’s rage is justified, healthy and a potential catalyst for change.

“Anger confirms masculinity and it confounds femininity, so men are rewarded for displaying it, and women are penalised for doing the same.”

It will come as absolutely no surprise that women report being angrier in more sustained ways, and with more intensity than men do, she explains. “And some of that comes from the fact that we’re socialised to ruminate to keep it to ourselves and mull it over. So we do several things. If men knew how often women were filled with white-hot rage when we cried, they would be staggered. We use minimising language, brush it off, say it’s okay.”

But it’s not okay. And we need more angry women to keep saying that, just as AOC did for over 60 minutes.

After photos of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez visiting the southern border went viral this week, additional angles surfaced revealing what the New York Democrat was really crying over: a mostly empty stretch of asphalt.

Photographer Ivan Pierre Aguirre on Monday tweeted the four photos of Ocasio-Cortez weeping against a chain-link fence, saying he had taken them exactly a year ago at a protest in Tornillo, Mexico. He praised the then-congressional candidate for taking a stand against a shelter for migrant children in the border town.

Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, retweeted Aguirre’s post on Tuesday, saying: “I’ll never forget this, because it was the moment I saw with my own eyes that the America I love was becoming a nation that steals refugee children from their parents,& caged them.”

I’ll never forget this, because it was the moment I saw with my own eyes that the America I love was becoming a nation that steals refugee children from their parents,& caged them.

More kids died after this. To date, no one has been held accountable.

We need to save these kids. https://t.co/HhdMqc5zML

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 25, 2019

Images Ocasio Cortez Legs Up

The congresswoman’s comments came amid renewed liberal outrage over President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies, provoked in part by her dubious comparison of migrant detention centers on the U.S.-Mexico border to “concentration camps.”

Ocasio-Cortez’s fans praised the photos for capturing the pathos and passion that have helped make the congresswoman a progressive superstar. The post accumulated some 205,000 likes and 58,000 retweets.

On the other hand, critics derided her for grandstanding, with some suggesting the photos were “staged’

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez Young Photos

Looks like a pre-planned photo opp!

— Matt (@mattdelong90) June 25, 2019

A spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday dismissed the backlash as “right wing garbage.”

“I cannot control what kind of right-wing garbage shows up on the bottom of the posts,” he told The Hill, adding that comments alleging the photos were fake or staged are “in no way related to reality or truth.”

Why was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez crying at the border?

However, on Wednesday, Grabien reporter Tom Elliot tweeted a pair of archival images from the Tornillo protest. The new angles showed that Ocasio-Cortez had not been gazing not upon horrific suffering by migrant children, but rather onto some fenced-off road well removed from the detention center.

“Apparently she was crying about the lack of migrant children for her photo op,” Elliot joked.

Searched Grabien’s PhotoBank and found these alternate angle pics of @AOC where her sad-face pics were shot. Apparently she was crying about the lack of migrant children for her photo op. pic.twitter.com/8FMB8OQR6K

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) June 26, 2019

Conservative commentators quickly disseminated the photos, suggesting they proved Ocasio-Cortez’ display of sorrow was really a political stunt.

Newly uncovered photos from the border protest attended by a tearful Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez show that she was crying over an empty parking lot.https://t.co/vlmVDPDoT9

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) June 26, 2019

Other social media users shared additional revealing photos. One image captured a photographer kneeling in front of Ocasio-Cortez to get the perfect angle.

I’m crying too! @AOC is right! That ⁦Ford⁩ Explorer does not belong in a cage! pic.twitter.com/N9vMMHfYWo

— Andrew Wilkow (@WilkowMajority) June 26, 2019

A black-and-white photo indicated that the fence wasn’t as impenetrable as it initially appeared.

Just… go around the fence @AOCpic.twitter.com/9Jc0kcUixh

— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) June 25, 2019

As Elliot later reported, Ocasio-Cortez and the other protestors had gathered on the road to the detention center. But he noted that the facilities “don’t appear to be within eyeshot of AOC’s vantage point, at least not close enough to see children ‘caged’ as she describes. In both directions the nearest building is barely visible. ”

Elliot added: “Perhaps that explains the tears. With a limited campaign budget, AOC didn’t have a lot of room for missed photo-op.”

Money “is not a solution”

Despite her frequent proclamations of concern for migrant children, Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday defied her party by voting against a bill to provide $4.5 billion in emergency border funding. She was one of just four liberal Democrats to do so, saying, “Throwing more money at the very organizations committing human rights abuses—and the very Administration directing these human rights abuses—is not a solution.”

Ocasio-Cortez was joined by House Republicans who said the bill sought to put too many restrictions on the president. But the legislation narrowly passed in a mostly party-line vote. Its fate is uncertain.

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• Then-Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez visits the: Twitter