It started at work. I should begin with the characters.
My boss: Bob - he's in charge of our department, and he's a generally nice, understanding guy. Someone I typically thought to be unbiased, and generally of good judgement.
My co-worker: Jennifer (Jen for short) - she started around the same time I did. She is generally as capable at the job as I am, we do the same sorts of work. She is nice when you get to know her, but as a work associate she is generally mean, demanding, impatient, short tempered, and in general, a "bitch" in the stereotypical sense. She has even been quoted to say "I know, I'm a complete and total bitch". Ignoring this, she is generally smart, but there is this perception that she isn't quite as smart as everyone else who have been around as long. She has admitted to this fault herself.
The situation:
We were all called into a meeting: Bob, Jen, myself, and maybe five other men. In the office we discussed many things, mostly about work and the kinds we were doing, what projects we were on. Everyone was generally talking all at once, with three or four people addressing Bob himself at once. He was finding it difficult to focus on any one person, so he seemed to respond to us at random. It wasn't a very efficient meeting.
Someone asked what I was working on, and I mentioned that I didn't know. I turned to Bob, who then said "I have something interesting lined up for you, you should like it". Jen at this point immediately exclaimed
"What the hell! I've said I wanted to do interesting projects forever and you didn't do anything for me!" but Bob didn't hear her (again, many people talking at once).
I started laughing at this, and Jen blushed. Bob turned to me and asked what was so funny, and Jen said "Of all the people here, HE is the only one who heard me" and nodded in my direction. We all kind of chuckled at that.
But then I started thinking about every other conversation I had ever been in which involved her and other people. She tends to keep her mouth shut a lot in meetings. I didn't think about it before, but even when she does talk, nobody tends to listen to her, where people do listen to me. When she does talk more, but people tend to dismiss what she says quicker. She makes completely valid points, but it just isn't absorbed, people either don't hear it, ignore it, or scoff it off.
At first I thought it was because she's so generally unpleasant. Or maybe it's this idea that she is in fact less intelligent (ignoring whether she is or not, that is the perception).
I caught myself thinking "maybe it's cause she's just a bitch".
And that's when I came to my epiphany. The word 'bitch' only REALLY makes sense for girls. Or at least, there is this very specific stereotype for women, and it's called "bitch". And it can't be applied to men, because it just doesn't sound/feel right. It's not the right word. The next closest thing is "asshole" but even then... it just doesn't fit for women. And there are, DEFINITELY, men I have met who are just as "bitchy" as Jen (even more so), but I think in our own minds, we can't simplify and categorize these people using a single term because there is no single term that fits, and that might make them a more substantial character in our mind.
If you can look at a person and say "they are a bitch" and that's as much clarification as you need, that simplifies the type of person you imagine them as. You apply stereotypes (even unconsciously) and may not let them leave that role in your mind.
If you didn't have a word for the type of person they are (i.e. you need a bunch of adjectives and nouns to classify them in your mind), then they are automatically a more substantial person. They aren't shallow or easily classifiable. In your mind, you cannot easily predict what they may do or act in a given situation. So you can't stereotype them into a role, and they may be more capable of something that breaks the role of "bitch" which they clearly are, and you will now consider it because you didn't simplify them.
So while in THEORY the word 'bitch' can be applied to both genders, in practice it rarely isn't (even if we don't say it out loud), and it could, in some ways, foster a negative female stereotype.
I used to think maybe Jen is just treated the way she is because of the way she is. Now I'm thinking maybe it IS a form of sexism. And it's one that'd be EXTREMELY hard to beat because it's not one that's ever talked about or even understood at a conscious level. It's just kind of unconsciously fostered in us, due to culture.
Basically the end result is: The use of the word 'bitch' has created an inequality in naming/stereotyping that makes it easier to classify a woman into a negative role than it is for a man.
I think I mentioned this before, but it's kind of like 1984: if you don't have a word for something, it makes it MUCH harder to think about. If the word 'bitch' simply didn't exist, we would be equally incapable of putting a bunch of people together into a stereotype we don't have a name for.
I should go on to expand this to other words though. Words like "asshole" or "douchebag" or "dick" that are generally applied to males only. These also have their own connotations. Terms that describe behavior exhibited in just about anyone, but is only really used to describe men.
I would then further expand this to the following: MAYBE the problem is that we create these terms to describe the stereotypes we find in genders as undesirable. It is generally undesirable for a man to be with a woman who is controlling, mean, complains a lot, demanding, and thus we give this a term: "bitch". Not only is it a stereotype, but it has the implication that you don't WANT to be with this girl in any kind of relationship.
Similarly, "dick" "asshole" "douchebag" are all terms for men that we use for generally undesirable men. IF a man were to act "bitchy", it's maybe not as undesirable as a man who is being a "douchebag" which is why we don't say anything about a man being bitchy, only a man being a dick or a douchebag. Similarly if a girl is acting like a douchebag, we dont say anything because its not really undesirable, only being 'bitchy' is.
The morale of the story? Don't judge people based on stereotypes and roles. Don't try to describe or simplify people into them. If you do, you may be missing out on a person so much more interesting or complex than you are allowing.
Also, maybe I'll start using the word "bitch" a lot less often.
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