It is no surprise that the big three wash-your-mouth-out-with-soap insults, the N-word (to describe Black people), the F-word (to describe gay people), and the C-word (to describe women) are identity-insults. Your goal is destruction, in some small form, of self-esteem or ego. When you insult someone, your goal is to hurt, shame, undermine, or humiliate. “Jerk” doesn’t feel particularly powerful, does it? To really drive home your anger or frustration, you need something that really matters, something with some oomph, something to hit ‘em where it hurts. It’s the difference between “Fuck you!” and “Fuck you, and you’re a woman too!”Įpithets that have that identity-bashing twist reinforce the underlying assumption that to be eligible for a particular label makes you extra worthy of humiliation.Ĭonsider this: If you were to attempt to denigrate someone without calling on an identity-based insult, what are your choices? I take “bitch” more seriously than other insults because it attempts to use a piece of my identity – my femaleness – as a weapon, and consequently feels more personal. Was I supposed to smile?Ī random “fuck you” might just be the standard cost of living in a large city where you encounter the occasional unstable citizen, but the “bitch” added insult to injury. Why did he call me that? I didn’t do anything to him, I didn’t say anything to him, I didn’t even look at him. It’s the “bitch” that kept swinging through the revolving door in my brain as I walked the half mile home. He keeps walking, and I stop dead in the middle of the street, hoping someone else just saw that. As we head in opposite directions, elbows almost bumping, he leans into my space, face inches from mine and hisses, “Fuck you, bitch.” I’m on an arbitrary crosswalk on an arbitrary Sunday in Chicago when it happens. Originally published on Role/Reboot and cross-posted here with their permission.
0 kommentar(er)
