Elizabeth
I am a Heartless Bitch because no matter how many times I have made
people uncomfortable by pointing out sick or wrong or twisted things
about themselves and their little worlds, I just can't stop doing
it--can't seem to get it through my fat head to stop. And I hope I never
do. "If you're not angry, you're not paying attention," as the bumper
sticker says; a more cutting variation: Ani DiFranco's "If you're not
angry, you're just stupid, you don't care." Sure, I am bitter, but not
without reason and focus. There's just too much wrong in the world not
to be. I am trying to change some of that. It's an inspired bitterness.
My bitchiness really came into its own when I realized that not all
women are feminists, womanists, generally interested in genuine change
re. gender issues. C'mon, being born a woman in a (temporarily) man's
world, why *wouldn't* you want to be a feminist? (And oooh how I have to
restrain all my most antisocial impulses when some silly beauty queen
says, "Oh, well [cosmetic head nod with shampoo-commercial fling of the
hair] I am not a feminist, but I do think that women should have equal
rights and all that, I mean I agree with a lot of what the feminists
say, but no I myself am not a feminist." Can you say "internalized
sexism", you self-loathing, woman-loathing, phallus-centered twerp?)
My tendency to call it as I see it extends on beyond sexism and all the
wonderful little ways misogyny rears its putrid little head (why am I
saying "little" so much? I suppose it's because when I am being bitchy I
am being bigger than those things that bring out the bitch in me). But
of all the oppressions out there, the one I am most personally
acquainted with is gender. It tends to be the one I am bitchiest about.
Another thing that makes me a Heartless, if somewhat conflicted, Bitch
is the death penalty issue. I really want to embrace a Gandhi-eque,
Amnesty International-approved stance--yet I lose all that divine
perspective when confronted with crimes--and statistics about crimes--of
sexual assault or domestic violence, "crimes of passion," and other hate
crimes. At moments like that I might as well be Boadicea riding against
the Romans, for all the mercy I can muster. I identify with the Avenging
Furies, and sometimes get a hankering for vigilante justice--I really
love it in movies when the unequivocally bad guys really get crushed. It
appeals to something in my idealism, something that is not often so
dramatically appeased in the real world.
Yes! I want to read more from Real Life Heartless Bitches
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