The term “bitch” offends me, and it should offend you, too.
Bitch is a derogatory term, an insult. It’s not a badge of honor. It’s not cute. And it sure as hell isn’t empowering. It is a sexist term, meant to put women down. A bitch is a dog, and as much as I love dogs, I don’t think the term was ever intended to be used as a compliment.
BITCH. A she dog, or doggess; the most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman, even more provoking than that of whore. ["Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," 1811]
Bitch is just one of the many animal-related terms used to denigrate or objectify women: bitch, chick, pussy, tail, barracuda, shrew, cow…I’m sure there are others.
I enjoy Bitch magazine but dislike the title. I don’t think “reclaiming” or attempting to redefine negative words as positive ones ever works. If anything, I think using the word “bitch” as a magazine title only furthers the stereotype that feminists are angry, irrational creatures to be shunned and ignored. (Note to self: Kiss your dream of writing for Bitch magazine goodbye.)
The word “bitch” is tossed about so nonchalantly theses days on T.V., in movies, and in music—and I’m not singling out hip-hop here, it’s everywhere.
What message(s) are we sending our girls? That it’s not OK to be angry? Or to have a bad day? That women are nameless, interchangeable, and disposable?
I see this trend in my everyday life as well. On Facebook, I’m noticing more photos posted, by men and women, with captions like, “Shopping with my bitches” or “My best bitches.” Sometimes, the word “bitch” is followed with a heart or a smiley face, just to let the rest of us know they mean bitch in the nicest possible sense of the word. Please.
Repeat after me: Bitch is not a synonym for woman.
I vow to eliminate this word from my vocabulary (future rants exempted, of course), and I hope you’ll join me.
Violence against women is at an all-time high. Sexist language sends the message that women are less then fully human, and can help perpetuate violence.
From here on out, let’s all agree to call female adult human beings by the appropriate term: woman. Are you with me?
Additional reading:
Isn’t it Time Women Stopped Calling Each Other ‘Bitch?’ by Dori Hartley on ParentDish
Calling Yourself “Bitch” is NOT Empowerment, by Kristen King on Kristenking.com
Photo by Discofiasko on Flickr
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I’m with you! Although I am guilty of calling adult females “girls”. I say it, know it’s not appropriate, and then say it again…
Yes, that’s another one I’ve been thinking about. I used Girl in that sense in the name of my own blog even, so that makes things tricky.
I don’t like when women refer to each other as bitches in a friendly way, either. But what if you do mean it as an insult (as I did earlier today in a post)?
Well, typically bitch is used to insult women who display behavior that wouldn’t be considered negative in a man. I’m not a fan of the word, especially when used to insult women. I think something gender-neutral like “jerk” or “asshole” works just as well.
I think we could take a poll on that definition. I’m not so sure that’s how everyone is defining it.
I use the word bitch…but more often as a verb. A disturbing trend I am dealing with is the use of the word by my son’s male classmates to refer to other boys who aren’t measuring up in terms of the cultural male stereotype. As for the word “woman” — yep, that’s what we are. When feeling playful I sometimes like to use the word “gal” which is, to my mind, the cognate of “guy” and as such is a term that means female but in a kind of laid-back way.
Even though the definition may have evolved, I still don’t like the word because of its history.
Amen!!! That one is so amazingly stupid – I cannot believe any female – ANY female – thinks it is remotely OK to use that term outside of meaning a girl dog!! I’ve said before I am rather thick skinned and do not take offense (i.e.take idiots seriously!) when someone classifies me one way or another, but bitch is a word that just needs to go away.
I love Bitch magazine, but I don’t use the word in any other context— not even for female dogs.
I’m just as bothered by “bitching,” the verb; to me, it demeans women who complain AND characterizes complaining as something women do and therefore beneath men.
While we’re talkin’ linguistics, I don’t refer to women as “girls”, and it bugs me to be addressed with “hey guys!” since I am not a male—- if you walked into mixed company and said “hey gals!” every man present would protest. I think there’s a reason “guys” can mean “people,” but “gals” cannot. Likewise, I don’t love being called “dude”.
If a bunch of men find no problem with being known casually as ‘lads’ or ‘guys’ (a term I find slightly offensive but more so applied to females since it suggests that only males really exist) then casual reference women as ‘girls’ is no different. It’s suggesting the same kind of respectful friendliness instead of keeping them at arm’s length with the formality of ‘women’. We don’t really want to go back to both sexes feeling free to be casual with men but having to keep women on a pedestal of ‘Take a letter, Miss Jones’ – do we?
