WEBVTT

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My name is Tabatha Coffey,

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and I am a bitch.

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(Laughter)

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That's right, you heard it here first.

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So ...

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Show me your hands,
who thinks they are a bitch?

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(Laughter)

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Oh, we need to work on that.

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By the end of this talk,

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I want every hand up and proud
in this audience, all of you.

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So ten years ago,

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I was lucky enough
to fall into television,

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and I say I fell into it
because I really did.

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I tried out for a competitive show
that put hairdresser against hairdresser.

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And it was rough;

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it was 12 weeks
living away from your business,

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away from your family,

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locked in a house with 11 strangers.

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You were with them 24/7.

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It was an amazing experience;

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I loved it.

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And I am incredibly competitive,
like most of you.

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When it was over,

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I went home,

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went back to my business,
went back on with my life.

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And a couple of weeks went by,

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and my clients were all thrilled
that I was on TV and I was competing.

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Couple of more weeks went by,

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and probably around four weeks in,

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I was in Nordstrom
buying a pair of shoes.

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And across the mall,

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a woman looked and went,
"Oh, my god! You are that bitch on TV!"

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(Laughter)

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I did not laugh as all of you are -

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I do now, but not then,
it was not so funny.

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I was absolutely mortified,

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and -

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Look, it's not the first time
I've been called a bitch,

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it is definitely not
going to be the last time,

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but from a stranger that recognized me

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and was yelling across the mall
that I was the bitch on TV

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really stopped me in my tracks.

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It was just amazing.

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Well, it did not just happened once;
it kept happening,

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and happening,

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and happening

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and happening.

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And I went down the rabbit hole
of reading the blogs

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and reading what people
were saying about me.

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And there were literally thousands
of people that were calling me a bitch.

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And to say that it was paralyizing
is putting it mildly.

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I was paralyzed by it.

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Because ...

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I am tough,

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and I am honest,

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and I am strong,

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and I am all the qualities
that we all should have

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to be a successful business woman.

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But I did not view myself
as a bitch whatsoever.

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So, I had to sit down and really reflect

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on what happened and why people
were calling me a bitch

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and why people were thinking
that it was okay

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to go up to a complete stranger
and go, "You are that bitch!"

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(Laughter)

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I know now that it is kind of cool

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to be a bitch.
(Laughter)

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Right? Now it is kind of cool.

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But even though it is cool now,

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and we say to our friends,
"Hey bitch, how you doin'?"

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(Laughter)
Right?

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We "hashtag" on Instagram:
"Bitch an outfit," right?

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We throw the word around

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like it means nothing.

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But if any of you have been called a bitch

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by someone -

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whether you know them,

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whether it is a colleague,
whether it is a friend,

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whether it is a random stranger -

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it hurts.

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There is a moment that it feels
like a knife going into your heart.

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And it hurts.

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The thing that's interesting,
and we talk about it all the time;

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there are books about it,

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there are songs about it.

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If you are a strong woman,

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if you speak with authority,

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if you don't bow down to people,

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if you speak your mind,

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if you have a healthy dose of ego,

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if you are really confident
and really, really passionate,

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you are a bitch.

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But those qualities in a man
make him a go-getter,

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a great executive,

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someone you want on the team,

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someone really dependable
that would take care of a problem.

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Maybe even the president.

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(Laughter)

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Yep.

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(Applause)

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But those qualities in us,
as women, get us called bitches.

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The bigger problem to me with that
is that we do it to each other.

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We call each other bitches.

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And it is not in the cute Instagram way
of "Bitch an outfit!"

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"I am with my bitches."

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It is not in the cute way.

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(Laughter)

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It is in the mean let-me-tear-you-down-
and-put-you-in-your-box kind of way.

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Because that word -

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and I've looked, and I've searched -

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there is not an equivalent for men;

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there isn't.

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And it is supposed to dim your light,

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and make you not as confident,

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and make you stop and second-guess
yourself a little bit,

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and wonder if you
are doing the right thing:

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"Should I be doing
something else? I don't know."

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That's what it does to your head.

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And we can laugh it off,
as we are now,

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but we still now it hurts.

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And when we do it to our sisters,

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and I mean our sisterhood of women,

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it is wrong.

