Strong Woman or Bitch?

24 February 2010 by kathleen.

Whether or not a woman is a weaker vessel, it is understood that a woman doesn’t gratuitously humiliate a man; the reverse, of course, doesn’t hold. A woman who does humiliate a man — gratuitously or not — is of course a bitch, (cf. The BITCH Manifesto at the Duke University library).

In the movie Tootsie, the character Tootsie wouldn’t accept this role. I remember a scene with an aging male actor coming on to Tootsie on the set, strutting and posturing and asserting his male privilege. Tootsie was having none of it; she insisted on not just resisting him but confronting him, even humiliating him. From Tootsie’s own, internal, male perspective, Tootsie did right — but Tootsie is a comedic character, not our model for MtF behavior!

Part of the comedy in Tootsie’s performance is the dissonance between the expected and the actual behavior; the audience knows clearly if not verbally how a woman is supposed to act in the presence of domineering male. A gracious woman will draw a clear, hard line and make it clear he shall not cross that line, regardless what else he says. And, the gracious woman does this without humiliating or belittling the man — unless he crosses the line she has drawn.

That is not to say that a transwoman must learn to be a doormat, though some women are. Instead we need to learn to nurture not confront, to support not contradict (I still have trouble with that one!). As transwomen we need to learn what many of our sisters have been studying since high school: the art of standing firm without initiating conflict; the art of supporting without being trampled; the art of comforting without capitulating; the art of graciously drawing a behavioral line.

Posted in Sex & Gender Roles, General MtF topics | 1 Comment »