Portrait

ever noticed how catty women are? the female species has possession of this most amazing ability, this gift, this albertross. we all have it, this almost scary capacity to be catty. this suspiciously strong tendency to be a complete and utter cat.

for those of you who have no idea as to what in god’s name i’m talking about, here’s a little something for you to go by.

cat·ty1 ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kt)

adj. cat·ti·er, cat·ti·est
Subtly cruel or malicious; spiteful: a catty remark.

catti·ly adv.
catti·ness n

catty

adj : marked by or arising from malice; “a catty remark” [syn: bitchy, cattish]

enough definitions already. there you have it. women have this uncanny thing for being catty, for being vicious and insatiable in their lust to humiliate someone, be it male or female. now i’m not saying women and trying to exclude myself, or my friends. oh no. i admit, there’s a little cat in all of us.

the cat within us is waiting to bare her teeth and claws at the most random moments. any blow to one’s ego is just asking to be clawed to death. men fight. women get catty. and as i see it, being catty is a favourable past time. at the risk of sounding like a snob, i must admit the few times i have let the cat in me get the better of my conscience, i’ve quite enjoyed it.

a girl needs some protection. some armour. let’s begin with saying it’s hard being a girl. still, i enjoy it thoroughly, and sometimes the mere fact that you own a particular anatomy works to your advantage. but it’s a tough world out there. Iroms did an interesting post on something relative to what i’m trying to say here. it’s a risk to walk on the road, to go to the beach, to go to a movie, to take a bus. to do anything alone is almost equivalent to asking for trouble. why? because most men (atleast the one’s that get out of the house and tend to be about) are the scum of the universe.

what’s a solitary girl going to do if she gets groped on the bus? if she gets harrassed on a crowded pavement? if she gets felt up at a night club? she’s not going to swing a punch. nah. she’s going to (if she’s smart, and reasonably brave) get catty. this is her defense. she’s not dim enough to try to take on a full grown man (as he is bound to be…most often) in a fist fight. she’s not going to knee him in the you know where, or poke his eye balls out with her pen. she’s going to make one sharp comment that’s going to hit him where it hurts. hard. and that’s that. he’s predictably going to get embarrassed enough to leave her alone and scam.

but it doesn’t take a full blown situation of molestation to fire up the cat inside a woman. oh no. it takes much less. and worse still, she uses it not only on men, but on other women too.

did i fail to mention this is her ALL ROUND, ALL PURPOSE defense? cattiness proves useful in most situations. in any situation where the woman is being insulted, or put down, or simply not hearing what she wants to hear, she WILL get catty. she will pass subtle, below the belt hints. she will bring you down slowly but surely, with class, in style. she savours this moment. its like she takes a sip of this exotic wine and rolls it around her mouth using her tongue before swallowing it, enjoying the burning sensation it causes in her throat.

having been both the giver and receiver (NOT FUN) of considerable amounts of cattiness, i can say its about being subtle, and feminine. she’ll take her time. she’s not going to shout, or yell, or bang her fist on the table and lay down the rules. she’s going to wait till you insert your foot right in your mouth, and get you.
she’ll say something, something so gentle it’ll barely seem like an insult. but the moment you begin to think about it, the truth starts to unravel itself in the depths of your clouded mind. clouded with her irresistable sexiness of course. and it’ll hit your ego like a train going to full speed. you’ll crumble and fall. she’ll love watching this, what her words do to you, how her charms intoxicate you.

a woman can never go wrong with cattiness, because it comes naturally. its not something she practises, or sits around and cooks up. catty moments are fragments of thought, glimmers of an evil seed that lie in wait and pop into her mind when the time comes to save her dignity, her womanly pride. basically, she has nothing to lose. the strangest things will maker her angry, and she doesn’t necessarily spit fire when she’s mad. so don’t look out for smoke coming through her ears. i suggest you try to observe the more distant signs. a devilish glint in her eye, an especially cutting sense of humour, and in my case, maybe a short skirt. yeah. i show my legs when i get catty.

dressing to kill, giving ‘gullers’, raising an eye brow and staring unwaveringly at your victim, pointedly flaunting a hot guy, even being extraordinarily NICE to your victim…these are all the varying signs of cattiness i’ve noticed in different women, including myself. mind you, cattiness takes a certain amount of class and grace. it’s not for women who like screaming and shouting and slapping and hitting and making a big hoo haa about things. it uses a certain flavour of subtlety. one needs to be smooth, confident, suave and witty to pull off being catty without being laughed at.

of course, cattiness comes in varying degrees. some of us are just more catty than the rest of us. but that’s because some of us just have better self control than others. and this is my golden theory. every man’s a pervert, every woman’s a bitch. some just have better control over themselves and their actions than others do. doesnt that make perfect sense?

every woman is blessed, and cursed, with the ability to be catty when the need arises. being a complete bitch however, is an extension of being catty, and requires one to reach a whole new level of mean-ness which one does not actually need to possess while being catty. catty is not on the same wave length as mean. catty is something more fun, and less powerful. its just a way to get the joke that ON you, OFF you. a way to assert yourself and let people who assume you can pushed around know that you can’t be pushed around. mean is a way of hurting people, of intentionally fucking up someone’s day, or indeed, life.

catty is an easy to store, easy to maintain, easy to own, all purpose super effective defense mechanism for every woman.