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How many times
have you walked out of a meeting,

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walked away from
maybe doing school pickup,

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or going out to a cocktail party,
and there is woman there,

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and walked away and said,
"Oh, she is such a bitch!"

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When really, maybe she wasn't.

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Maybe she was just a little bit
more honest than you,

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maybe she just demanded what she wanted

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and made no apologies or excuses for it.

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Is she a bitch because she has
a better pair of shoes than you?

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Is that why you are calling her a bitch?

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Is that why we do it to each other,
because we are a little jealous

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and we want to cut each other
down a little bit?

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Because we are not helping each other,

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we need to promote
growth and gain over gossip.

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We need to stop cutting
each other down as women.

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When I look at every single woman,

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and I have met hundreds of thousands

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because I've been
a hairdresser for 36 years

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and had women in my chair
every single time.

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And the reason I am
so passionate about what I do

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is because I understand.

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I don't understand men as well,

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because I am not one.

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But women,

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I understand us,
I understand our insecurities,

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I understand how hard we work,

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I understand that everyone wants us
to be perfect all the time,

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and it is really, really exhausting.

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I understand that when we go on a date,
or we go to a party,

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or we go to a work event,

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or we just get up in the morning,

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there is pressure on us.

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And that's without
adding children and husbands

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and all the other people
that are grabbing at us all the time.

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I get that!

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So when I look at one of my sisters,

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why am I going to call her a bitch?

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It's like calling me a bitch.

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You are doing it to yourself.

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When you look at another woman,
you are looking in the mirror.

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And let me tell you,

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the fact that we are women,

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and we can produce life -

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because there are literally wouldn't be
any of us sitting here without a woman ...

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True! -

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is extraordinary.

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That is extraordinary.

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To overcome being called
a bitch all the time,

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I like to face my fears.

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The way I dissolve them

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is to look right down the barrel at them
and just take care of them.

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So after my reflection,

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I came up with an acronym
for what my version of bitch is.

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And it's Brave,

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Intelligent,

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Tenacious,

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Creative,

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and Honest.

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And I defy anyone in this room,

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men or women, that does not
want those qualities in their life.

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Every single woman in here,
and every single man,

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we are brave; you don't need to
go and slay dragons,

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sometimes it is just brave
to get out of bed in the morning

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and face your day.

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We are warriors.

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Intelligence to me is not about
college degrees and book-smarts,

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that's part of it,
but there is also intuition;

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there is understanding;

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there is nurturing and knowing
when to nurture and when to pull back.

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They are qualities
that, women, we excel at.

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Being tenacious, obviously,

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have you ever messed with a woman's kid?

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I mean, seriously?

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We are tenacious;
if we want something, we don't stop.

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What about that pair of shoes
you are lusting after?

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And you can't afford them,

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but miraculously, the money shows up,
and you got new kicks on.

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(Laughter)

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That's tenacity, right there!

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Creative is just
looking at things differently;

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we are great at that as women.

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We are the best multitaskers
there are: we are creative.

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We find ways to not only
find this money for that pair of shoes -

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creatively, to come out of nowhere -

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but also how to juggle different
schedules, take care of things;

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that's innate in most of us.

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And honest is how I think
we all should live our life.

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And to me that honesty
is being honest enough,

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instead of turning around
and calling one of my sisters a bitch,

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is to look and say,

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"You know what?
I am a little jealous of her.

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Because what she has going on
is a whole lot of fabolous,

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and I want a little bit of it."

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"You know what?

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I didn't get that job,

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or I didn't get that gig
that I really wanted.

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She did. Kudos to her.
How can I learn from that?

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How can I be better?

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How can I learn from what she did
to elevate myself,

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instead of looking and go, 'Bitch.'"

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That is not going to elevate any of us.

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That is not going to solve the problems
that I believe we as women can solve.

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So, if you take my acronym

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of being Brave, Intelligent,
Tenacious, Creative, and Honest,

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I encourage you all
to think about that in every choice,

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and the next time someone
says to you, "You are a bitch,"

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smile and say, "Yes,
thank you very much. I am.

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And I am the best damn bitch I can be."

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Thank you, Saint Louis.

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(Applause)