TED

Why you need to be a B.I.T.C.H. | Tabatha Coffey

My name is Tabatha Coffey and I'm a bitch. That's right you heard it here first, so show me hands who thinks they're a bitch, oh, we need to work on that. By the end of this talk I wanna every hand up and proud in this audience, all of you.

So ten years ago I was lucky enough to fall into television and I say "I fell into it" because I really did, I tried out for a competitive show that put hairdresser against hairdresser and it was rough, it was 12 weeks living away from your business, away from your family, locked in a house with 11 strangers. You were with them 24/7, it was an amazing experience, I loved it and I'm incredibly competitive like most of you.

When it was over I went home, went back with my business, went back on with my life and a couple of weeks went by and my clients were all thrilled that I was on TV and I was competing; a couple more weeks went by and probably around four weeks in, I was in Nordstrom, buying a pair of shoes and across the mall a woman looked to me and "Oh my God you're that bitch on TV."

I did not laugh as all of you are, I do now but not then. I was absolutely mortified and it's not the first time I've been called a bitch, it's definitely not going to be the last time, but from a stranger that recognised me and was yelling across the mall that I was the bitch on TV, really stopped me in my tracks. It was just amazing.

It kept happening and happening and happening and happening and I went down the rabbit hole of reading the blogs and reading what people were saying about me, and there were literally thousands of people that were calling me a bitch. To say that it was paralysing is putting it mildly. I was paralysed by it, because I'm tough and I'm honest, I'm strong and I'm all the qualities that we all should have to be a successful business woman. But I did not view my self as a bitch, whatsoever. I had to sit down and really reflect on what happened and why people were calling me a bitch and why people were thinking that it was okay to go up to a complete stranger and go "You're that bitch".

I know, now, that's it's kind of cool to be a bitch, but even thought it's cool now and we say to our friends "Hey bitch, how you doing?", we throw that word around like it means nothing, but if any of you have been called a bitch, by someone whether you know them, whether it's a colleague, whether it's a friend, whether it's a random stranger it hurts. There is a moment that it feels like a knife going into your heart.

The thing it's interesting, and we talk about all the time, there are books about it, there are songs about it: if you are a strong woman, if you speak with authority, if you don't bow down to people, if you speak you mind, if you have a healthy dose of ego, if you are really confident and really really passionate, you're a bitch. But those qualities in a man, make him a go-getter, a great executive, someone you want on the team, someone really dependable that will take care of the problem, maybe even the president.

Those qualities in us, as women, get us called BITCHES. The bigger problem with me to that is that we do it to each other, we call each other bitches and in the cute instagram way of "with my bitches", it's not in the cute way. It's in the mean "let me tear you down and put you in your box" kind of way, because that word, I've looked and searched, there's not an equivalent for men, there isn't. It's supposed to dim your light and make you not as confident and make you stop and make you seconds guess yourself a little bit and wonder if what you're doing is the right thing or if you should do something else. You don't know, that is what it does to your brain, and we can laugh it off as we are now, but we still know it hurts. And when we do it to our sisters, and I mean our sisterhood of women, it's wrong.

How many times have you walked out of a meeting, walked away from doing school pickup or going out to a cocktail party and there's a woman there and walked well, so "Gosh she is such a bitch." When really, maybe she wasn't. Maybe she was just a little bit more honest than you, maybe she just demanded what she wanted and made no apologies or excuses for it. Is she a bitch because she has a better pair of shoes than you? Is that why you're calling her a bitch? Is it that what we do to each other because we are a little jealous and we wanna cut each other down a little bit. We're not helping each other.

We need to promote growth and gain over gossip we need to stop cutting each other down as women.

When I look at every single woman, and I've met hundreds of thousands because I've been a hairdresser for 36 years and had women in my chair, every single time, and the reason I'm so passionate about what I do is because I understand. I don't understand man as well because I'm not one, but women, I understand u, I understand our insecurities, I understand how hard we work, I understand that everyone wants to be perfect all the time and it's really really exhausting. I understand that when we go on a date or we go to a party or we go to a work event or we just get up in the morning; there's pressure on us and that's without adding children and husbands and all the other people that are grabbing at us all the time. I get that, so when I look at one of my sisters, why am I going to call her a bitch? It's like calling me a bitch, you're doing to yourself. When you're looking to another woman you're looking in the mirror and let me tell you, the fact that we are women and we can produce life, because there literally wouldn't be any of us sitting here without a woman, is extraordinary. That is extraordinary.

To overcome being called a bitch all the time, I like to face my fears, the way I dissolve them is to look right down the barrel at them and just take care of them; so after my reflection, I came up with an Acronym for what my version of B.I.T.C.H. is and it's Brave, Intelligent, Tenacious, Creative and Honest. And I defy anyone in this room, man or woman, that dose t want those qualities in their life.

Every single woman in here and every single man, we're brave, you don't need to go and slay dragons. Sometimes it's just brave to get out of bed in the morning and face your day; we're warriors. Intelligence to me isn't about college degrees and book smarts, that's part of it but there's also intuition, there's understanding, there's nurturing and knowing when to nurture and when to pull back. They're qualities that women, we excel at. Be tenacious, have you ever messed with a woman's kid? I mean seriously. We're tenacious if we want something we don't stop, what about that pair of shoes you're lusting after and you can't afford them but miraculously the money shows up and you've got new kicks on.

Creative is just looking new differently, we are great at that as women, we are the best multitaskers there are, we're creative, we find ways to not only find this money for that pair of shoes creatively to come out of nowhere but also how to juggle different schedules take care of things, that's innate in most of us. And Honest is how we all should live our life, and to me honesty is being honest enough instead of turning around and calling one of my sisters a bitch; is to look and say "You know what? I'm a little jealous of her, because what she has going on is a whole lot of fabulous and I want a little bit of it. You know what? I didn't get that job or I didn't get that gig that I really wanted, but she did, kudos to her and how can I learn from that? How can I be better? How can I learn from what she did to elevate myself?" instead of looking going "bitch". That's not going to elevate any of us, that's not going to solve the problem, that I believe that we as women can solve.

So if you take my acronym of being Brave, Intelligent, Tenacious, Creative and Honest, I encourage you all to think about that in every choice. And the next time someone says to you "You're a bitch", smile and say "Yes. Thank you very much, I am. And I am the best damn bitch I can be."

Thank you so much.