aggressive

aggressive and its more negative synonym "pushy" are often used disparagingly of women, Black women and women of color, and Jews. According to the One Archives Foundation, the term originated “within communities of color to describe a masculine lesbian.” Deborah Tannen (Gender and Discourse ) suggests that the "stereotype of Jews as aggressive and pushy results in part from differences in conversational style." In the lead opinion in the court case of a woman who failed to be named a partner because she was considered too aggressive, Walter Brennan wrote, "An employer who objects to aggressiveness in women but whose positions require this trait places women in an intolerable and impermissible Catch-22: out of a job if they behave aggressively and out of a job if they don't." Pollster Celinda Lake asked observers to rate women and men reading the same text at identical decibel levels. Invariably the women were described as louder, more aggressive, and shrill. Of a related term, actor Marlo Thomas says, "A man has to be Joe McCarthy to be called ruthless. All a woman has to do is put you on hold." See also feisty.