Bitch <-----> Pollyanna

You've heard of the whole Madonna / Whore dichotomy, or "complex", right? Where men (but women definitely do it too) sort women into this binary of pure saintly virgin mommies or stretched-out man-eating money-hungry slutzzzzzzz, and it totally ruins their relationships, but more importantly, their boners. Men's boners are not really most important, but that premise is what this psychological idea of a complex is built around: the man-child's almighty erection or lack thereof.

Lately I've been more concerned with the whole super-sexist / gendered / misogynist BITCH vs Pollyanna binary: these two extreme femme archetypes that are hated on all the more for their sexlessness.

Madonnas and whores are super-sexualized; they are defined by their relationships to (straight) men. Bitches and Pollyannas, on the other hand, are defined by their un-sexiness, and in a way that is very different from the Madonna archetype; bitches and Pollyannas are not (perceived by men as being) capable of (nor do they behave as if they are interested in) being fuckable OR breedable, making them all the more worthless and not worth putting up with their irritatingly powerful missions and influences. Bitches and Pollyannas, mean old crones and little girls with loud ideas.

Is there already a bunch of writing about this? If so, I'm sorry I don't know about it or have forgotten, and just recently thinking about it a lot after hearing Robert Greene worry that he sounds like a pollyanna for finding gratitude around suffering and surviving and learning from his stroke. It reminded me how much it's always bothered me that people find a way to hate on this child-character who plays "the glad game" to get through life's losses and challenges. Like ... what is your fucking problem that you hate the idea of her and this practice of looking on the bright side and finding things to be grateful for? How is that something to be ashamed or embarrassed of?

Somehow I think it all boils down to women still being second-class citizens made from Adam's rib (not really, but this is part of our mythology), brought to life purely to serve as companions to men; bitches and pollyannas exist FOR THEMSELVES. They have values and priorities completely independent of being in relationship to men or baby-making. They have strong belief systems that do not center sex or gender and they are VOCAL about these firmly-held beliefs, making them repellant. They demand attention and respect outside of dominant social structures and systems, with no obvious chance of a payoff in the form of mothering or pleasure. Gross. Annoying. Waste of time. Makes me self-conscious. Competes with me for the floor. Makes me question my own role and value. Has high standards I've never considered living up to.

I may be a bitch, but at heart I am (also?) a Pollyanna. And I'm glad.

*****

I've only seen the movie and not read the book (wait ... maybe I did read it, but was a child myself in like 4th grade ... maybe that is why I am so attached to her?), so I appreciated this post I just read on a sweet-looking blog called Independently Happy with a summary of the book's character (the OG Pollyanna): WHY IS POLLYANNA DEFINED SO HARSHLY?

The way this character has been wrongly turned into an insane extremely unbalanced optimistic forcing her blind irrational positivity on everything and everyone is a sexist perversion reflecting not the character's flaws, but people's contempt for women and children. It is a way to take the focus off of the helpfulness of shifting your perspective to gratitude and working to BE truly helpful ON TOP OF IT -- to see what you have the power to positively change when things are really shitty -- and turn that virtue and practice into something loathsome and retarded: the silly painted on smile of a fake-ass little bitch and her annoying little happy-voice.

No Fun

 How do you know someone is a bitch? One tip-off is if they hate FUN: the sound of it, stupid fucking questions about what we do for it, and just the word itself.

The only thing people hate worse than a bitch who hates fun is someone who hates Christmas. They have a name for that, too: GRINCH.

I am a summer grinch who hates the sound of neighbors’ barbecued laughter coming in through the open windows. To me, "fun" is the litter and auditory spraypaint of inconsiderate loud-mouth social vandals.

Tyranny of the LOUD & ENTITLED

I fucking hate people who make allllllllll the people STUCK near them listen to their music or talk radio or whatever the fuck.

I'm stuck in the ferry line right now for HOURS ... a holding tank of parked cars and their inhabitants. And motherfucker is playing loud music in front of me. Next to the guy in a semi. Trying to sleep.

I've already provoked some road rage today (going exactly 60 in a 70 zone on the freeway in your gutless civic when there's plenty of room at that pace that's wide open to your right? YES, you stupid fuck I'm flashing my lights on your ass ... GET THE FUCK OVER already, there's no excuse for it, and you look like a fucking weak ass cunt rolling your window down to flip me off when you finally take the hint) so I guess I'm trying not to mix up another cocktail of confrontation but ooooh my fucking lord.

