Assertiveness, Leadership, and Bitchiness

Dalrock posted avideo. I had seen it earlier and was going to comment on it, but never got around to it, so I’ll comment on it now. Watch it:

Cane also had a good post on it, but I’m going to take this a bit of a different direction.

You’ve all heard feminists whine about how women are called bitchy where a man would be called assertive or women are called bossy, while men are called leaders. It’s one of those memes that seem to continually float around. (Any young women who may read my blog should take note of this post).

The reason women are called bitchy or bossy is because in general feminists, and many non-feminist women, do not seem to understand that there is a middle ground of assertiveness between being a pushover and being bitchy. Leadership exists in the space between passiveness and bossiness. This commercial illustrates that ignorance perfectly.

There are five mini-stories in the commercial, where there’s a before, where the woman is sorry and an after where the woman is “confident” (although, bitchy would be a better term in most cases).

In the first, the woman interrupts someone, probably her boss, in who’s making a public presentation. In that case, ‘sorry’ is only the minimal politeness. Now, they should have focused on her calling her own question ‘stupid’, that was the real problem with that example, and shows a basic lack of confidence. But in the second, instead of just having her show more confidence in her own ideas, they jump her straight to bitchy. She just flat out interrupts the guy making the presentation in mid-sentence. That’s not assertive, that’s just plain rude. The assertive way to pull this off, would have been ‘Excuse me, why don’t…?” When you are publicly interrupting someone in the middle of a presentation, ‘sorry’ is just plain common courtesy.

In the second one, the women barges into someone else’s office. For this one, there’s nothing particularly wrong in either example, both ‘sorry’ or a polite ‘do you got a minute?’ are basic courtesy when interrupting someone. There’s the small problem that the commercial paints the basic politeness of ‘sorry’ for interrupting someone busy, as being somehow weak when it is not.

The third one, illustrates a girl apologizing when she shouldn’t. The commercial is right here, if someone sits don’t beside you, apologizing is silly. But instead of simply having her simply not apologize and ignoring him, which would be the confident thing to do, she smirks at him like she’s purposely being an ass and winning some sort of non-existent competition. That is being passive-aggressively bitchy; between men, that kind of attitude at the wrong time could result in a fight.

The fourth and the fifth ones are the worst though. In the before skits, one woman passes a child to the husband and says sorry and the other takes part of a blanket her husband is hogging and says sorry. In either case, saying ‘sorry’ is rather silly. Nothing wrong is being done in the former and the husband is in the wrong in the latter; no apologies needed. In the former, just saying ‘take him’ or, in the latter, just taking the blanket without a word is perfectly fine. But again, instead of showing a confident woman doing what needs to be done, they jump straight to bitchy. Going out of your way to say ‘sorry, not sorry’ is not assertive, it is passive-aggressive bitchiness, as is taking the whole blanket on purpose.

This is why “assertive” women are called bossy or bitchy. It is not because of some sort of double-standard, it is because many of them don’t know the basic rules of assertiveness game.

Assertive men do what they need to do, but, as the situation calls for it, they either don’t mention it (such as in 3, 4, or 5) or show basic politeness when they do it (such as in 1 or 2). Only aggressive assholes, the male equivalent of bossy bitches, violate someone else’s space or speaking time or go out of there way to rub their “assertiveness” in someone else’s face.

Among men, that kind of behaviour is what starts fights, but men can’t/don’t generally verbally or physically attack women, so those kinds of women get away with the rather minor penalty of being labelleda bitch.

So, women, if you don’t want to be called bitchy or bossy, learn the rules of decorum game, because the kind of passive-aggressive jackassery shown in this commercial is not “assertive”, it’s just being a jerk.

11 comments

  1. @FN
    Right on . Women seem to mistake beta-alpha wannabe behaviour for alpha. Which in reality will either result in the man to end up at the morgue and in the hospital.

    They confuse aggressive for assertive. The violation of other people’s boundaries instead of defending against an invasion of your own boundaries. Marc Macyoung the ex-crim puts it best in the difference between real masculine behaviour instead of wannabe masculine behaviour:
    http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/alphabehavior.htm

    His article on real toughness instead of mere thuggishness:
    http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/hollywoodmacho.html

  2. It seems women sometimes have trouble finding that space between. They have been taught most of their lives to be passive and when they attempt to be assertive, they come on too strong and are overbearing. At least this has been my experience. Years ago, I decided I was going to stop being a doormat and used any opportunity I had to showcase that, and when it ended badly, I looked back at my own actions and realized I was being really aggressive. For me it has taken time and practice.

  3. If you want to see how the “after” versions are received, just take the “before” and insert a–hole behind each sorry. While the version generated illustrates the aggression behind the “after” version, it also it a little funnier.

    And in the third episode, I saw that the woman was taking both arm rests and said sorry when then man ( who is larger and wider) sat down and used both. In the “after” she takes both and does not apologize. That is a direct challenge to another man. Smile at me like that when you pull a stunt like that and we will not get along.

  4. I loved as much as you’ll receive carried out right here.

    The sketch is attractive, your authored subject matter stylish.
    nonetheless, you command get got an edginess over that you
    wish be delivering the following. unwell unquestionably come further formerly
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  5. Saying sorry when needed is not weakness.
    Perhaps women should understand it.
    And with respect to men , women are not created to Lord over them naturally(being alpha over men) .This is why radical feminism is a failure.

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