Women Aren't Bitches

I was standing in the doorway between my office and my manager’s office when the words slipped out of my mouth.

“You do know that you have a reputation for being a bitch, don’t you?”

The look on her face quickly informed me that I had stuck a knife right through her heart. No matter the backtracking I did in the moment, or the hand written apology that I gave her the next day, there was no going back.Our relationship dropped even lower.

A year later, when I had resigned from said job due to our “oil and water” relationship, I was working with a life coach, who also happened to be a friend. During one of our first sessions together, she confided in me that when she first met me she had gone home and told her then boyfriend that she would never be friends with me because I was such a bitch. 

Touchée.

Bitch is a word that is often thrown around in everyday language to speak of women who we don’t like. I used to use it myself, and I often hear my coaching clients use it to describe family members, colleagues, or even strangers that they have an issue with.

A few years ago another dear friend of mine helped me to rethink the implications of using the word. As a white woman, who grew up in America, I have lived relatively free of the pain of dehumanizing language, with the exception of of the B-word. My friend, on the other hand, is a black woman, who grew up in America, and as a result, has had much more experience with dehumanizing language, as have many of her friends and family. She was able to teach me about some of that pain, so that I could see how much dehumanizing language can shake a person, even if it has become part of the everyday vernacular. 

Now, that I am re-reading Braving the Wilderness again, and leading the Emerge Book Circle through its teachings, I am confronted with the word again.

In Brene Brown's vulnerability, she looked at both physical and emotional safety as key for someone to be willing to step into vulnerability. Physical safety is obvious, but emotional safety was more ambiguous so she had to dive deeper and what she found was beyond general hurt feelings, and was more connected to dehumanizing language and behavior.

She says, “Dehumanizing often starts with creating an enemy image. As we takes sides, lose trust and get angrier and angrier, we not only solidify an idea of our enemy, but also start to lose our ability to listen, communicate, and practice even a modicum of empathy.”

The Nazi’s referred to Jews as rats. The Hutus in Rwanda referred to Tutsis as cockroaches. Serbians refer to Bosnians as aliens, as do Americans in reference to illegal immigrants.

And today, it is common place to refer to women as dogs. 

If you are anything like I was, your first instinct might be to say, “Yes, but I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just a word that everyone uses. I am not like them.”

And that is where the slippery slope begins. Brown says, “The point is that we are all vulnerable to the slow and insidious practice of dehumanizing, therefore we are all responsible for recognizing it and stopping it.”

Unless following the lead of a client (or writing about it here) I don’t use that word anymore. I have my friend and Brené to thank for their kind enlightenment.

Perhaps you might consider doing the same.  

In possibility,
Theresa
Founder of the Emerge Book Circle

Learn. Grow. Connect.