Oh Boy, Obama!
Noelle | Tuesday, February 26, 2008 A vintage post, retrieved from Scrubbed Innocence.
As Tina Fey so aptly noted in her recent Weekend Update report, Hillary IS a bitch, and bitches get things done.
Definitionesque: A bitch is a woman who has dropped her victorian manners (e.g. silence, passivity, lace) in favor of creating her own life on her own terms, with tenacity, assertion, and voice. When men see these characteristics in a female, she is considered pushy and demanding; she is called a bitch. When men see these characteristics in a man, he is considered powerful and influential; he is called a man. This double standard has existed since human DNA first differentiated penises and vaginas. (Side note: Blogger underlines "vaginas" as a misspelled word--not so for penises!)
For two years, I have worked as a secretary in a large organization (500+) with a strikingly male majority in leadership positions. I spend most of my time meeting demands issued by male superiors. Here, gender differences in workplace expectations are firmly in place. I hear the difference in tone of voice. I see the difference in body language. I see it in the kinds of tasks assigned to me and my female coworkers, compared to those assigned to males. I know it when I present an idea and am rejected, and then enlist the help of a male compatriate who presents the same idea to have it welcomed and praised. I know it when, at a staff training session on interview etiquette, we are told that women should wear pantyhose so our legs don't look pale, and makeup so our faces don't look washed out. (The speaker must have missed the African-American women in the room.) I see my female colleagues treated as less intelligent, less capable, and less valuable, though we are at least as educated as most of the people we serve.
If you find yourself here thinking, "Maybe, Scrubbed Innocence, you really just aren't as hot as you think?", YOU can take comfort in your biological maleness--it is still the favored position. And if you are female and thinking the same of me, I implore you to look around. You might discover that you are hotter than people would have you believe.
It's 2008! One-hundred years ago, women competed in the Olympic Games for the first time, and a 22-year-old mother and housewife (!) became the first woman to drive cross country. Only thirty-six years ago, birth control pills became available to married and unmarried women alike.
My grandmother never got her driver's license. My mother has never voted.
And getting angry, of course, just makes a bitch more bitchy.
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When I was in high school, a man who was an advisor of a club I was in told me this: "When a woman runs for office, she should appear maternal, because people tend to judge a woman as one of three things: She is either a bitch, a slut, or a mother. Men love the slut, but women do not. No one loves the bitch. But everyone loves the mother." I was 16. I thought I had been given wisdom. Now I think that old advisor puked all over me. Puke puke puke. My friends have been teasing me about being a soccer mom personality for ten years. Meanwhile, my family called me Ally McBeal and joked that I had no mothering or domestic capabilities. No one knows what to do with a woman who likes to do things for herself, is wonderful with children but can't cook, takes good care of her friends but doesn't want to be burdened with heirloom family antiques. The other day I called a guy in the park on walking away from his dog's crap without picking it up. It turns out I make as good a bitch as I do a mother. As for my slutty side, I'll leave that to Steve to judge.