A boyfriend once called me a cunt during an ordinary dispute about something inconsequential. He was driving, there was a lag in the argument, and the car was quiet. “Cunt.” I physically felt the impact of the word. My body stiffened and I suddenly felt like I was made of lead. I had never felt so powerless, so dejected, and so worthless. There was nothing equally hurtful I could say in response. I was verbally disarmed and viciously denigrated.
Words like “cunt,” “bitch,” “slut,” and “whore” are not gender neutral terms, and words like “fag” and “pussy,” most often directed at men, serve to equate men with women and thus emasculate. Being a woman is the worst insult. Because of this, the power of language and the social structure that these words sustain strips the power away from a woman. The use of these words objectifies and dehumanizes a woman, taking away her humanity and spurring a deadlock of progression. In society these insidious, destructive words are allowed to continue and infiltrate the youth culture, contributing to a perpetual cycle of vilification and the stagnation of women’s liberties.
I grew up believing, as many did, that racial slurs such as “nigger” were the most hurtful, the most serious form of verbal cruelty. Yet these words diverge from the gender divisive words mentioned above in that there lies a stigma and taboo preventing their usage. I was at a party a few weeks ago and a boy casually used the phrase “nigger bitch.” He immediately apologized to the African-American man in the room. But as the only woman present I said, “You said ‘bitch.’ Why did you not apologize to me?” He then looked at me and said, “Sorry I called you a bitch.” The meaning of my inquiry was lost and the disconnect between racist and sexist language revealed itself. The boy did not call me a bitch just as he did not call the African-American man a nigger. Experiences like this are had continuously. Teenagers laugh at their friends saying bitch or pussy but react shocked and offended at the word nigger. Racism is a faux pax but sexism is allowed to breed and fester rampantly. Our society does not view gender oppressive words in the same way as racist terms and this is why male dominance reigns unconditionally. And as a high school student, no one seems to be reacting—questioning, speaking out, ending.
There is a boy in my math class who is essentially beloved and adored by my entire grade. He is outspoken and easily riled about racism and black oppression. But I have heard him speak about women—ass, tits, sluts, whores, bitches. He also loves the YouTube hit “Unforgivable” for its rape jokes. It angers me how my classmates can so unreservedly revere him, an outright contradiction. It angers me that there can be no unity in ideology and that victims of oppression must exist separately. And it angers me that the words that so deeply oppress and prevent an entire demographic, the largest one, from being viewed humanely and equally are so loosely spoken by fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen year olds. I am afraid of what the future may hold as these behaviors continue.
Disregarding the factor of white privilege, I view the oppression of women as stretching so much farther and so much deeper than racism. It is true that racism is so extensively publicized, but this does not make it graver. Rather, the oppression of women is not publicized because it is so deeply instilled in our existence that we can not always point our finger at it. It is so slyly ingrained that we ignore it and fatalistically accept it as truth. And it continues.
And so it goes.
