Pussy This, Pussy That

Aura Bogado

"You're such a pussy." I was a youngster at a municipal swimming pool when I heard one boy say this to another because he would not jump off the high dive. As soon as I heard it, I knew it was a "bad word". Although I didn't have a slang dictionary around, I knew it meant that the kid being called a pussy was a scared coward. I already knew this word had other meanings, like when it meant vagina (another "bad word"), and sometimes as a "good word" when it meant a cat. I still hear males (and sometimes even females) say this to one another as if it's the worst thing you can be, a pussy. It makes me wonder, how did the use of this word come about? Which came first, the vagina, the cat or the coward definition? And how are a vagina, a cat and a coward even related? How do we, as women, take the word back and redefine it to mean something strong?

When I hear someone I remotely know using the word in the "cowardly" sense, I question him or her about it. After all, everyone comes from a pussy, and bearing a child is no cowardly thing. The response I inevitably get back is something along the lines of "Aw… I didn't mean it like that." How did they mean it, then? If we really think about it, yes, a pussy might be "soft", but there's nothing weak or cowardly about it. After all, it's the pussy that bleeds the first time we have sexual intercourse; it's the pussy that bleeds every month; it's the pussy that gives life by bearing children. Most women are proud of these facts, and there is no doubt that some of that is painful, sometimes very painful, and there should be no argument that the pussy is strong. How comfortable would people feel about using the word if they considered all of this instead of associating the pussy as a weak thing?

I hardly hear people refer to cats as pussies anymore, but when I do, it makes me wonder, who associated a cat with a vagina or vice-versa? I know from a French friend of mine that "chat" means both cat and vagina in that language, as well. Can I assume, then, that it's a general Western trend to degrade women? Probably so. What makes me angry is that at the core of the word, it's another way of objectifying women. If we can turn the sexual object, which already defines women into an animal of all things, then we have been successful in completely clouding any real sense of meaning it ever had. It's interesting because the word "bitch" (a female dog) is used to describe women as well. Over and over again, women are referred to more as animals than they are as humans, and it's clear that if you want to strip someone of their inherent personhood, the easy way to go about it is to subtract the human value from them. Of more interest is the fact that men are insulted along with their mothers with words like "motherfucker" and "son of a bitch". These words actually do more to insult a man's mother than the man himself!

I have to admit I feel inappropriate even writing about the word, and I believe that is part of the problem: I don't own the word. It seems as if the word was invented and is nearly exclusively used by men who ultimately control it. I have, at times, tried to identify with a broad group of women who talk about "pussy power" and the need to take the power back, but, in the end, I always feel it's a way to use sex as power. It should not be about sex. We, as women, should not be sending out a message that says, "I have a vagina and with this vagina I have power over you because you want it." We should not have to use sex as a tool for empowerment, because that just means we are trying to have power in reference to a man, as opposed to independent power. Women seem to create our whole lives in reference to a man instead of in reference to ourselves. It saddens me. How do we even begin to understand how to set up independent structures of power when we are so used to relying on men for poor examples of it?

I ask a lot of questions, but I have little in the way of answers. Somehow, I don't think people will stop using the word in all of its manifestations, and I don't necessarily agree that we should eliminate it altogether. I do wish, however, that there were a large space for dialogue about it. I believe that will occur only when women create the space for it and challenge ourselves to own the word, which so often defines us.

Aura Bogado is a student at Santa Monica College.
Copyright 2001