BITCH-SPEAK

Loving the bitch word! I've been a motherfucking bitch, a mean bitch, a hot bitch, a cold bitch, a cheeky bitch, a slut bitch, a lying bitch etc etc etc. Well, for all you name calling bitches, there is nothing wrong with being a female dog, fox, wolf or otter. Otter? For hundreds of years the b-word has insulted women considered belligerent, unreasonable, malicious, control freaks, rudely intrusive or aggressive. On the positive side, it suggests an oversexed woman (whatever that means) comparable to a dog-on-heat. Those who find this threatening and can't keep it up, are more likely to use it pejoratively. Since the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries its slang meaning has always referred to the sexual behaviour of women that confronted the sexual morals and oppression of the time. The 1920's saw the birth of the new sassy bitch . By the 1930's, thanks to Ernest Hemingway, bitches moved towards 'edginess', 'grit' and 'ferocity' reflecting the new found freedoms of women. By the 1960's feminists were reclaiming and re-meaning it. In 1968, The Bitch Manifesto by feminist lawyer, Jo Freeman, stated...

"A Bitch takes shit from no one. You may not like her, but you cannot ignore her....[Bitches] have loud voices and often use them. Bitches are not pretty....Bitches seek their identity strictly thru themselves and what they do. They are subjects, not objects...Often they do dominate other people when roles are not available to them which more creatively sublimate their energies and utilize their capabilities. More often they are accused of domineering when doing what would be considered natural by a man."

These days men can be lady dogs too, life's a bitch and the plumber calls my kitchen tap a bitch,. I'm waiting for the Bitch chocolate. But the term bitch is still considered offensive. According to linguist Deborah Tannen, "Bitch is the most contemptible thing you can say about a woman. Save perhaps the four-letter C word." Depends who's saying it. When my man-dog ex fired it at me, it was hurtful. But Beyonce and Rihanna (and me and my sisters) can call us bad bitches, just as blacks can use the N-word. Whites can't. Want the bitch lowdown? Just be your own strong, over-sexed, over-there, under-sexed, under-the-table, over-the-hills, whip-crackin', whatever-you-wannabe-bitch.