The Power of the Bitch
I recently watched one of my favorite
films, Stephen King’s Dolores Claiborne. It’s a suspenseful,
empowering, feminist story. The lead character of Dolores, played by the
incomparable Kathy Bates, is married to an alcoholic, physically and
emotionally abusive husband. Dolores works as a maid for a wealthy,
snobbish socialite, Vera Donovan, who has a reputation for being a real
piece of work. Upon discovering that her husband has begun molesting their
teenage daughter, and that he has stolen the money she has worked years to
save for her daughter’s college education, Dolores turns to her employer
for advice. Shockingly, Vera advises Dolores to kill her husband—just as
she did when she learned that her inattentive husband was cheating on her.
“It’s a depressingly masculine world we live in,” Vera advises
Dolores. “Sometimes, you’ve got to be a high-riding bitch to survive.
Sometimes, Dolores, being a bitch is all a woman’s got to hang onto.”
The storyline probes the question, how does a woman protect herself and
her family when she has no options, no choices, no money or power of her
own? Dolores decides to take Vera’s advice and take control, for the
sake of herself and her daughter. You don’t feel sorry about the fate of
her rat-bastard of a husband.
For an example of how a powerful woman can
be labeled a bitch, look no further than the current Presidential contest
and one of the leading Democratic nominees, Senator Hillary Clinton.
Although Hillary is adamant about sticking to the issues and not
succumbing to a media who wants to label her “the female candidate,”
Hillary’s detractors can’t seem to leave the gender issue alone. For
months, she was criticized as a cold, calculating bitch. My brother, who
worships at the Rush Limbaugh political altar, recently called her a
“frigid bitch.” A Google search of “Hillary Clinton bitch” yields
a whopping 349,000 results. Hillary’s candor, tenacity, and sometimes
stoic viewpoints are the very characteristics that would earn her great
admiration were she a male politician, a male manager, or a male CEO. But
because she is female, she is held to some strange standard that says she
must be dominant and docile at the same time. When she teared-up at a
January campaign stop, I thought it might pacify some of her critics.
Instead, Hillary was criticized for being calculating, manipulative, and
weak. Sadly, Hillary has to manage her image in an amazingly detailed way
and conquer challenges no male Presidential candidate has ever, or will
ever, face.
In my opinion, that is what makes some
women into “high-riding bitches,” to quote Vera Donovan. Expectations
of women change with the wind and, too often, women can satisfy no one, no
matter what they do, what they say, how they say it, or how they act. A
man is “tough,” but a woman is “hard.” A man is “rational,”
but a woman is “unfeeling.” A man is “smart,” but a woman is
“calculating.” What’s a girl to do? Some women, like Dolores
Claiborne and Vera Donovan, become frustrated with this double-standard,
say “to hell with it,” and do just as they damned well please. I
applaud these women. Growing up, I remember thinking sometimes what a
bitch my mother could be. At that time, in my mind, the term wasn’t a
compliment. But today, to me, it is. My mother would say that she had to
be a bitch to get anything accomplished. If she wanted my father to help
around the house, too often, asking nicely wasn’t enough. If she wanted
my brother or me to clean our rooms, a friendly reminder just didn’t get
the job done. And now that I am a big girl myself, I thank her for that.
Many gay men and lesbians understand this
bitch philosophy all too well. We play the bitch card because we have to,
not usually because we want to. All too often, we find ourselves in almost
untenable situations where there’s nothing left to do but be a bitch. In
college, I often walked down Main Street where mullet-wearing
“townies” would sometimes drive by slowly and yell “faggot” or
some other hate-filled epithet out the window. The first few times this
happened, I ignored them, but after I while, I got to feeling that I’d
rather have a stick or stone hurled at me than an ugly word. You’d
certainly fight back if someone beat your head with a stick. Why not fight
back when someone beats your spirit with a word? So I fought back with
bitchy words of my own. When we are told that we cannot visit our partners
in the hospital, when we are told that we cannot adopt children in
desperate need of a loving home, when we are told that civil unions are
good enough and shoved backwards in time to a place of “separate but
equal,” being a bitch is all we have left to hang onto. Were it not for
a gaggle of bitchy drag queens at Stonewall during that fateful summer of
1969, where would we be today? We’d still be bitching in smoky bars,
waiting for the sirens to announce the next police raid, instead of
bitching on television, in newspapers, in books, and on the floor of
Congress.
All this being said, I am not usually
bitchy—only when circumstances require my inner bitch to rear her
fabulous head. We’ve all known women and men who have permanently donned
the role of bitch, and they complain and berate constantly through their
miserable life, to their own detriment and the detriment of everyone
around them. Bringing out your inner bitch is a powerful statement of
resilience and determination, and like that little black dress that makes
you look smokin’ hot, she should not be pulled out for just any
occasion. Allowing your inner bitch to take over your everyday character
leads to bitterness, resentment, and hostility, and makes you less
effective when you really need to hold someone’s feet to the fire. A
little bit of bitch goes a long way. Use it sparingly, but don’t be
afraid to use it when you find yourself backed into a corner and running
out of options. Never released your inner bitch? Start small so you
don’t experience a total meltdown. Shout back at loud-mouthed
conservatives on the TV screen. Write a letter to the Presidential
candidates, inquiring why not a single one of them supports full same-sex
marriage rights. Throw a dirty look at the man trying to sneak through the
grocery store express lane with 17 items. Take it from Dolores and
Vera—you’ll feel a whole lot better.
Eric
can be reached at anitamann@comcast.net.
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