How Caitlyn C's It

Per usual, I’m about two years late to hop on the “Yellowstone” train (not to be confused with the train station…). But like others, I’ve developed a fascination and small crush on Beth Dutton, the craziest woman on television.

Beth has a lot of trauma, and her personality is almost entirely credited to the relationship and death of her mother. If you remove Yellowstone and her mother’s death, she embodies the reverse of feminism.

Powerful women in charge are rare, but its a growing number. Women held 31% of senior management roles in 2021, a record-high. While the number is growing, the stigmatization of powerful women being coldhearted is very much prevalent.

There is an episode in “Modern Family” (also a binge-worthy show) where the “stereotypical housewife” Claire embodies the persona of a white, powerful male, and flips the script of a “traditional” household where the housewife is under-appreciated and ignored, and the male is overly admired.

I see the same in Beth Dutton. It’s a cautionary tale to powerful women of flipping the script too hard. She weaponizes sex and comes off as a heartless, cold woman who has lost nearly all connection to her femininity.

Being a woman should be an honor. We should cherish the aspects of women that differentiate them from men, not weaponize them or to erase them.

Women are special because we can do things no man can’t and do them with fluttering eyelashes and silky hair. We are graceful yet resilient. We are kind yet firm. We are simple yet incredibly complex. Women give birth to entire new lives and do it with grace and beauty.

Beth is the result of losing that feminity to be more like men. This isn’t equality. Equality isn’t assimilation to the other sex but having two sexes (not to be confused with genders) that have celebrated differences with the same opportunities. Beth Dutton is no better than a man. She assimilated to the men around her to keep up, losing her feminine side in the process.

I’m not saying Beth acts or looks like a man, but she is overcompensating to the point that her feminine features aren’t treated as something to celebrate but rather something to fear. Her sexuality is a weapon, and when she cries, it means others should fear her or fear the thing that scares her because what in the world could scare “that” kind of woman?

Her character plays into the stereotype that all strong women have a history of deep trauma (aka mommy issues) and they self-soothe with sex, cigarettes and a heavy pour.

She leads with violence, and that is precisely what separates men from women. Women have the ability to lead through nurturing and compassion, and that is what truly makes the best leader. Because it is almost never the loudest voice that is heard but the most compassionate one.

Let me know what you think about Beth (or just Yellowstone in general because I’m hooked).