Precision of Language

[rolanni]

Women under 30 may be referred to as "snippy" by Persons Seeking to Establish Moral Authority Over Them in the Workplace.

Women over 30 in similar situations may be trivialized as "angry."

In deference to their grey hairs and years on this planet, women who are 50 years old and over ought to be accorded the adjective "bitchy."

Also? Come into my office in high dudgeon, lie to me, talk to me like I'm a particularly slow six-year-old, and start taking binders off of the shelves? You bet I'm going to be bitchy.

Comments

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Grad student who believes they have achieved apotheosis? Or junior faculty who are trying to convince themselves that they amount to something? Or worse yet, tenured senior faculty who have never convinced themselves that they amount to something?

The funny part is that the folks who amount to a hill of beans never seem to need to play these games. Heck, they're usually the ones asking for help and happily listening to everyone. Odd, that.

Moral Authority? Is this related to "I have [FITB] so I am obviously superior to people who actually do things" syndrome? Where FITB may be such items as degree, tenure, position, shiny star on my forehead where I whack it against the altar regularly . . .

[And for the bonus? If the female sequence is snippy, angry, bitchy, what is the male sequence? Maybe pushy, dominating, fell off his throne?]

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

One of a particular sort of Tough Academic Female who believes in her soul that any woman who is working as a secretary must either (1) have sold out the Cause, or (2) be an idiot. I appear to be a (2), which at least leaves honor intact.

[And for the bonus? If the female sequence is snippy, angry, bitchy, what is the male sequence? Maybe pushy, dominating, fell off his throne?]

Yanno, that's a good question, because men are usually rewarded for the behaviors denigrated in women as "snippy, angry, bitchy." Maybe "bold, assertive, aggressive"? I would like to think that "rude" crosses gender lines, but what do I know?

And, yeah, funny how the people who really do know it all hardly ever get in your face about it.

[jack_calls_dances]

Do you think it would help or hurt if she knew you were actually a published author? (Of course, since you write the kind of stuff that non-academics read voluntarily, that probably would just be further evidence of how Utterly Trivial it is.)

And as far as "bitchy" goes, have you run across Heartless Bitches International? They run a pretty good, extremely well-written, funny website. With lots of profanity.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Do you think it would help or hurt if she knew you were actually a published author?

She knows. Alas, for this particular person, I fear I fall into the science fiction writers and people like that category of unpleasant and inconvenient persons. It may also give me an inflated notion of my own standing with regard to Academics. Or at least this Academic. It's all very tiresome, especially since I don't do (2) that well and I really am, yanno, a bitch.

And as far as "bitchy" goes, have you run across Heartless Bitches International?

Oh, this sounds promising. Thank you. *goes off to Google*