Bitch - is a slang pejorative for a person, commonly a woman, who is belligerent, unreasonable, malicious, a control freak, rudely intrusive or aggressive. (Wikipedia)

Over the weekend I took my 15 year old daughter to a basketball tournament. Her team was made up of 9 girls aged from 13 to 15. They are not olympic basketballers - it's kids sport in the country, an under 16 competition.

Before our game on Sunday evening the coach called a pre game team meeting which involved a white board. During this meeting she constantly referred to the other team as bitches and the exceptionally tall young woman as a big dodo and a big dumb bitch.

Not surprisingly I took offence at this but I waited until we were home and spoke to the coach. Her comments (yes the coach is a woman) were that she will use whatever language she likes if it gets the job done and I was the only parent who has an issue with it, therefore it's my problem not hers. And she's right it is my problem that I find it offensive but I also think it's societies problem.

Language has power, otherwise why would we even use these derogatory terms? As a parent I find this behaviour by another adult towards children abhorrent and incredibly disrespectful. As a woman, I found this behaviour of encouraging our young women to demean other young women disappointing and discouraging.

It's often been said that the greatest enemy of the feminist movement are women themselves. How can we expect the next generation to support each other when they are taught to disrespect other women in this manner? It just reinforces stereotypes about how women cannot get along, that we are "bitchy". To achieve equality we have to show that we respect and support each other, that we encourage all women to succeed.

Attitudes such as this need to be rooted out of junior sport. It is no longer an acceptable training and motivation technique, not to mention that it is in breach of the child safe standards.

Our young people need role models that encourage them to succeed on their merits, not by tearing down other human beings.

Kathryn Harris is a Fellow of CPA Australia, a Chartered Tax Advisor and a graduate of the Australian Graduate School of Management at UNSW.

A partner in a rural accountancy practice she champions woman in their business and leadership roles.





Twitter: @HarrisBusSol Facebook: TrustOne Partners Web: trust1.com.au Amazon: Kathryn Harris, Author

*Please note these views and opinions expressed in this article are my own.







