Just today I came across another one those "I'm a bitch and proud of it" fades that seems to grip woman today like some kind of angry self righteous fever meant to be a statement how happy we are to be female. Every time I see one those slogans, it seems to be what they're really saying is "I'm a bitch and it's hard being a woman and I can be angry and ugly but that's okay because that extra x-chromosome entitles me to act without respect, reproducibility or perspective." I have to shake my head, proud feminist Renaissance woman that I am. Those damn slogans don't do us any good girls, they only set us back a 175 years.
I find it interesting that in modern society woman find it necessary to brand themselves with titles that most often carry a negative connotation so as to make themselves stand out. Why do we need to brand our "importance" as a sex with terminology most often reserved for criticism and negativity. Why is it that only "bad girls" make history? I find that complete bollocks. Yes, at times it is of paramount importance that we go against the grain of society and popular thought, but it's not because we're misbehaved or some how deviant: it is because what is best for all is most often most difficult to achieve.
Look at Margaret Sanger, a pioneer for woman's sexual rights on birth control. She wasn't a bad woman, a bitch, but a visionary who saw the plight of the women around her, and said "No, this is wrong." She spent her whole life working so that woman could take their sex lives and reproductive options into their own hands. She was ostracized for it, even had to leave America to preserve her freedom and her work.
What about Elizabeth I... She was the under-valued bastard daughter of Henry VIII. By the time she came to the English throne, her country was bankrupt, on the verge of invasion and in the middle of a religious civil war. Her advisers and ministers were at wits end, and only desperation for a legitimate heir of Tudor blood could persuade them to put Elizabeth in power. Yet by the end of her reign, her country was of the richest in the realm, had expansive trade routs, religious freedoms the likes of which had not been seen before and the greatest thinkers, artists, musicians and writers flocked to England to be a part of Elizabeth's Golden Age. She was not a bitch, but she did have to stand firm, to hold tight to her beliefs, to be unswayed by the rampant vitriol and debasement spread by her opponents and trust that as a woman, she was enough.
Those great woman of history, the ones most often quoted, the ones to whom you caste your thoughts when you think of great females didn't make their marks because they were some how snubbing their nose at the establishment. What they did, the many risks they took were prompted not out of some simplistic juvenile rebellion, a need to 'act out' or just be a bitch... Rather they acted out of compassion, or outrage at the wrongs around them.
Think of Florance Nightingale, or Mother Teresa, or even Lady Godiva. These woman weren't bitches. They were strong, and they had great compassion which, in my mind, is the most difficult road to travel for a human heart. To look at another's hurt, and let it become your own, and then to have the further strength to get up, to be heard and to fight on the behalf of those who can't fight for themselves. What great things these women accomplished, and accomplished through conviction, through sympathy and hope.
And as women, because of all the things our sex has had to deal with, fight against and over come, don't we have a responsibility act properly? I'm not talking about lacing ourselves up in a corset of submission, repression and silence, but rather approaching each day, each thought and word spoken with intelligence, and with kindness! The world around us doesn't need even one more reason to look down on our sex.
I want to be a woman of integrity, of depth, class, humor, perspective. I want to able to think and work and achieve with the greatest minds in history. And I don't have to be angry, petulant, sarcastic or over-sexed in order to do so.
History is liberally impacted by extraordinary women; females who had to stand against a tide of ridicule, prejudice and difficulty in order to bring that certain compassion, perspective, equality and sympathy to their world that is particular and precious just of their sex. I have great respect for such women, and I feel that I follow in their footsteps.
I am not a bitch or a bad girl. I'm a lady and that's title enough for me.
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