I was eleven years old the first time a classmate called me a fucking bitch. I think he had tried to push in front of me to get on the bus first, and I had stood my ground. Something like that. Something totally deserving of being called a name like that.
Over the course of the next few years, I and my girlfriends had to listen to this kind of misogyny on a daily basis, as boys grew up and mimicked the world they saw around them. And just as we were learning what it was to become a certain kind of woman (the difference between a lady and a slut, for example), the boys were learning how to become a certain kind of man (a player or a fag, for example).
Growing up and establishing yourself is about coming to terms with who you are, often by contrasting yourself to “the other.” As much as we are trying as a society to uproot the social constructs of masculine and feminine, we are still differentiated fairly strictly along the lines of male or female. And too often, masculinity, being a ‘real man’, is tied up with being perceived as different from – and ergo superior to – women. Because one of the key features of masculinity is the fear-of-feminine. It’s hardly ever considered an insult to tell a girl “you’re such a boy,” but it’s almost always an insult to tell a boy that he’s such a girl, or being girlish, or acting girly. It implies he is being weak, effeminiate, and not deserving of association with the male gender. And the term “bitch” is almost always used in reference to a female who is aggressive, whiny, or just plain mean.
Whenever I hear sexism and misogyny in every day language, I wonder about other -isms. The guy who called me a fucking bitch – would it have been ok to refer to me as a fucking spic? Or a nigger, were I black? Because while I feel that our society would generally no longer publicly tolerate these words being used to describe someone, gendered insults seem to generally be ok.
Even my progressive male friends seem to feel perfectly comfortable referring to women who have “done them wrong” as bitches. When we’re driving around with the radio blaring, no one seems to feel any compunction about yelling out the lyrics to songs like “Roses”, which ends with “Crazy Bitch, Stupid Ass Bitch,” being repeated over and over again. Would racial terms be as acceptable to an otherwise socially-conscious and educated group? Even when the fun and awesome karaoke league I’m a part of got a write up in the news, the reporter couldn’t help but close her article with the sentence, ‘Where’s the team “Pitch set me up”?’ And I have to wonder, are there other demographics for which word-play would be seen as casual and harmless as this?
Groups of women seem to be particularly ripe ground for this sort of accepted misogyny. When news spread that President Obama would be speaking at Commencement at Seven Sisters School Barnard College, Columbia University students took to an online forum to air their grievances publicly, referring to the Barnard women as feminazis, cum dumpsters, and whores. Columbia men and women alike commented that the Barnard girls who dared to defend their school were just PMSing (where have we heard that one before?), and breezily referred to their collegiate experience as “time spent learning how to perfect the deep-throating technique.”
Blink.
The Presidents of both Universities publicly dismissed the comments, saying they were the result of a few 19 year olds being awake at 4:30 AM. This reaction angered me, as it seems to have angered other students. Since when is publicly referring to your classmates that way not a big deal? Or “just a few students?” The Presidents have since clarified their statements to acknowledge that they are proud of the partnership between the schools, those comments don’t reflect the broader thinking in the community, and those students don’t accurately reflect the relationship enjoyed between Barnard and Columbia. And other students have stepped up to hate the haters, defending Barnard and the community, and calling for more civility and respect.
I spoke to one recent Barnard alum who called the incident itself “a breach of community.” She pointed out that some of the less graphic, but still insulting comments, were likely written by the same guys who she would have been in class with, gone out for beers with, worked in clubs with. Having been made more aware of such issues while at Barnard and now at a major law firm with scant female representation in the upper echelons, she commented that:
The saddest thing is that there are people who really do believe these stereotypes. That makes it harder for us in the workplace. When this type of vitriol is repeated . . . the first thing people think of when they hear of Barnard is that we’re all intellectually inferior sluts. I think there may even be a case of defamation here – I mean, sexual harassment is not just physical touching, it’s also verbal communication.”
As a graduate of a women’s college, not to mention being a woman who has endured my own share of verbal harassment because of my gender, I couldn’t agree with her more. Especially because I think a lot of times, those people look just like the rest of us. They don’t need to look like scary monsters in order to harbor misogynistic views about women being demeaned objects available for their own sexual gratification.
More recently, Rush Limbaugh publicly called Sandra Fluke, a brave Georgetown Law Student fighting for her reproductive rights, a slut and a whore. The nation has rallied, and since then, over 50 advertisers have pulled their business from his show. Sexism is still rampant in the public sphere, particularly in the media (as the organization Name It Change It demonstrates), but it does appear that we’re making some progress.
And so while many people are claiming freedom of speech, it seems the general public is aware that such language permeates our society, and that there’s an extent to which it can no longer be tolerated. Language matters, and a culture of misogyny matters, and these things affect not just how we conduct ourselves, but how our children learn to identify with a society they eagerly want to be a part of as they shape their identities and establish their places in the world. I’m proud that so many people are rushing to Sandra’s defense, and are rallying behind the Barnard women. I’m hoping that it signals a change in how we as a society view women in public spaces.
I don’t have any way of knowing, really, whether on a micro or macro scale, misogynistic language is getting better or worse. I do know that there is an unexpectedly large movement to “reclaim” words – a movement which disturbs me. Many of those who participated in the global SlutWalks announced their intention to reclaim the word ‘slut’ and infuse it with empowerment. And too many women I know proudly call themselves ‘bitches,’ referring to their tendency to be aggressive and abrasive when in disagreement with men, or whatever else the term might imply. Personally, I’m fine with women being shame-free about sex, and aggressive in the face of controversy, but I do think it’s a little late to try to reclaim the words men have used to degrade us for so long now.
Others disagree with me on this, I know, both men and women alike. Language isn’t that harmful, verbal sexual harassment isn’t such a big deal, people don’t really think about women this way. But I think it matters. Because I don’t think people should be talking about each other this way at any age. And I especially don’t think we should be teaching young girls that hearing such things is just a part of growing up, or young boys that it’s ok to refer to their peers using language that demeans and degrades them.
Hopefully the response to the Columbia comments and the backlash against Rush Limbaugh are just the beginning of a public effort to talk to and about women in public places in ways that respect our shared humanity.
Photo Credit: Lori, via Creative Commons License.
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