The Difficult Woman is not rude, petty or mean. She is simply willing to be awkward, if the situation demands it; demanding, if the occasion requires it; and obstinate, if someone tries to fob her off. She does not care if ‘that’s the way it’s always been done’. She is unmoved by the suggestion that it’s ‘natural’ for women to act a certain way or accept a lower status. It probably isn’t, and even if it is – so is dying from preventable diseases. No one thinks we should succumb to cholera just because it’s traditional.
The Difficult Woman has strong beliefs, but these are based on evidence. She is kind, but not compliant. She refuses to be guilt-tripped into picking up the slack left by someone else. She refuses to put her needs last, always, particularly if the men around her could stand to do a bit more. She asks for a pay rise. She doesn’t make the tea when it’s not her job. She expects her brothers to visit their elderly parents as much as she does. She doesn’t care if you call her a hairy-legged lesbian, because perhaps she knows several hairy-legged lesbians, and they have pretty sweet lives. Perhaps she is a hairy-legged lesbian, and she’s OK with that. She doesn’t believe him when he says he’ll never do it again, honest, and anyway she provoked him. She knows she will be called humourless for talking about feminism, but behind closed doors she and her friends roar with laughter, perhaps at his expense. She doesn’t care if you think she looks too feminine, or not feminine enough. When a man sits straddle-legged on the Tube as if his testicles were delicate nuclear waste, she doesn’t squeeze her knees together automatically to make room. She doesn’t apologise for ‘always fixating on women’s issues’. She wears shoes she can walk in. She wears clothes she can eat lunch in. She wears make-up because it’s bright and fun, not as camouflage or penance for having pores or wrinkles. She fights for joint custody of the armrest at the cinema. She laughs showing her teeth. She snacks in public without apology. She tries not to worry about her neck. She has a group of friends with whom she can exchange gory details of periods, childbirth, menopause and all the other panoply of unspeakable female experiences. Her friends make unbelievably gross jokes which would blow the minds of ‘shocking’ male comedians.
She feels an affinity with other women, the texture of their lives and experiences. She believes that whatever separates them is less important than what unites them. She listens to women who have been places she will never go – perhaps including that strange country called Motherhood – and knows that their choices are not a commentary on her choices. She doesn’t believe him when he tells her she’ll never find anyone else. She knows it wasn’t the right time for her to have a baby, and she stands by her decision. She is a survivor, not a victim. She doesn’t feel guilty if she can’t breastfeed. She won’t relax her afro because society tells her it’s not ‘professional’: she is a professional, and whatever hair she wants is just fine, thanks. She doesn’t think that saying no makes her ‘frigid’. She doesn’t doubt her own worth when a younger man gets promoted above her because he didn’t take time out of the workforce. She’s not ashamed to talk about her own body, because it’s not dirty or disgusting. She enjoys the shocked look on people’s faces when they see a disabled woman talking about sex, and she rolls her eyes when a man grabs her wheelchair, acting like he’s a bloody hero for ‘helping’. She knows she deserves a proper pension. She reports it to the police. She doesn’t look like the women in magazines, and she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t accept leaving a marriage poorer than her partner, because raising a family is work too. She and her girlfriend laugh when people ask ‘Which one of you is the man?’, because neither of them have to be. She doesn’t feel a failure because she doesn’t want children. She won’t be talked down to because she’s carrying a screaming toddler. She refuses to be dismissed just because she has grey hair. She doesn’t feel guilty when she gets home from work and just watches television, or looks at clothes on eBay, or reads a book: she deserves some time that’s just for her. She asks her male peers what they earn. She leaves him.
Above all, she knows that no woman can fight all these battles alone, no matter how difficult she is. Sometimes, she feels tired, and worn out. But one thing saves her, because a Difficult Woman should always find herself some other Difficult Women. They will help her remember that she – like hundreds of others before her, for hundreds of years before her – can use her difficulty to make a difference. Together, Difficult Women can change the world.