IN HOMAGE TO BRASSY CHICKS

So I was channel surfing last night and I got sucked in to a reality show about a competition to choose the ultimate bartender for Coyote Ugly.  For those of you who don't know, Coyote Ugly is a famous New York City bar that has become a franchise in a number of cities around the U.S.  Its schtick is hard liquor, country music, hard classic rock, and beautiful female bartenders who do choreographed dances on the bar and offer body shots (where you suck the booze out of the bartender's navel).  I have never been that interested in Coyote Ugly because it's a chain, and chains are always gimmicky and canned.  Nonetheless, I found myself drawn in to the reality show by the personality of Coyote Ugly's founder and owner, Liliana "Lil" Lovell.  (She has a blog here and there is a very good article about her and her bar here.)

Lovell is a classic example of a tough, brassy woman, the kind of woman I am not but whom I really admire.  Lovell is all about getting stuff done, and getting it done right-- HER way.  She is always absolutely sure that her way is the right way (and I imagine it is since she is making money hand over fist).  She doesn't care if people like her.  She doesn't worry about sparing people's feelings.  If she has something critical to say to someone, she says it bluntly.  She makes no effort to soften her message.  Employees strive to earn her praise because they know her praise means something. 

I have been lucky enough to know a few brassy chicks like this.  I always try to cultivate them and learn from them.  Because whatever it is that makes them brassy, I don't have it.  I am hardly ever really certain that my way is the right way, and I am quite easily persuaded that others know better than I do.  And I absolutely hate making other people feel inadequate or stupid unless it's in a formal context like a trial or unless the person has really offended me.  I also tend to make excuses for people and not expect very much from others.  I excel at tact and diplomacy but sometimes at the expense of getting my message across or having things happen the way I want them to happen.

The secret of brassy chicks I have discovered is two-fold: (1)  A lot of it is just constitutional.  That's just how they are made.  I can't try to remake myself into a brassy chick because that is just not who I am.  Brassiness would not work for me because it would be fake.  I can, however, incorporate some of their moves into my repertoire for use when appropriate.  (2)  The real secret though is that brassy chicks are driven.  Lovell herself said on her blog, "I am not mean. I am driven."  The brassy chick puts her mission (such as building a successful bar) above everything else.  She is not going to worry about your feelings if soothing your feelings will compromise what she is trying to accomplish. 

This makes sense to me because, as I write this, I realize that I DO have an inner brassy chick.  My inner brassy chick comes out in only one situation, though -- when I am in trial.  A jury trial is an all-consuming event and, when I am in trial, the trial becomes the most important thing in the world to me.  I don't give a crap about anything or anyone as long as the things necessary to try the case successfully fall into place the way I want them too.  It is total focus-- which means I bark orders, I make demands, and I turn police officers who are testifying for me into quivering masses of jelly who WILL show up on time and WILL have a good attitude and WILL remember all the facts from their police reports.  I don't care if everyone ends up hating me as long as the trial goes smoothly, the exhibits are ready, the witnesses are on time, etc.  As soon as the trial is over, I return to my easy-going self. A real brassy chick is like this all the time.

Of course, another insight I have reached is that being brassy isn't always the greatest thing.  Last year, I worked with a new associate in my law firm who was a brassy chick.  She had a super-loud voice and she was so confident that she would tell senior partners in staff meetings that their ideas or policies were stupid.  The partners mostly loved getting a frank opinion from an entry-level associate, and they also figured that if she was so assertive with them that she would be just as assertive in adversarial situations with opposing counsel.  She was the darling of the firm.  But there were times when she offended people unnecessarily to the detriment of getting things done.  After one of these occasions , she came to me and said she wished she could learn how to get her point across in a more tactful way like me!  I was so flattered that a  brassy chick (even a much younger one) wanted to learn something from me that I almost fell out of my chair. 

But she was right.  A smart person (of either sex) should cultivate both brassiness and diplomacy and use whichever is appropriate to the situation.  I suspect most of us, at least most of us women, are more comfortable with diplomacy and need to work on stepping up the brassiness.  There are other personality types who need to work on stepping up the sensitivity.  Since I am in the former category, I will always love and look up to brassy chicks and try to learn from them. 

