So let me break it down for you. First let’s talk crazy. Before I go any further let’s be clear, using the word “crazy” is always loaded because there are real people suffering from mental illness who feel the brunt of the overuse of the word. In this context, however, it takes on special meaning. Women have been silenced, invalidated, and outright abused with accusations and diagnoses of insanity for the better part of the last few centuries. In the Victorian era women who expressed dissatisfaction with their repressive environment were diagnosed with hysteria. To this day male abusers claim “she’s crazy” when faced with allegations of assault. Women who openly express their sexual desire have been pathologized as nymphomaniacs with low self-esteem and women are still widely believed to be more unstable than men. Men can often be heard to utter the phrase, “bitches be crazy” and The Urban Dictionary has thirteen entries for “crazy bitch” (there are only two for “crazy asshole”) here are some highlights:
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| One of nearly 5 million images for "crazy bitch" |
Run these woman are CRAZY BITCH and mad at all times !!!”
“A woman who after a break up slashes the tires on your car, burns your clothes, and tries to get you fired from your job then calls you the next day wanting to reconcile.
That crazy bitch keyed my car and then called me for a booty call!”
“A sexually crazy girl who loves to screw dirty, but will drive you mad otherwise through her bitchiness and insanity, you'll find many women fitting this description in hot night clubs.”
There are a few common threads here. First, she’s sex mad and second, she’s jealous and possessive.
So here we go again, women who like sex, who advocate for their interests and desires and are not ashamed of their bodies are crazy. Here’s a history lesson, in Victorian times young girls were at risk of having their clitoris removed or they’re labia sewn shut if they were caught masturbating.(1) A woman’s desires were pathological then and their pathological now.
And second, while I’m not denying that some women get jealous and do irrational things it is also true that women are far more likely to be victimized by controlling, possessive men, “Spousal violence makes up the single largest category of convictions involving violent offences in non-specialized adult courts in Canada over the five-year period 1997/98 to 2001/02. Over 90% of offenders were male.” (2) Clearly something else is going on here.
This notion of the “crazy bitch” as possessive and vengeful is that much more problematic in the way it is used to characterize black women. Images of black women in particular going “crazy” and breaking shit, slashing tires etc are common place in film and on TV and this stereotype is used to legitimize violence and threats of violence (see quote above which implores you to ” take a screwdriver to her forehead and let the demons out”).
In my web searches I have come across a video of a man slapping a “crazy black woman” for the crime of singing loudly along with her computer; commenters described this as hilarious and referred to her as a “crazy fat black bitch”. This is violence pure and simple and it is this kind of language that is used to dehumanize women and keep them “in their place” if you have any doubts I invite you to read these two moving posts about sexual harassment from the perspective of a black woman: http://www.racialicious.com/2011/04/04/kill-me-or-leave-me-alone-street-harassment-as-a-public-health-issue/
http://streetharassment.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/have-a-nice-day-you-crazy-bitch/
Okay, moving on from the crazy…I’m not going to rehash age old arguments against the use of the word bitch. I am, however, going to say that when you pair crazy with bitch it becomes bigger, it invokes a particular gendered and sexualized image of a special kind of crazy. At best it is used to silence women, at worst it used to justify violence, both personal and systemic, against women. So when I get all ‘het up’ about someone being called a crazy bitch it is not because I am humourless, it is because it’s not fucking funny. Hate never is.
1) Walker, Barbara G. The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. New York: Harper Collins. 1983.
2) Canadian Women’s Foundation: http://www.cdnwomen.org/EN/section05/3_5_1_1-violence_facts.html
Hey! This is Bria. I found you through your NPFP post over on RMB. I don't know if you were still checking the thread and I saw you had a blog, so I wanted to skip on over here and reply. :)
ReplyDeleteFirst, I am so sorry you were dismissed like that. I, too, wish we could talk more openly about experiences, and then I remember that doing what you did and posting are really important first steps in throwing open those doors (but hopefully keeping the ice cream :-P). So, again, thank you.
Thanks Bria for taking the time to come to my blog and reply. I struggled a lot about writing that post because I'm not comfortable with some people I know knowing that much about my bits so I was happy to post it on Raising My Boychick.
ReplyDeleteWhatever we can do to open up the conversation right?
My ex used to warn me of "being a real bitch sometimes." I was her rock, I would stay calm through the storms and be there for her whenever the storm ended.
ReplyDeleteIt turned out, in the end, that I couldn't weather the storms forever, and she had BPD which makes it hard for both partners. But not once did I call her a "crazy bitch."
Hurtful, vengeful words can't smash the unpleasant bits out of someone. They only bury that person in sadness and self-hatred.
I knew she loved me dearly and showed it in her good moments. I knew she regretted the way she used to hurt me.
As I was told when I was little, two wrongs don't make a right. Despite the things that hurt me, I knew hurting her back would only do harm.
That being said, I've noticed that there's a lot of man-hating going around in today's society. I used to be ashamed of being male, because males are supposedly violent perverted creeps, chauvinistic pigs, only capable of thinking with the head between their legs, thinking of sex a million times a day, and staring at boobs at every opportunity.
After about 20+ years of being ashamed I realized men really aren't so bad. Even domestic violence statistics don't support stereotype. "Men still represent a substantial proportion of people who are assaulted, injured or killed by an intimate partner (50%, 30% and 25% respectively)."
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/07/feminism-domestic-violence-men)
Just to be clear, I don't support violence against women. I simply abhor all violence, all stereotyping, all discrimination, and want this stupid war between the sexes to stop.
Thank you for being open-minded and listening to me. Peace and love for all!
I think the bigger problem here is the way in which men and women are pitted against each other when we constantly assume that gender is the most defining characteristic of a person. So men feel like they have to be a certain way to "be a real man" and women feel they have to be a certain way to be a "real woman" and all of those whose gender identity is more nuanced are left to blaze new trails.
ReplyDeletePaired with a socio-political system which privileges masculinity over femininity and we get a situation in which women are on guard and yes, sometimes are too tired to draw the distinction between men as a a social class and individual men.
If you are tired of hearing things that feel like man-hating the best you can do is continue to be a man who does not contribute to a system that makes it so difficult for women to know which men they can trust.