To be a Womanist, means that I don’t get to sidestep the dog doo in the middle of the sidewalk. Today’s big steamy pile is a word. The B-word. A word every bit as ugly, devastating, and horrid as the N-word. The word bitch and nigger joust for first place in my mind in terms of the amount of damage they do. Neither one wins. They both tear at my soul. I’ve learned to cope with the racial slur in ways that allow me to breath. Bitch…not so much.

 Let’s begin with the etymology of the word:

 O.E. bicce, probably from O.N. bikkjuna "female of the dog" (also fox, wolf, and occasionally other beasts), of unknown origin. Grimm derives the O.N. word from Lapp pittja, but OED notes that "the converse is equally possible." As a term of contempt applied to women, it dates from c.1400; of a man, c.1500, playfully, in the sense of "dog." In modern (1990s, originally black English) slang, its use with ref. to a man is sexually contemptuous, from the "woman" insult.

 "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]

 The verb meaning "to complain" is at least from 1930, perhaps from the sense in bitchy, perhaps influenced by the verb meaning "to bungle, spoil," which is recorded from 1823. But bitched in this sense seems to echo M.E. bicched "cursed, bad," a general term of opprobrium (e.g. Chaucer's bicched bones "unlucky dice"), which despite the hesitation of OED, seems to be a derivative of bitch. And cf. the mid-19th century U.S. blackface minstrel song verse about women's rights movement:

 When woman's rights is stirred a bit

De first reform she bitches on

Is how she can wid least delay

Just draw a pair ob britches on.   From Etymonline

 This single syllable word from its first usage had no purpose other than to name females in a derogatory way. Indeed, some breeders consider female dogs more difficult to deal with in the breeding process because they are only receptive during estrus, while male dogs are ready to copulate anytime. There are arguments that the first use of the term bitch to describe women came as a slang reference to female dogs in heat. Hence, any woman who was perceived as outwardly sexual, or sensual was called a bitch. The connection between the difficulty of breeding female dogs, i.e. the perception that female = bad can be made as well. More often bitch is used to describe a woman who is treacherous, mean, spiteful, shrewish, and obstinate. Women who speak loudly are bitches. Women who are opinionated are bitches. Women who disdain traditional gender roles are bitches. Women who do not conform are bitches.

 Any behavior that is negative in a woman is attributed to this catch-all term. If a woman is, in fact, conniving, petty, dishonest, and heartless, the fact that those same attributes are found in men has little meaning. Men who display these traits are just men who are that way.

 To those who attribute bitchiness to men as well, I reply that it is the inherent femaleness of the term bitch that makes it an insult to men.  When men are called bitches, it is an insult to their maleness, as though being female is not only abhorrent, but it is a punishment. Sissy, pussy, wuss, wimp, all denote a lack of maleness, especially pussy, which is a slang term used to describe a woman’s vagina. Call a man a bitch, and you have called him a woman. Call him a woman, and you have called him powerless and worthless.

 In this day of Third Wave Feminism, bitch is a word that keeps us standing still in the shadows of oppression. In the blogosphere women like Kristin King find no redemption in the reclaiming of this word:

 You can talk to me about reclaiming words until you’re blue in the face and I still don’t buy it. The swastika used to be a good luck symbol and a religious image until Hitler used it to represent the Nazi party. Should I wear clothes with swastikas on them and just assure horrified passersby that I’m reclaiming it? Should I start calling black people “niggas” because I’m reclaiming “nigger”? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

 How about teaching people respect instead? How about not demeaning your fellow women by using offensive terms “to empower them”?

 Shanelle Matthews writes eloquently of her experience in a college classroom, in which her male, 50-ish professor repeatedly refers to the character of Mina Harker as played by Winona Ryder in the movie Dracula as a bitch. She further comments on Bitch magazine’s cultural response of reclaiming the word as a risk that often backfires for women.

 I agree and especially for women of color, this risk does often backfire with horrendous results. The music culture of hip-hop and rap, while changing on some fronts, has continued to reinforce the image of women as bitches, good only for sex at best, and a drain on a playa’s time, money, and life at worst. From the perspective of a Womanist, bitch is one of those words that injures us all. It digs at the spirit of everyone who receives it as an insult. It chips away at the spirit of those who fling it from their lips as an insult or an affirmation. Women who interchangeably call themselves bitches and insult folks with the term are engaging in the most mixed up kind of self-hatred.

 The ubiquity of the word makes it all the more insidious. Where insults like nigger still hold a foundation of social unacceptability, the word bitch has become a part of popular culture in disturbing ways. Network television has seen a phenomenal increase in the use of the word. This from an article in the NY Times on the changing landscape of language on Television:

 The use of the word, “bitch,” for example, tripled in the last decade alone, growing to 1,277 uses on 685 shows in 2007 from 431 uses on 103 prime-time episodes in 1998.

 Kat Williams is an African American comedian who uses Mother Wit to lay down some pointed social commentary on Black Folks and American Culture at large. Have you ever had an experience where you laugh and wince at the same time? Watching his stand-up will do this for you. I wince and laugh at the truth in his comedy. I also inwardly cringe at his use of the word bitch, which he uses like a liberal salting in his stew of anecdotes and scenarios. 

While watching The Pimp Chronicles, Part. I on the Comedy channel, the station saw fit to bleep every instance of nigger, motherfucker, and fuck, but they let the word bitch flow like cheap wine. Ironic that while he routinely refers to women as bitches, he utilizes a deeply female archetype in his humor. Mother Wit is that sharp-tongued wisdom that we get from our mothers and it often makes us laugh, as it is intended to do, but it also brings home the message our mothers were trying to get across. While I could appreciate his use of Mother Wit, his appraisal of women, “…I’m only calling you bitches ‘cause I don’t know your name personally, hollah if you hear me…”, left me shaking my head even as I laughed.

 Context is important, but the long nasty history of the word puts it in a category of language that should not be forgotten, but also should not be a part of our everyday language. Call me old school, call me dated, call me un-feminist and I will not be offended. The Womanist in me, which values a respect for Earth Mother as a living breathing being just won’t let me reclaim a word that negates all that She is. Perhaps in another go-round I will be in a male body and I will learn the lessons of that incarnation and existence. This time I am female and this part of Alice Walker’s definition is a part of who I am:

 2. Also:   …Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female.  Not a separatist, except periodically, for health.  Traditionally universalist, as in: "Mama, why are we brown, pink, and yellow, and our cousins are white, beige, and black?" Ans.: "Well, you know the colored race is just like a flower garden, with every color flower represented." Traditionally capable, as in: "Mama, I'm walking to Canada and I'm taking you and a bunch of other slaves with me." Reply: "It wouldn't be the first time.  Loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves herself. Regardless.

 So I recoil at the word bitch, a word that negates me and says that being woman is not a desirable thing to be. A woman may be malicious, dishonest, hateful, and mean and that is never acceptable. A woman may be opinionated, difficult, aggressive, assertive, and outspoken and that may or not be acceptable depending on when, where, how, and who she is dealing with at the time. Bitch does not apply in either case. Character flaws or strengths are not dependent on what body into which we have been born. When I hear a man use the term bitch, it  tells me that he either does not understand the depth of what he is actually saying or he really does see women as…less. When I hear women use the term, I want to shake them awake into the reality that there are some things that do not need reclaiming. Like the river, we need to find a path around the rocks so that we can flow free. We don’t need the word bitch to feel empowered. Rather it is our resolve to leave behind that which no longer has relevance that empowers us.