Girls are bizarre. We make absolutely no sense. One moment we’re dancing in front of the mirror to some nameless Taylor Swift song and the next we’re face down on the floor contemplating the meaning of life. Girls are strange, unpredictable, volatile—but not crazy.
The best way to disarm a girl is to call her crazy. Call her fat, call her ugly, call her a bitch and she will bounce back. Call her crazy and she will hit that brick wall. Hard. Guys call girls crazy, girls call girls crazy. Call a girl crazy and she’s forced to reevaluate her state of mind, question her actions, and defend the person she thinks herself to be. There are many things you could call a girl to hurt her, but crazy trumps them all. It makes everything she feels invalid, everything she says wrong, and everything she does certifiable.
To make things even worse, the word hysteria actually comes from the Greek word for uterus. Literally, hysteria means uterus. What if the word for chicken came from the Greek word for penis? Exactly.
It’s as if having a uterus is a prerequisite for the nut house. We all know PMS is a real thing, that for a few days each month girls are irritable, emotional, and hypersensitive—but not crazy. At some point in time the female passion, her gumption, her willingness to speak her mind—became the most undesirable of traits.
Saying a girl lacks in sanity does the same damage as saying a guy lacks in another, more physical department—it makes them untouchable. All of a sudden, she’s a ticking bomb: safe on the outside, but ready to explode. To be crazy is to be un-dateable. No one wants to “wait and see” what lies beneath the chill exterior and sane-looking smile. No one wants to deal with a girl who speaks her mind and tells how she feels. No one wants to be the one to tie her into a straight jacket when her “crazy comes out”. No one wants to be with a girl who others have called crazy.
This is not a boy bash. I think there are enough of those out there and I don’t need to add to them. I am not blaming boys for anything. There are things girls say about boys that are just as debilitating as calling a girl crazy, like chicken or creep. And boys aren’t the only one’s who do this. Girls call other girls crazy out of jealousy, competition, and straight up cruelty. All I am asking is for boys, and girls, to be aware of what they say about each other. The words we use have a greater impact than we know. Calling a girl crazy takes 3 seconds tops, but it affects her for much longer than that.
I speak from personal experience. I also speak from endless accounts from other girls. Calling girls crazy is a far more tried practice than calling them smart, strong-willed, or passionate. Being called crazy hurts. A lot. It’s like smashing a wreaking ball (with or without Miley Cyrus on it) straight into the person a girl thinks herself to be and leaving the rubble there for her to clean up. And this takes a long time. It takes days of reminding herself that she is more than what other people say, that what she thinks is valid. The best way to disarm a girl is to call her crazy. It leaves her naked and vulnerable, stripped of all she thought herself to be.
Girls will always be girls. We will sing and dance, cry and shout. We will say what we think and feel what we feel. We will take most of what is thrown at us about our bodies, our actions, and our quirks. But don’t question our minds. There is far more to us than our emotions and questioning our sanity disables all of that. So call me bizarre, call me fiery, call me outspoken, or call me a girl. But don’t, call me crazy.