Once I did escalate a more serious raging incident when someone was playing even louder music ON the ferry. Country music, of course, and dude about lost his mind when I walked up and confronted him ... like, violently threatening me to stay away from his (you guessed it) pickup truck. The angry vibe spread like a virus, starting stereo wars, and spilling over even AFTER we got off the ferry, with dudes chasing each other down into the closest McDonald's parking lot. It was bad enough that I called 911 at that point. But ... I kept on driving / did not follow them to see what violence ensued.

Right now I'm fantasizing about baseball bats. You want to hear percussion asshole? Let me rhythmically play along with your loud bullshit on your windshield your lights your doors your whole entire car body. The most peaceful alternative I can hope for is that their battery will die before we get on and they suffer the humiliation of being stuck here and laughed at.

Some part of me must love the creative energy of envisioning ways to address the elephant in the room/space we're all sharing..

I also find myself hating every pussy-ass fucker who is afraid to say or do anything or even give this fucker a scathing look. This is why I know "community" doesn't work. Because people are cowardly fucks who will let ONE asshole destroy the peace of dozens of people surrounding him and pretend like they don't even notice. So here I am, the only person who bothered to do anything to signal to this Idaho fuck that he should develop some awareness and consideration of the people around him by stepping out of my car and GLARING AT HIS TONTED WINDOWS and mouthing curses at him. And later when it paused then restarted, SCREAMING "FUCKING COCKSUCKER!!" which probably accomplished nothing except getting my spittle all over the steering wheel and making me look like a raving loonie.

Finally I attempted to do something "productive" or ... take another tack, anyway, by trying to connect my phone to my mom's modern car that I'm privileged to be driving right now, so I could play SCREAMINGLY LOUD MUSIC. But alas, just as I got it close to working, motherfucker finally silenced his shit. And then I couldn't actually get it to work anyway (you know I kept trying, though, well past the point of competitive usefulness).

Headphones

Manual

Wait

Follow

It's not personal

The Alpha and Omega(?) Bitch

Trite but true: for many of us it all starts with our MOTHERS or FATHERS. The first bitch we knew who taught us everything we know about How To Be not just a Bitch but THE Bitch. Head Bitch in Charge, you know?

Many of us grew up with ONE person -- a parent or grandparent -- who occupied that super mega bitch role. My mom, of course, was the PRIME bitch in our family. My paternal grandmother (the one I wrote about taking after) was in many ways a bigger bitch than my mom, as was my step-grandma / my stepdad's mom: NIGHTMARE, but neither of these bitches lived in close proximity to us so there really wasn't any competition for my mom. She was IT. The beginning and end in bitches.

NONE of our friends had moms who were bigger bitches than Mommy. I mean ... my friends' moms couldn't hold a fucking candle. I might have felt a little self-conscious about this, but in other ways ... nah. Those other sweet moms? They were married to assholes and/or cheaters and/or men of the cloth. I wouldn't have traded my mom for theirs in a million fucking years, or their parents in general. Partly because it doesn't work that way, partly because I did not see their parents or families as "better" overall (duh -- it doesn't work that way!), and mostly because ... I love my parents. INCLUDING my bitch mom.

I'm thinking about this stuff right now as I've been spending more time with my mom this year as she went through chemo and now is recovering from an intense surgery for pancreatic cancer. It is impossible to spend this time around her without being immersed in some intense bitchiness, assholery, and dysfunction. It does bring up some memories, but more relevant it holds up a mirror to me. A mirror that reminds me of two things: one that reassures me I did not come out of the womb a bitch; I *learned* bitchy behaviors FROM HER, and many of my other immature suboptimal patterns of behavior arose as coping tools and also because I was *assigned* the role of next-generation bitch in our family. The other reminder inspires me to change. To *not* be like this. Because OH MY FUCKING GOD IT IS PAINFUL TO BE AROUND AND SERVES ALMOST ZERO PURPOSE. Or is VERY FUCKING COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE.

I do not want to be her age and acting like such a baby-ass bitch-hole. It's not constant, but it is ... A LOT.

The question is ... can I break the cycle? Or is it too late for me?