NOTE:  I should note that not all brassy chicks are feminists.  One of the brassiest chicks I ever knew was an elderly lady in my grandmother's conservative Texas church.  She was at her brassiest when railing against the idea of women ushers or women pastors.  Liliana Lovell is arguably more like an old-time madam/saloonkeeper than a true feminist.  But I do think the persona and the conduct of the brassy chick is very feminist even if she is not herself espousing feminist ideas.   

Comments

[Andie D.]

My sister is a brassy chick, and I look up to her for the same reasons as you. I've learned a lot from her, and owe a lot of my strength to her example. I am thankful that I have the natural diplomacy though, as I've seen her get burned a few times for leading with her mouth.

[norbizness]

Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt... at least outside of trial settings. I think that Death put it best in Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life:

"Shut up! Shut up, you American. You always talk, you Americans. You talk and you talk and say 'let me tell you something' and 'I just wanna say this'. Well, you're dead now, so shut up!"

And Coyote Ugly bars really are loathsome hellholes of idiocy; if it's her brassiness that got that s*it (oops, almost forgot) done, then boo on that. Efficiency in promulgating stupidity through some measure of loudness and charisma is not an admirable character trait.

[The Happy Feminist]

But I don't think her goal is to promote anything in particular. I think her goal is to make money, and she seems to be doing that quite well as far as I can tell.

And I will agree that I have absolutely zero desire to actually go to Coyote Ugly. I prefer to just get quietly drunk on my bar stool. I don't need my bartender to entertain me.

[norbizness]

OK, another example, much like the one you gave at the end: Phyllis Schlafly is brassy. She is extremely outspoken in a desire to roll back economic and reproductive autonomy for tens of millions of women. I think admiration should probably comes from brassiness + something else.

[The Happy Feminist]

Oh, I agree. Brassiness isn't the end all and be all. But there is something to admire (and an ironic feminist point to be made) in the examples of women like Schlafly and Coulter, even if their politics are loathsome and I hate what they stand for.

[Sydney]

Brassiness without that "something else" is just obnoxiousness. I really admire women who appear self assured, who know what they want, and know how to get it. I suspect that there may be some natural-diplomacy-self hiding beneath the brassiness in many cases that you just don't see. If there wasn't, something tells me that despite their drive and brassiness, they would never have gotten anywhere.

[TangoMan]

Because whatever it is that makes them brassy, I don't have it.

Personalty types are just another manifestation of The Bell Curve. Note:

The largest sex diff in personality is in the Big Five factor called Agreeableness [1], showing a diff in the means (not just variance) of 1 SD across cultures, where females are more Agreeable than males. Unlike being a guidance counselor, scientific work requires a more Disagreeable personality (which will shock anyone who's actually intereacted with scientists in any field, or with science bloggers for that matter). You have to be comfortable with easily hurting other people's feelings, vigorously defending yourself when attacked, and so on (although if you're extremely Disagreeable, you won't benefit from criticism).

Scientific work also requires a more Introverted personality; males are more likely to be Introverted (again, a shock to those who just landed from Mars). And on and on. Therefore, we expect the sex differences in who's on the faculty of science depts at elite universities to be even more skewed than if it were the result of a single normally distributed trait like g.

That's hard enough for most (but not all) liberal intellectuals to live with. The exciting work is showing that such differences are not purely arbitrary social constructions that could be altered tomorrow if the will were there, nor solely the result of environmental insults like poor nutrition or macho Martians targeting human females w/ ray guns. No one wants to hear that the surest way to produce a female scientist (compared to alternative ways) is to selectively mate two top scientists.

[Scott Lemieux]

Brassy chicks certainly can't be hommaged enough for my liking...

[Sydney]

TM, I am shocked, SHOCKED, that you would ever say that scientists were disagreeable.

Seriously, that's the first time I've heard someone argue that it was the genetically based female personality (rather than a lack of intelligence or talent) that is the basis for the lack of women in science. So what do you think came first, TM, the preference for agreeable, extroverted women in society, or the genetics?

I went to a talk about 2 years ago of a guy at UCSD (I think) who was looking at behavioral traits like agressiveness in spiders. Lo and behold, the bell curve appeared again (pesky population genetics!). Aparently, being a really voracious spider is good because you get to eat a lot. But if you're too voracious you eat the male before he can have sex with you. I really enjoyed this talk.

[The Happy Feminist]

Of course, I know I have portrayed myself as very agreeable, but my husband uh disagrees.

In fact, we have had ferocious arguments over whether I am agreeable, in which I have absolutely insisted that I am extremely agreeable. I will brook no contradiction on this point!