The Bitch Liberation
what do the youth say these days? "In my villain era?" Yeah, that.
The past year in my mind has felt like laying down on the shore of Perception Sea and letting the waves of what other people think crash over me one by one. I don’t care to surf. I don’t care to jump or brace for impact. I just lay as the self-interest warped judgements of my character cover me, recede, and I still remain in all that I know I am.
I couldn’t give less of a damn about people thinking I’m mean. I’ve been responding to that notion for nearly ten years during my nights out with men unsuccessfully hitting on me with, “I never claimed to be nice.” Your random expectations of a stranger to positively react to your unsolicited attention is ridiculous. I am not here for you. Women are not here for you. And it doesn’t matter how and in what tone you receive that fact, it is valid and needs to be respected.
I don’t understand it. When someone drops the apparently dreaded “you’re mean,” what are they expecting? There’s always some pause for a reaction as if it’s supposed to be some earth shattering statement that will make someone crumble to pieces and apologize for all wrongdoing ever commited throughout the course of their life.
Mean?
Trust me, I can live with that.
I’ll be real with you, it was a journey to be okay with it. People thinking I was a bad person(or just manipulatively saying so to get what they wanted) really bothered me. It was so important to me for everyone to understand my intentions and that they were always well-meaning.
I never thought I would be grateful for these absolute demons I’ve encountered in my life, but I have to give them credit for my growth in this way. Some people will always take issue with what you do and how you supposedly treat them, because it really has nothing to do with you in actuality and everything to do with how they view themselves. But when you have a wavering sense of self, it’s easy to believe them and in turn exhaust yourself bending to their whims.
I have long since snapped, and the me now says fuck all that. I thank them for freeing me to be a bitch. Freeing me from sticking around in shituations until I could flip the narrative and make them see how they were wrong.
Because, here’s the thing. Nobody is the villain in their own story. Even the most self-aware masters of reflection among us are still subject to perception distortions such as self-serving and atrribution bias. We all fall short when it comes to checking ourselves.
But mean? That’s a you-problem, not a me-problem. Mean is thrown at people, particularly women, when they can’t be controlled.
When they think for themselves.
When they aren’t people-pleasers, sacrificing their own needs to put everyone else’s first.
When they express their negative emotions and feelings without filter because they don’t hold themselves responsible for your reaction.
When they allow you to have the day you deserve.
When they feel free to be their full selves and are hated for the lightness of being they feel letting go of things that were never theirs to carry.
I take mean as a compliment these days. Mean is me being true to myself and refusing to waver just beacuse someone without my best intentions wants me to. Mean is growing past self-enforced limitations due to worrying about how I would be perceived or make people feel. And I have wasted so much time and squandered so much potential making myself small for so insecure people could feel good. I’ll never get it back, so I’m not throwing any more time and talents away now. There’s a meme I used to love, lemme find it and post…
In that same vein, Mean is just a derogatory word for having integrity. And I will choose it over spineless niceness every single time.
I just be saying things, but here are some articles that inspire my thoughts so you know I have some depth to my tirades: