A few years ago, I was called a bitch in the workplace. It was during a meeting when I respectfully disagreed with a coworker, and then offered my own ideas and suggestions. In response, he shook his head and mumbled under his breath.
I was shocked. Then I felt hurt, which was quickly followed by anger. Calling someone a bitch in the workplace is unprofessional. It’s unacceptable. It’s sexist. No one else called him out on his behavior, so I did. To be honest, though, this wasn’t the first time I’d been called a bitch, nor would it be the last. There are some who might say I’m the perfect person to write this book.
Most women don’t like to openly admit to being called a bitch, because society has taught us that this is a shameful character flaw. But then I’ve never met a woman who hasn’t been called a bitch, more times than she can remember, and for many different reasons. A woman is branded a bitch for being too assertive, too powerful, too opinionated, or too whatever. She might be a bitch if she’s considered to be mean, spiteful, or a gossip. She’s a bitch if she refuses to smile when a man orders her to do so, or when she rejects his sexual advances. (As we’ll see, the word “bitch” often says more about the person using the word.) She is labeled a bitch when she’s “hormonal,” “emotional,” or “difficult.” Sometimes a woman is called a bitch – just because. Over time, bitch has become a generalized term of abuse for women. Sure, there are lots of slurs for men too, from bastard to asshole, but there’s no true male counterpart for bitch.
When leveled against a woman, bitch is a mic drop.
And yet, bitch is so much more than a gendered slur. This is where things get confusing. Bitch is a linguistic chameleon. It began its life as a literal word for a female dog before it became an insult for women. But in a world of basic bitches and boss-ass bitches, perfect bitches and prison bitches, and both good bitches and bad bitches alike, what exactly does the word mean anymore? Bitch is a hardworking, multi-tasker that’s happy to switch from noun to verb to adjective. It can jump from canine to human, and even from female to male. Bitch can shift from a person to a situation or a thing. To some, it’s invariably an insult, to others, it’s a compliment. Bitch is an eclectic word that can be friendly, funny, playful, or sexual. Bitch is used in a positive light when it’s adopted by women to empower themselves. But it has a much darker side too; it can be misogynistic, abusive, and violent. Bitch is rich and complex in meaning, and with so many semantic nuances, we must always look to its context to understand what’s intended.
Bitch is everywhere. It’s found across the Anglosphere. It’s also a near-universal word that’s spoken the world over. Equivalents of bitch are found in numerous other cultures, countries, and languages, from Arabic to Zulu, and it’s often borrowed straight from English. (For those who speak foreign languages, it can be fashionable to insult people in English.) Bitch is trendy, but it can also be taboo. Some people say it all the time, for others, the word never passes their lips. What’s for certain is that everyone has a strong opinion about it. Bitch is a high-caliber word, and as with any weapon, it should be used with caution and awareness.
Bitch is a powerful word.
Some people think that the phonology of bitch, that is, the very sound of the word, lends itself to its potency. There’s no doubt that it’s a satisfying word to say, erupting with a furious b- followed by a forceful -itch, which is as close to spitting as you can get while still actually speaking. Author Charles Panati says, “Some theorize that its explosive sound made it ideal for firing off as a slur. The psycholinguistics of all curse words require that they carry maximal energy on minimal sound, a spiked waveform characteristic of consonants. This gives the word energetic punch, making it explosive.”1 While bitch might be fun to say, it can be much less fun to hear. The word can make the hair on the back of your neck bristle. Being called a bitch – in a bad way – is a personal affront, akin to having a glass of wine thrown in your face. It can mean many things, but it’s first and foremost an insult. And it’s been an insult for almost as long as it’s been a word for a female dog.
Bitch is old; even older than fuck and cunt. In fact, the word has been around for over a millennium. For some historical background, bitch existed back in the Dark Ages; around the time the epic poem Beowulf was written, during the days of the Holy Roman Empire, and just before William of Normandy was crowned King of England following the Battle of Hastings. In terms of language, bitch dates back to Old English or Anglo-Saxon, the ancestor of the English we speak today.2 Many words that existed back then didn’t make it into our modern version of the language.3 For example, Old English ymbsittend meant “near-sitting,” or those people living nearby.4 It makes an appearance in Beowulf, referring to Danish king Hrothgar’s hostile neighbors, although ymbsittend is now a dead word. Some linguists estimate that as much as eighty percent of the vocabulary of Old English was lost by the end of the Middle English period, right around the time of the death of Chaucer. But bitch lived on, broadening from its original meaning to its many modern ones. Remarkably, bitch has stood the test of time. It’s outlasted contemporaneous slurs for women like shrew, scold, harlot, and others favored by Shakespeare. Perhaps the enduring popularity of bitch lies in its capacity to continually shape-shift in order to keep up with the times.
