Cheryl Dellasega, Ph.D., professor at Pennsylvania State University and author of several books on girls and growing (also the founder of Club and Camp Ophelia), has written an article in Psychology Today (see references) where she asks the very blunt question: Are Women Just Bitchy?
What she means is, is there something inherent in women (or girls) that causes others (male or female) to view them as being catty, mean, or just plain bitchy. Normally, she says, such accusations come about as a result of actions taken by a particular woman either working in a professional capacity, or in a position to make decisions. To be clear, Ms. Dellasega does not believe women are inherently bitchy, nor does she think many behaviors that are called such necessarily qualify. In fact, she believes the opposite to be true.
What is really eating her though are such accusations that come from other women; women who she says really ought to know better. She says that people tend to resort to negative name calling when they find something they want suddenly under threat. If a new boss might be promoted instead of you, for example, if she’s female, it’s easy to suggest that it’s because she’s a hard-assed bitch, or is sleeping with someone, rather than simply admitting that she might be better suited to the job.
Along the same lines, Dellasega adds that it’s not all negative though. She points out the popular notion that women are better caregivers because they are apparently born with some degree of innate nurturing skills. While this has never been proven to be true one way or the other, most women appear to take it as a compliment, even though it’s just as biased as being thought of as innately bitchy.
The problem she says isn’t whether some women (or men for that matter) are bitchy or not, it’s that the use of the word has become so prevalent that it now seems almost okay for women to refer to other women in such negative ways, despite the fact that using the term only perpetuates its continued use.
Certainly studies could be done to prove which gender is bitchier than the other and then to classify it by age group, background and so forth, but data from a study is likely to prove rather useless as it wouldn’t also provide a means for improvement. Also, it would be difficult to prove for example, that more bitchiness by one gender or the other wasn’t in fact due to the behavior of the other. Would women be considered less bitchy, if they were living separated from men? Would men? Again, the idea is preposterous because it doesn’t apply to the real world.
In all likelihood, it doesn’t matter which gender is bitchier; what matters is that ways being thought of to help our society as a whole to reduce the amount of such behaviors overall so that everyone can be happier.