vainglorious

“Crazy women/ That’s the only kind I know/ Crazy women/ Keep me running for the door/ Crazy women/ I guess they’re all the same/ Crazy women/ Got my foolish heart to blame” - Jupiter Coyote, “Crazy Women”

Inspiration for this particular rant: the Rhapsody commercial which let’s you know that you can take your music everywhere even “your ex-gf’s house, but stay away from her, she’s crazy.” That’s seriously how the commercial ends.

Why do so many men insist on using this word to describe all women who they are not currently involved with? Though I do hear a fair amount of guys describe their current paramours as crazy too. I’ve been called the following on multiple occasions: crazy, psychotic, insane, nuts, etc. And I don’t think I’m alone in this, yet it really upsets me. I am a passionate, dramatic, emotional person but one who does not have mental health issues, no psychologist would describe me in this way so why would you? Because I’m female? Because I do not act in whatever way you think a woman should act?

Or is it more exclusive to when a relationship breaks up? When women get upset or emotional about being wronged, being dumped, why does that make her crazy? As men, your (sometimes!) detached unemotional way of dealing with these things strikes me as just as unhealthy, but because we exhibit our reactions, we’re insane? What makes a woman truly insane? And how can you know it’s temporary insanity?

There’s a fine line, sure, but calling you for closure after you unceremoniously dump our fine asses is not crazy, it’s a warranted reaction. I’ve been dumped via Facebook and my “crazy” moment pertaining to that was placing 5 unanswered calls in a row to this person that night so I could at least have an actual conversation about what the fuck he wrote to me in a Facebook message. After this occured, I was called insane. Bullshit. If I had gotten out of bed in the middle of the night and beaten down his door trying to get answers then yeah, call me psychotic, but calling? Not fair.

Many women may have found themselves in these situations and once you’re labeled a psycho in a group of friends in can be hard to salvage your rep. Everything you do from that point forward is examined in those terms. “Oh gosh, she screamed at you for flirting with that girl? Yeah, she’s crazy.” I think too often even the slightest overreaction is slapped with the “psychotic” label and that truly pisses me off. Being emotional, upset, and overreacting are all pretty “normal” responses to lots of issues, especially in romantic relationships. (EDIT: I mean like a group of guy friends, you date one and one thing happens and they all call you crazy or something.)

Boys, most of y’all are relatively smart, be more creative. Think of new ways to describe what that girl you treated like shit did to you.

(Disclaimer: some people [women and men] do some actual crazy shit, like getting violent, that’s not what I’m talking about.)