I know so many women who “don’t want to be a bitch.” I hear this phrase at least 10 times a week.
My friend M, speaking about a colleague on a committee she has to serve on for the college where she teaches: I wish I could tell him to stop talking over me, but I don’t want to be a bitch.
My friend L, on the man who used to be her friend but now badmouths her to colleagues because she challenged his authority in a meeting: I don’t want to be a bitch, but he’s so defensive.
My friend B, in the lunch line at an artist residency: I don’t want to be a bitch, but that man rubs up against my butt every single time we come in here. She says it in a whisper, just to me, definitely not to the man himself. Because I don’t want to be a bitch.
The stakes of being a bitch are high — B doesn’t want to be a bitch because she doesn’t want to cause a scene, L doesn’t want to be a bitch because she wants to seem polite, M wants to keep her job. We think that if we are not a bitch we can hold this all together.
[For more of this story, written by Leora Fridman, go to https://psmag.com/when-rape-cu...4ece999ac#.26sq7vg5l]
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