Calling women crazy

JCbride2015 · November 2013

Has anyone else seen this article in their news feed or just read it on Huffpo? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harris-oamalley/on-labeling-women-crazy_b_4259779.html

My Fi just came back from a "guys' night" and told me how lucky he feels, compared to his friends. All of them were saying how happy they are to get away from their "crazy" girlfriends for a night. (By contrast, he called me to pick him up in the middle of the night because they went to a strip club and he didn't want to go. Yep, I love him bunches). This group of friends, whom I love in spite of their imperfections, frequently call their girlfriends "crazy." Sometimes it's like they even mean it lovingly. I have told them on more than one occassion that these dudes contribute to The Crazy. Example: one dear friend, a doctor, likes to date younger, dependent women without serious careers, then complains they are too needy and thus "crazy."

I think this author is spot on, though, that most men are so steeped in the culture that women are hysterical, emotional, and irrational that they mostly don't even realize the crazy talk is harmful. I've personally called other women crazy on more than one occasion. Fi has never told me I'm crazy, but I wouldn't be shocked if he had said it to someone else. To what extent should we be correcting people about this kind of stuff? Have any of you been called crazy by H/Fi, and did it bother you in a feminist sort of way?

ETA: paragraphs

JCbride2015 · November 2013

Whoa, sorry all. Apparently my ipad can't do paragraphs. Will edit later at home.

smalfrie19 · November 2013

I think the article is really thought provoking..but I think even WOMEN do it to other women! I know I am guilty of gossiping with my gal pals and calling another woman crazy.

CLoGreenEyes · November 2013

Thanks for sharing this article! I definitely agree that this is a problem, even though I know I've done my share of this kind of name-calling, both to other women and myself.

C hasn't ever straight-up used the word "crazy," but there have been time where I've brought concerns to him and he has dismissed them with a similar attitude to this. He either couldn't or wouldn't see what I was talking about, and even though he would try to meet my needs, I always got the sense that it was more to appease me rather than actually understand and correct the issue at hand. As a result, I started prefacing things with, "So, I know this is going to sound crazy, but..." or, "I feel ridiculous for feeling this way, but..." My use of those phrases totally minimizes the very REAL and SIGNIFICANT issues I'm seeing that, let's face it, he's just not as likely to notice. (Now that we've split up, I've noticed that all of a sudden he's EXTREMELY interested in discussing these issues. They strangely don't seem as weird now!)

Ultimately, yeah, I think the word "crazy" isn't the best to use in this type of situation. A lot of us are young and inexperienced (or just haven't had healthy experiences in the past), don't know what to expect from relationships or how to navigate them, and make mistakes. That doesn't make anybody, male or female, crazy; it makes them human. If I feel the urge to talk about another woman's behavior (and honestly, what business is that of mine, anyway?), I try to describe it without using these words and just say what the situation is. I think it's mostly a matter of just changing the way we talk and trying to get at the root of the underlying problem, which both parties generally contribute to. It's definitely not a matter of one sex just being BSC.

Calling women crazy

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