The story of bitch is not as simple and straightforward as you might think. Its journey is full of unexpected twists and turns. Obviously, it’s complicated and interesting enough to be the subject of an entire book. And within these pages, we explore bitch in all of its elaborate guises. We start by tracing its lineage. Bitch boasts an impressive pedigree. (Excuse the pun.) Over one thousand years ago, it was originally a word for a “female dog,” and later, by extension, any female of the canine kind. As mentioned, bitch is an Old English word, but it was originally spelled as bicce. This spelling looks strange to modern eyes, although over time, the word morphed into the form that we recognize so well today. Bitch then expanded in meaning. It metamorphosed into a slur for a promiscuous or sensual woman, a metaphorical extension of the behavior of a “bitch in heat.”5 This grew into a generalized insult for women, and surprisingly, around the same time it also became an insult for men. Over the centuries, bitch branched off in many different directions. Most of these meanings have long since died out, some are still around today, while many more have been created along the way.
When people hear the word “bitch” nowadays, they don’t usually think about dogs, unless they’re breeders or veterinarians. Of all the meanings in the present day, the most salient sense of bitch is a “bad woman.” She is frequently described as annoying, mean, malicious, difficult or, as the dictionaries put it so vaguely, she’s an “unpleasant woman.” Bitch has a long history of association with women, but the word’s status as a gendered slur was solidified by the emergence of feminism. Bitch became a backlash against women seeking equal rights and opportunities in society. But in response, there was pushback when feminists committed an act of rebellion, righteously reclaiming the hateful word as an empowering one, much the same way that queer and gay have been reappropriated by the LGBTQ+ community. Taking control of the word and turning the definition on its head, bitch got a feminist facelift, becoming a descriptor for an ambitious, independent, and strong woman. But while this breed of bitch might be tough and confident, a man who’s a bitch is instead seen as cowardly or weak. Bitch often reflects traditional gender roles. It’s an emasculating insult; a man who’s deemed to be a bitch is not doing a “good job” of being a man. On the other hand, son of a bitch is often an insult, but it can also conjure up images of badass cowboys, mavericks, and rebels, connoting courage, toughness, and grit.
Bitch has always had a split personality. It can pack a real punch. Alternatively, it can be benign, depending on its environment. In the distant past, bitch was invariably a vicious insult. Francis Grose, who wrote a dictionary of rude words in the eighteenth century, called bitch “The most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman, even more provoking than that of whore.”6 Hundreds of years later, bitch was still viewed as profane, indecent, and obscene. Embroiled in controversy, bitch has been censored or entirely banned in books, newspapers, movies, on television, and in music. Today, much of the misogyny and violence associated with bitch is linked to rap and hip hop, although the word has its musical roots in jazz and the dirty blues. In recent decades, bitch has been unbleeped (for the most part) and it’s gone on to become an everyday word. For some, bitch is so ubiquitous that it’s simply lost its bite. Whatever we think of bitch, it’s a prolific word that has spawned over one hundred different meanings and uses. These modern senses of the word, however, have not replaced older ones, because many continue to coexist in different contexts. And after all these years, bitch still means a female dog.
This book looks at the importance of bitch within broader issues of gender, sexism, and feminism. And it asks some nagging questions. Has bitch truly been rehabilitated to mean something wholly positive? Can bitch be reclaimed … should it be? Does the word promote sexism and misogyny? We look at the ways that history has shaped bitch and how it’s influenced by race, ethnicity, social class, age, gender, and sexuality. We explore real-life examples of usage from centuries-old manuscripts and literature through to modern-day use in music, television, and social media, in order to understand the historical and social factors that drive its use in its myriad contexts. We look at how bitch is used across the different varieties of English in Anglophone countries, and also how it has evolved in other cultures and languages. We delve into what bitch meant in the past, what it means today, and try to predict what it might mean in the future. We will discover why the word has had such an astonishing impact over the centuries. And we’ll uncover what bitch reveals about our attitudes, beliefs, and values – and anything else this provocative word may say about us.
Join me for one bitching journey …
