The first time I saw the words “ms. chintha is a bitch” inked on to walls, I was 29 years old. I had been teaching for a mere four years, but felt so veteran already because I had stopped crying when fights happened in or near my classroom among students. Up until my fourth year, I blamed myself for not creating a safe enough space for my students to not fight. I didn’t prevent the fight from starting. I didn’t say the right thing. It was always my fault. I was raised to be a girl in our society which meant that experiencing anger meant I had to fix it. Anger meant, my fault. Anger meant unladylike. Anger meant aggressive. An angry girl was not a good little girl.

But that day, after school, when I happened to walk into the girls restroom looking for a student to find, instead, the script clearly lettered with a black sharpie on the wall between two mirrors, I giggled. Not the angry type of giggle, but the “look my female students are displaying anger” type-of-giggle; the I am kinda proud of them, type-of-giggle. I knew I was going to report it, but I took a moment with the words: ms. chintha is a bitch. I mean, yeah at times I am, and at twenty-nine it didn’t feel like the insult it used to be. I took a brief moment in this bathroom to release a deep exhale of my past.

As a child, I was called a selfish bitch by my family a lot. “Aggressive, selfish, bitch.” I was often called one when I said “no” to doing something for someone else or doing something for myself instead of considering another person first. At that time, I was really conflicted by these words because they often came when I angrily proclaimed what I was going to do for myself or was not going to do for someone else. Nowadays though, my mom often tells me that I was an independent baby from birth and how she reveres it, but back then I was selfish; I was a bitch. Not many people are used to the type of “bravery” or “bitchhood” I presented and present even now, because women, more than that women of color, should know their place in society. Smile. Say yes in public and bitch, show anger, only behind closed doors. This has never been my way and as a child, I really thought there was something wrong with me because I said no sometimes or chose myself instead of others. I often felt like I was not girl enough; not in my family, and not in the world.

Being a bitch has become my badge of honor from my teenage years into adulthood, and even as a teacher. I do what I say and say what I mean. Even when it makes others uncomfortable and sometimes angry. My anger is my solace. She helps me understand myself, my family, my friends, the world. My anger is a necessary, productive avenue that frees me from the bottled up definition of womanhood.

Our summer issue: Furious Femme is about embracing this beautiful anger that women hold and harnessing its power by saying it out loud: we are raging, furious, angry women. In a time when everywhere I look, injustice rises, threatening love and hope, I want our zine to be a space of truth and power, where the words of these women, these badass bitches, bring you comfort and faith in our society. Finally, I wish for you, too, to be aggressive, selfish, bitches in this world.