Enough Already! Entering the No B*tch Zone

Every now and then I get reminded that, because I’m a woman, it’s considered rude, overly aggressive, or b*tchy if I assert myself too much. We’ve come a long way; the girls of our generation are enjoying a new kind of liberal experience and opportunity that no generation ever has before. We can have jobs, and kids, and we can support each other. We can even be a little curvy, though the standards of thin are still rigid. Heaven forbid, though, if we play as hard, or shout as loud, as the boys.

By Ccandyblairh

I started thinking about it when I realized how half the country (or more) has such a powerful, abiding hatred for Hillary Clinton (even now that the primary season is over). My grandmother can’t stand her, and yet I can never get a straight answer of why. I finally figured out that just about all of the criticisms being hurled at Hillary when she was still in contention all boiled down to the fact that she was calculating, ambitious, aggressive, and outspoken — the very qualities we celebrate in men and despise in women.

Men do it to women, and worse, women do it to women — we conclude that any female who’s a little nasty is a b*itch. That’s why I’ve sworn off that word. When someone calls a woman a b*tch, it doesn’t tell me anything about the person other than that she has just been typified as a woman, a member of a group considered to be all alike, each member being a little less than an individual. Hillary Clinton went down because of it, and now we are seeing the same de-individualization happening to Michelle Obama. It’s just too delicious for conservative pundits to label her as the Angry Black Woman, angry for the exact same reasons as many men, and angry in the exact same way. When a woman gets mad, though, she gets b*tchy. Suddenly, a woman’s anger is something to stereotype, to stuff into a neat box.

It’s not just on the political level that we see this happening. In the workplace or even among friends, the B word is thrown around with ease. We may even be tempted to use it ourselves, because after all, wasn’t Sharon acting like such a –? Well, you get the picture. The next time you hear a friend call another this word, remind them of how objectifying it really is, and how it invalidates that person’s right to be an individual regardless of gender.

Oh, and I say lay off on calling guys d*cks too. Fair’s fair, and at least in the perfect dream world of my mind, where women can be president and everyone respects everyone else’s individuality, no one is objectified.

[Photo from jupiter images]