I’ve long felt and often written that the world is being destroyed by men, by their anger, wars, greed, competitiveness and drive to dominate. In the Kabbalah, God warns that if the poor are given no reason to hope, if the creative spark is abandoned or ignored, if Mother Earth is not loved and cared for, then he will return and wreak havoc on his creation. In my mind, nations and governments led mostly by men have violated all of these sacred obligations, again and again and watching Sandy wreak this biblical and prophesied havoc, I heard the echoes of these mystical prophets.

I wrote earlier today that men seem responsible for much of the anger and violence in the world, yet I also wrote about this curious phenomenon I’ve seen in recent years In my writing, on my blog, I rarely get an angry message from a man, almost always the angry voices are female.  They are instantly recognizable – strident, unyielding, implacable. I got a lot of response to that brief observation and it got me thinking about women, anger and the animal world, the realm in which I dwell. Like our corrupted and dysfunctional political system, the animal world is also bristling with anger and hostility, and I have to say despite my harsh view of men in the world, I have seen that the overwhelming majority of that anger in this culture seems to be coming from women.

The angriest messages  are almost always familiar, they always have to do with the idea that I have not treated my animals well, kept them alive as long as I should, protected them more intensely, done more to keep them safe.  I am well aware as a parent that these notions relate very powerfully to children and ideas of responsibility. We all were children or had children.

In recent years,  the animal world has become overwhelmingly dominated by women. Most vets, trainers. handlers and breeders are now women. The rescue culture which did not exist a generation ago now numbers in the tens of thousands – it is overwhelmingly female. So are most shelter workers and volunteers.

Why would there be so much anger in these sub-cultures, evident almost everywhere online?  I wonder if some women project resentment of men onto the mistreatment of animals and see animals dominated, abused and mistreated in the way some men have long mistreated women. Projection is epidemic in the animal world. If you do not treat animals in a particular way, then you become evil, an abuser. It is the same kind of ethic that dominates politics, a reason I can’t participate in the process.

A long-time reader and follow was outraged by my decision to put Rocky and Simon together for some part of the day. “You are just a monster. This is abuse!,” she wrote. I do not answer hostile e-mails if I see them because I know they are not about communication, but something else, something that has nothing to do with me or my animals. Anger needs anger to thrive, like a car needs fuel. It can’t go far on its own.

One factor, I think, is that we are increasingly looking at animals through the intense and narrow prism of rescue and abuse – many people think it is actually immoral to buy a happy and healthy dog from a good breeder when there are so many needy animals in the world. The no-kill shelter idea – institutionalized life imprisonment for animals to me – emerged from this idea.

I think we all know that rescue, as opposed to adoption or purchase, is emotionally laden and can sometimes breed anger and self-righteousness. I stopped referring to my “rescued” animals as rescued, it seemed self-serving. They don’t see themselves that way, and have no need of the label. This new idea of animals  can foster disconnection from people and encourage people to feel morally superior to others. We seem to need animals to rescue. How many people with dogs do you meet who say their dogs have always been happy and well treated?  In New York City recently, I met a dog who sneezed on my shoe and his owner apologized, assuring me he had been abused.

And there is the Internet, a breeder of anonymous hostility, an incubator of anger. For me, disagreement is nourishing and valuable, anger just another form of mindless violence, a replication, in fact of the awful damage men have done to the world with their wars and notions of attack and conquest. I am morally obliged to ignore it.

I think women are more sensitive than men to ideas relating to nurturing, care and loving treatment. These are generalizations. Plenty of men love animals and care about their treatment. Most women in the animal world are not angry. But I am drawn to issues relating to anger and fear in the animal world, especially on the Internet, where both are overwhelming and disturbing. And, I sense, growing.

Everyone I know who deals with animals or writes about them has noticed this anger. They have all seen, as I have,  how many issues relating to animals are shrouded in anger and hostility, especially at time when there is little anger or attention focused on the evident mistreatment of people.

A friend – a female writer who loves animals – says it is so much easier to save a dog than a human that many people – especially woman – are drawn to it. The anger, she says, comes from a rich and deep female history of being abused and mistreated. She agreed that it is easier to be angry at people who mistreat animals that at your spouse or boss. Women know what it is like to be pushed around. I like that explanation, it makes sense to me.  We project all kinds of things on the animals we love, but we rarely look at ourselves, our own contributing emotional histories to our lives with animals. I understand well that the strong bond between my donkey Simon and me is a shared sense of abuse and mistreatment. And a powerful anger about both.

One day I will write a book about the extraordinary dialogue underway in America between women and animals. It will mostly be a book about love and nurturing, about communicating. Anger will definitely be a chapter.