My women friends and I hate being called “Queen”. Because often times “Queen” is a way in which sexist men divide women into two categories: one category affords women respect, while the other category dehumanizes and denies women respect. For many sexists, being a human is not enough reason to respect women. Women are thus divided into either “Queens” or “whores/bitches”. Queens receive patronizing, shallow “nice” treatment, while hoes are hit with demeaning and hostile treatment. Interestingly enough, women who anger men quickly go from a “Queen” classification to the more hostile “bitch” or “hoes”. Therefore, you’re a Queen only, and only if, you comply by men’s arbitrary rules of acceptable behavior.

1. I Don’t Need To Pretend To Be Royalty To Feel Good About Myself

I don’t want any of this baggage. There is no need to pretend that I am royalty. Men who call women “Queens” often buy into monarchy based hierarchies as a means of finding worth. The world is largely comprised of democracies and it is silly to hold onto old world orders as a means of feeling good about ourselves.

You are not a King, and I am not a Queen. (Even if you are from a royal family, no one gives a fuck except for the people in the village you may rule one day).

I feel absolutely great about myself, my existence, my worth, and my value on this earth without faking royalty. 

2. I reject the Notion That Only Queens/Kings Deserve Respect, Peasants Matter Too

In monarchy based hierarchies, everyone scrambles to be a Queen as peasants are exploited and treated as undeserving of worth.

Newsflash: we are not in a monarchy anymore, in a democracy every human is supposed to be afforded worth and value, not the just the Queens, Kings, Aristocrats and whomever else.

Calling women Queens as a means of affording women some benevolent form of respect reinforces unjust monarchy-based hierarchies that award some humans reverence, and others disrespect. The uncomfortable truth is that, monarchies SUCKED. Royal families used God, Goddess, Higher Entities to justify their ruling positions. The ruled population did not get an input as to who should rule. Kings and Queens also utilized their power to hoard wealth while exploiting farmers, laborers, and other “peasants” of the land who lived in squalor.

In this modern day, democracies are supposed to rectify archaic systems of dominance. I personally, in all my pro-equality awesomeness, am not flattered because men designate me as a Queen, or Empress or some sort of exploitative figurehead. This “compliment” also rings hollow, as women have not even been granted equal access to contemporary political systems of power.

Not everyday calling random women “Queen”, sometimes fight for women to be parliamentarians and presidents.

3. Queen is Just Part Of the Good Girl vs. Bad Girl Binary Lens That Women Are Reduced To

It is damn near impossible for men to be able to understand women as sexual human beings, who are also morally worthy.

Our society does not teach men to complicate women’s existence. Women are layered, complex, multi-faceted people and yet for most of our lives we are divided into “good girl” or “bad girl” as determined by our sexual history.

To be a woman is for your sexual lives to determine your worth as a human being.

Often times when men use “Queen” they are participating in a binary way of viewing women that arbitrarily affords some women respect, and disrespects others women. In essence, I reject the category Queen because I know that I am often afforded benevolent sexism because of my class privilege, education level, and traits of respectability. I am called Queen, to justify the attack of other women who are called “Hoes”.

Again women deserve neither. Human as a category is good enough to describe women.

4. Queens are Positioned Inherently Below Kings

Presidents are presidents. Prime minsters are prime ministers. Parliamentarians are parliamentarians. But in feudal monarchies, men ruled because they were men. And Kings were defacto positioned above Queens, as a function of gender.

I am not a Queen to some delusional man who believes himself to be a King. We are Equal.