Rebecca Reid - Rude: Stop Being Nice and Start Being Bold

Simon & Schuster

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Copyright 2020 by Rebecca Reid

Originally published in Great Britain in 2020 by Trapeze as The Power of Rude

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

This Simon & Schuster hardcover edition December 2020

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Interior design by Lewelin Polanco

Jacket design by Na Kim

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN 978-1-9821-4082-3

ISBN 978-1-9821-4084-7 (ebook)

This book is dedicated to me, because I wrote it.

And Lucy, because she really needs to read it.

A Note on Language

Rude is based around my experiences and the experiences of the women whom I interviewed for the book, who were predominantly straight or bisexual. So when the book addresses romantic relationships, it tends to assume that the couple is a man and a woman.

This is not to suggest that heterosexual relationships are the right or normal types of relationships, just that they are the most common and therefore what most women experience. In addition, most studies show that gay women report higher relationship satisfaction and have more fulfilling sex lives than women in heterosexual relationships; the advice in the dating and sex chapters really is mostly for straight women, who are much more in need of it. If youre not having sex with men, skip the sex and dating chapters and reflect on how enormously lucky you are.

Finally, in writing the book, I opted not to use women and nonbinary people and women in heterosexual relationships simply to avoid clunkiness. Using standardized language throughout the book was intended for simplicity and ease of readership, not erasure.

Methodology

In order to gather as much information about the relationship between women and rudeness as possible, I put together an anonymous survey, which invited women to answer specific yes-or-no questions and to add comments of unlimited length. One hundred fifty-two women took part.

The survey was shared widely outside my own networks, but I wanted to make sure that I wasnt just representing people from my age group or location. I interviewed a variety of women who were forty or older, as the majority of the respondents to the survey were under forty.

I also spent a lot of time sitting in cafs and riding on buses, listening to women talk to each other. As a naturally nosy person, I found this perfectly normal, but other people have expressed horror at this method. It was, however, enormously useful in terms of observing the dynamics between other women, as well as testing my hypothesis that women from all backgrounds and of all ages worry about seeming rude on a daily basis.

Have You Ever?

• Paid in full for a terrible meal.
• Lain awake while your neighbors played their music full blast.
• Taken the stairs at double speed because someone was behind you.
• Pretended to forget that a friend owes you money.
• Kept a gift you hated instead of asking for the receipt.
• Pretended to be in a relationship to avoid a flirty stranger.
• Laughed along with a joke that really hurt your feelings.
• Put away someone elses equipment at the end of a gym class.
• Stayed silent when someone jumped a line you were waiting in.
• Kept your seat upright on a flight while the person in front of you was fully reclined.
• Let your friend bring a boyfriend to a girls night.
• Routinely cleaned up after your housemate.

If youve done, or regularly do, any of the above, then youve come to exactly the right place.

These may seem like small things, and in isolation they are. But if you do a handful of these little things each week out of a desire to avoid being rude, by the end of the month or the year, the list of ways that you have twisted yourself around other peoples wants and needs is a mile long. Rude will teach you to step outside of that behavior.

The last hundred years has seen incredible progress for women, and in terms of the rights we have enshrined in law, things look better than ever. Never has feminism been more popular, widespread, or well represented. Emma Watson, Beyonc, Taylor Swiftthe vast majority of famous women identify as feminists. People like me make a living out of being feminist. And yet despite all that, women all over the world continue to experience sexism day in and day out.

The pay gap endures, reproductive freedom is under attack, sexual violence abounds, maternity rights and childcare provisions still lock women out of the workplace. Many of the worlds most powerful nations have still never had a female leader. So, despite what you might see on tote bags and pink pencils, necklaces and T-shirts, feminism isnt finished. The war for women is not won.

It is important to keep fighting for societal change. But that type of change is slow and difficult to bring about. And the unfair reality is that the responsibility of improving the system that oppresses women most often falls to women. If we want to continue the feminist revolution that was started by the suffragettes, then, in addition to fighting for societal change, we also need to tackle the expectations that, as individuals, we conform tooften without really meaning to. Im talking about the expectation that women will smile sweetly, sit nicely, take up as little space as possible, and put their own wants and needs last for fear of seeming rude.

When I started writing Rude, I decided to keep a diary noting down the times I did something because I didnt want to be rude. I thought I would need to keep it for several weeks in order to notice much, but from the very first day, the issue was clear.

TUESDAY

8:30 a.m.

I wake up and realize that I didnt set my alarm. Im running late, so I call a taxi to take me to work, which cuts the journey time in half.

9:00 a.m.

I get into the taxi. Its way too hot, but the driver seems to like it this way, so I start stripping off layers. I consider opening the window but decide against it. He puts the radio on to a noisy sports game. I have a headache but assume this is some kind of important match that he would be sad to miss, so again I say nothing.

When I arrive at my office, where I work as the digital editor of a womens magazine, I feel embarrassed about having taken a taxi and hope no one sees.