‘Bitch’ is a different matter entirely, traditionally reserved for a particular kind of woman, male equivalent ‘bastard’: somebody who’d do you down just for the sake of it, nothing to do with ‘angry’ as much as just plain malevolent. OK, under the right circumstance a man might greet a mate with “What’ll you have, you old bastard?” (especially Australians), so it’s conceivable that one woman might greet another with “Haven’t seen you for months, where you been, ya bitch?” (women don’t call each other ‘old’ either!) but on the whole, neither is a term anybody wants to hear about or at themself.
The usage of it that has spread from rap culture seems to be on a par with ‘Nigga’ that “we can say it because we are it but you can’t” – all very childish, looking for shock value. I imagine that some women will soon be calling themselves ‘sluts’ in the hope of shocking men without realising that the porn industry has overused the word so much that it has weakened to little more than ‘sexually assertive female’
LANGUAGE IS SEXIST. There are too many demeaning and degrading words to count and without people doing much about it. As I’ve looked up the dictionary for words to mean for either sex and equal-sounding words and equal-definitions for both sexes (Without much avail, as language isn’t neutral, but should be.), I’ve noticed words are probably chosen for how it sounds and looks and is not coincidental. Just notice of all existing words, how the word ‘bitch,’ seems to translate so easily in the context its often in as not only a person who’s a slave, but a person who never had any rights at all and never will (Compare society’s reactions of men and women’s immoral acts of a similiar or EXACT crime.).
I strongly believe if a word sounds bad enough to give offence (enough offense to refuse to refer to my female dog that), more so that just its apparent definition, you can’t “reclaim” them or make them mean something good just to mean something good. I believe when it comes to words that are so outright offensive-sounding to refer to only females as such as bitch, pussy, tail, and shrew, for instance, unless you neutralize them by making them mean the same for both sexes, it only lets the injustice be justified!
Women shouldn’t be afraid to be called words that sound offensive like ‘bitch,’ but shouldn’t accept or tolerate it either.
When I see both men and women refer to womankind in such a disrespecting way, it only reveals the hatefulness and dominance men feel about women and the self-hate and lack of respect those women feel for themselves and their own kind.
Yes, Ash. I completely agree about the whole “reclaiming” thing. I don’t think it works. That said, I do realize that words’ connotations change over time (for example, the word “terrific” by its original definition means terrifying or frightening). In general, I don’t believe most people spend a lot of time thinking about language and how it affects us. I, too, wish the English language were more gender-neutral, and wonder if there is a way we can help shape it in that direction.
I understand the whole connotations thing and agree some words with once bad definitions can mean something good later on. It’s just that I don’t believe ALL (Heck, Most) words can be Redeemed like that. And the words I’m talking about are the ones used to refer to women.
We have to realize that society may have modernized, with changed legal policies for criminals, for both sexes for committing similiar or the same crimes, but language was created in a time when sexism was at an all-time high and acceptance, leaving a lot to be changed and corrected. With today’s language, women are still being punished more severely than men, just like they were centuries ago, it’s just subtler now.
…
My older sisters who I couldn’t even call feminists without choking with disgust of that fat lie with how they use Language to talk about womankind DAILY, only seem to give backing of that failed attempt of the act of “reclaiming.” Now, unfortunately, I see how their attitudes of themselves translate to my younger brother of what women “are.”
Try making Slut, whore, bitch, hoe, skank, cougar, and etc. mean a positive identity for women along with a greater animosity for them after their wrongs compared to men? It just doesn’t work, and clouds people’s moral compasses, with more and more people who alarmingly believe they’re being “morally just,” with what is just plain sexist ideals.
The longer I’m in this world, the more I’m starting to think that maybe people are AWARE of how Language affects women, but Lack the Empathy for women and their ‘forced slave’ position in society. I can’t go anywhere without sexism, and I don’t believe I’m noticing it just because I’m a feminist.
…
I think we need to have a “language revolution,” it’s not just the physical offenses women have been put through that need to be fought against, but the emotional aspect of words’ offence.
And by “language revolution,” I mean disregarding and unrecognizing any language that only exists to disrespect any form of human life, and not just in the case of sexism. Also, by maybe doing what every language scholar would hate by trying to build our own ‘language,’ by creating a true neutral language, revising some already existing words by making them equal for everyone, and creating new words that result in equality. When it comes down to it, you want Equality, you make Equality, and I believe making language neutral and equal is the key.
I completely agree. I really don’t hear any terms for guys really only female terms. Well you can call a guy a ‘bastard’ but that’s about all the terms for guys. Not that I would use them though ..I don’t curse. :/ I really wish people would consider the definition of things.
With the term ‘girls’ it doesn’t seem much of a threat to me. :S