(from salon.com)

Bitch Ph.D. has announced a "new feminist phrase for the lexicon." Enough with "balls" -- as in, "Do you have the balls for that?" -- and its lame, reductive lady stand-in, "ovaries!" Instead, how about ...

"Do you have the skirt for that?"

Variations include: "She's really got the skirt for that," "You haven't got the skirt for that," "That takes a lot of [or, the right kind of] skirt" and so on.

The expression doesn't necessarily read well for non-femmes, but the skirt-as-butch-too sense of it is part of the point. And we do have the (arguably) bigender "huevos" already in place. But "got skirt?" does provide an especially nice counterpoint to the newish guy phrase "Take off the skirt," which basically means, "Cowboy up, douchebag." (Except when the reference is to this skirt.)

So yeah, I think I'm gonna add it to my phrase book. You?

-- Lynn Harris


While I understand the rationale behind the phrase; taking the "balls" away from the guys and turning it into an empowering phrase, it still just doesn't sit right with me. I think in trying to give some acknowledgement to females it does the one thing a lot of feminists hate...reduces us to a gender.

And yes, I do consider myself a feminist. I am a feminist who likes to wear dresses and makeup and loves pink and everything about being a girl. Feminism is about equality and the power to choose what you want without any gender restrictions.

I choose pink.