I want to build off of what Christina wrote in her column last week about saying “sorry.” While women find new avenues in which to feel empowered, we still find ourselves buying into yet another binary – the nice/bitch binary. Being overly apologetic is a natural outgrowth of society’s need for women to be nice, or Nice. I’m capitalizing it because it is more than a way of acting; it is a noxious fog in which women have to navigate. The problem with Nice is its all-too-comfortable companion, Cattiness. The “ice” part of Nice offers that “sss” susurration, the warning of snakes and the hissing of cats. The “Ni” part of Nice alludes to the self, the “I”, and the ego, highlighting the inherent selfishness of the act of Niceness. Being Nice is not a virtue. Being Nice is not to be commended. Nice is the sickly vernier on the surface of society, always shiny and smooth until you look closer and see the craters, cracks, and filth. Nice is what people do.
Kind is what people are. There is an earnestness to Kindness that is lacking in Niceness. Kindness fully accepts other people as they are and hastens to encourage them in a positive manner. Kindness listens to complaints and looks for action items instead of commiseration. Kindness is honesty with a purpose. Do not confuse Kindness for those who are “Just Being Honest.” JBHs are hiding behind a wall of privilege that protects them from consequences. They are also close cousins to NOs (“No Offense, but…”) and should be aggressively ignored.
I stopped being Nice three years ago, and, with the threat of MTV’s The Real World looming on the rest of this sentence, yes, I got real. I got real good at being Kind. I got real good at accepting other people 99% (I still have some issues). And I got real good at not being Nice, but that doesn’t mean I am a Bitch. Those are not my only choices in life.
Did you think I forgot about that binary I dropped up top?
Women are routinely forced into one of two positions: apologizing for our existence (if it is not in the service of a man) or being a Bitch. With a long history of being denied full human status, and the complexity that comes with it, we have been forced to be avatars for only two aspects of the human condition. Over the long path of resistance, we have felt the need to swing the pendulum wildly from Nice to Bitch and argue that these are our only two modes of existing, or worse, that Bitch is the only way things get done.
Riza Hawkeye: kindest person in the world, will shoot your face off if you cross her, still not a Bitch.
Bitches get stuff done, yes, but when we say that, we are agreeing that when you get stuff done, you are a Bitch. See how that works? If society, patriarchy, etc. only respond to the Bitch, then we’ve collectively decided that, when you get a response, you must have been a Bitch. Even if you have acted with Kindness, even if you have fought bravely and calmly for justice: if a woman gained a result, she must be a Bitch. We are using pejorative rhetoric to justify our successes. We think we have reclaimed Bitch, when we have actually just agreed with its definition.
I do not accept this binary. I do not accept that there are only two ways in which women may exist in the world. I do not accept that a pre-defined, patriarchy-tested, government-approved BITCH™ is what we define as an effective woman. I do not accept this definition, this reclamation, this branding, this synonym for the powerful women who have always made this world turn.
Stop being nice. Start being kind. Let no one else define you.