Research in the area of anger has traditionally been pursued from a reductionist and empiricist perspective and has taken place mainly on an individual level. The reductionist approach defines anger as an experience with physiological, cognitive, and behavioral components which can be defined and assessed. This approach ignores the phenomenology of the anger expeience, the social context of anger, and anger expression as an instrument for social change. The feminist perspective emphasizes the importance of the individual experience and thus values a phenomenological approach to assessment. The relationship between anger and aggression has proceeded in an empirical fashion with variables and procedures that can be manipulated in the laboratory forming the basis for the accumulating body of information. Several problems arise from the laboratory approach which might be remedied if researchers studied anger under real-life circumstances or emulated real-life conditions in their research. Recent research has explored the means to control anger while ignoring an important aspect of the anger experience; namely, anger expressed by oppressed groups in the context of movements for change (women's liberation, civil rights). The failure of social scientists to recognize the anger of disenfranchised groups in the context of social movements has serious ramifications. The feminist perspective allows an examination of the broader social context in which anger arises and the validation of the anger experience as a sometimes justifiable response to social-political conditions. (NB)