Bitch You Know Nothing about Me

Bitch You Know Nothing about Me Name Institution Due Date Bitch You Know Nothing about Me I have seen and read stories of women being called the word bitch mainly because of the strength they showcase. Women have come a long way and continue to struggle as they try to fit in and find their place in society. For the men, being strong is considered normal and is expected but for the women, it can be a problem. When a woman exudes or showcases a strong character, it is considered anomalous and she is set aside because she is not of this world. In most cases, young girls grow up knowing that they are limited and that strength is something that only boys have. Women who try to rise above these societal perceptions are often considered rebels. The society has built walls around its rules and seems to want to make sure that it maintains people within the same walls. Often, women who try to rise above these perceptions are labeled and the word used to describe them is “bitch.” To the world, the word bitch represents a woman who fights back and stands her ground. She is the woman who denies the societal definition and decides to forge her own path. When a woman does something that is out of this world or that the society does not consider a norm, she is immediately set apart. It has never been normalized for women to exude strong characters and men always take it offensively when such happens. In the United States, women have been fighting for equality for a long time now. They have crawled and have been to protests as they seek a society that sees them the same way it sees the men. Men have been glorified and have held the highest offices in the country but women have to fight for recognition or for the same opportunities as men. Additionally, even while holding the same positions as the men, women still find it difficult to reach equal status as the men. A good example is how women who hold the same positions as men often get paid less than their men counterpart. In her 2019 article with the New York Times Magazine, Bazelon notes that women did make progress from the 70s to the 90s and thus gained recognition in the workplaces and in the society. However, she notes that this stalled and has been the same since the onset of the 2000s. She writes that “women aspire to leadership as much as the med did. But organizations often funneled women into jobs that didn’t have much of a career ladder.” However, in spite of the above, there are women who take matters into their own hands and refuse to be held back by societal perceptions. For these women, the word bitch becomes a norm because men and society feel offended as these women are seen to be taking their position. Change is always resisted and in patriarchal societies, men will always feel like the women are intruding if they look to be cementing their positions and showing strength. In her 2015 article, Cohen discusses some of the words that have been used in the past to describe women. Apparently, society has always coined derogatory words to describe women. Examples include skirt, piece, tarleather, petticoat, modicum, maness, frail, totty, biddy, bimbo, etc. These words were used in different timelines but as seen above, women were not seen as anything but objects. So, it should make sense that some would want to rise above what the society believes is their portion. But not everyone sees it this way and some people in the society will as expected recoil and seek to denounce the change. I am Chinese and grew up in a traditional Chinese family. In China, men take first place meaning they are expected to be the heads of the family. Women are expected to look up to men and not to undermine their authority in any way. Ebrey (2019) notes that “in China from early times, men have been seen as the core of the family. The ancestors to whom a Shang or Zhou dynasty king made sacrifices were his patrilineal ancestors, that is, his ancestors linked exclusively through men.” She continues to write that “women enter the early historical record” but only because there is a problem associated with them. So, for the most part, women have been considered inferior to the men and their role secondary. Growing up, these things were not spoken about but were evident in the way we lived and how I saw women respond to men. Women were not expected to stand up to men and it is considered disrespectful if one ever tried. For a person like me, to develop diversity in thinking is quite difficult because one grows up in a society that is already designed with its structures. In China, one grows up to fit in within a system. One is not expected to follow a different path or set off for a destination that is different from what is considered to be within the accepted levels of normal. However, for me, books helped me develop an open mind. I did not know how the world outside of China was but books helped to show me that there was a world outside of China and this world had people who thought, looked, and lived differently. I had to grasp this idea and understand that my way of life was not the only way of...