The Basics of Bitch

Where did basic bitches come from? Cristen and Caroline take an etymological journey through the history, gender politics and reclamation of women's most-used curse word.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You. From how Supports
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline, and today we are going to swear.
It's gonna be the most swearing podcast in the history
of stuff Mom Never told you bitches. That's right, I

(00:25):
got it out of the way. Yeah, get out of
the way. We're not swearing just willy nilly. We're very
specifically swearing, yes, because this episode is all about the
word bitch. And we figured since we have cited Bitch
magazine so many times on the podcast, we can say bitch.
We we have said that, we've done the whole it

(00:47):
rhymes with a witch thing so many times on the podcast.
But you know what where we can say it now? Yeah,
I mean if people can say it on evening television shows, yeah,
then so can we. This is a prime time podcast.
So one of the reasons why we've been thinking about
bitch and bitches, which, by the way, Caroline, I feel

(01:12):
I got a little bit not saying it already so
many times on the podcast. And hey, if anyone wants
to go ahead and make it a drinking game, um,
because we're gonna say bitch a lot. Uh and it
speaking of drinking games, it will be preferable if it's
a pumpkin spice latte drinking game. Because the reason we
have really been thinking about it is because of the

(01:34):
basic bitch. She has brought bitch back into the forefront
of our pop cultural vernacular. But she's not such a
new bitch in town, but now we just have a
label for her. Yeah. I was actually I feel like
I've said this on the podcast before, but I'm so

(01:54):
far removed from like pop culture stuff of the day,
So I actually did not hear the term basic bitch
until I was perusing Twitter one day and somebody pointed
out that Marie Claire had called out Lauren Conrad for
being a basic bitch. And I was like, I what,
I don't know, why is everyone upset? What's happening? So

(02:16):
I went to Marie Claire saw this division because at
first I was like, well, did they just have a
problem with her? Like, what's the issue? It was an
entire section and Marie Claire dedicated to talking about types
of women that they didn't like, and there were all
different types of women who were stupid or you would

(02:36):
want to avoid for various reasons, but the Basic Bitch
was one of them, and Lauren Conrad was their poster child.
I do agree that Lauren Conrad is basic, but it's
kind of funny that l C from Laguna Beach. Um,
if anyone watched that back in high school like I did,
that she is sort of a poster child for the

(02:59):
Basic Bitch. Because basic bitches really got their start in
hip hop. Um it's first mentioned an Urban Dictionary appeared
in and it was more a thing of uh dudes
talking about basic bitches is like women they would not
want to go out with. Maybe they'd have sex with them,

(03:21):
I don't know, but they surely wouldn't tell anyone about them.
But then it was really Crashan in two thousand eleven
with her hit Gucci Gucci that brought Basic Bitch into
the mainstream because she wraps all about how she doesn't
like basic bitches because they just wear what they think
they should, like Gucci. But but I mean, like, I'd
just like to to bring myself up again because I

(03:43):
like how this song came out in twenty eleven Kristen,
and it took until toward the end of for me
to be like, oh, that's a thing, Caroline, I don't
know if that makes you basic or something beyond basic.
I'm a triple B. So today, a few years down
the line, basic bitches could be defined by the people

(04:06):
who use the term basic bitches. Okay, so keep that
in mind as women who enjoy mediocre things, and mediocre
in the sense of you know what these cooler people
who can even label other people as basic would consider mediocre,
such as on trend retail fashions, particularly Starbucks, pumpkin spice lattes,

(04:27):
and just general pop culture, especially Taylor Swift. I mean
she's she's Lauren Conrad. I mean that's sort of that
sort of sums it up. But I gotta say though,
when it comes to the basic bitch, her her calling
cards are the latte is, also yoga pants, people on tops,
the color pink, long hair, enjoying sex in the city,

(04:49):
all of which, Caroline, I'm going to admit right now,
those are things present in my life that I do enjoy. Um. Yeah,
I wear people on p bowl I do, all right.
Do I feel a little strange about it sometimes because
it is like wearing a tiny dress that comes down
to your hip bones. Yes, um, but on top of that.

(05:09):
There's also and this is my favorite aspect of basic
bitchery is Marilyn Roe quotes Marilyn Monroe probably never said
so it just starts to get a little snarky. It's
nearly getting snarky. It's it's super snark. And while I
was surprised at the meanness with which Marie Claire treated
Lauren Conrad, I do appreciate snark. I just, you know,

(05:33):
have to roll my eyes at some of this sometimes.
But Narene Malone over at The Cut was writing about
how this whole basic bitch thing is actually a misogynistic
insult that serves to uphold a male hierarchy of culture,
because when you look at the hallmarks of this basic
bitch character, it's really kind of revolving around an unabashed

(05:58):
femininity in a lot of ways. Yeah, because basic bitches
are proud of loving Taylor Sweft, they all listen to
shake it off without their headphones on, and they won't care.
They won't care about all of the pumpkin spice jokes
that roll around every single fall. Now, um and she
Malone writes, it's all enough to make you wonder if

(06:19):
what people are actually really interested in is permission to
use the noun and not the adjective, because she goes
on to say, I mean, at least a basic bitch,
which is called a bit a bitch, and not have
to qualify it in this kind of way. Um, But
I think it's an interesting jumping off point for this

(06:40):
conversation about bitch because to me, it represents how far
this word has come to the point that there are
even subcategories of bitches and it. Yeah, but even still,
just by virtue of using it, even if it is
kind of in a tongue in she snarky sort of way,

(07:02):
there is always the reservation of well, is this ultimately
just a horribly misogynistic term that is harmful to women? Yeah?
I mean. One commenter on that article from Narine Malone
pointed out that denoting the basic bitch like well, denoting

(07:23):
the super average woman as a basic bitch is the
same thing as calling a super average sports loving guy
a bro. But it's just the equivalent. But of course,
you know, bro isn't using any type of loaded, historically
loaded term like basic bitches. Well, and there's an interesting
thing too about the bro in that I think bros
genuinely embrace their broedom. Yeah, whereas basic bitches, well, I

(07:48):
guess they are coming to the point of embracing being basic.
They might be embracing those things like Taylor Swift and
yoga pants, but are they embracing the term? Do they
know they are basic bitches? According to my YouTube search, Uh,
they do. I think that. I think that some do
where it as a badge of pride, which only adds

(08:09):
another layer of fascination to me for this whole word bitch.
So let's step away from the basic bitch because she's
got to get to yoga anyway. Um This all leads
us up to the question of whether bitch is reclaimable
and empowering because, as I say the top of the podcast,
we often have cited Bitch magazine, which is a super

(08:33):
feminist publication. Um or is it always ultimately insulting? Which
isn't so easy to answer because bitch today has so
many different meanings. It can be in now and it
can be a verb, it can be an adjective. Yeah,
so some of the meanings. I mean, we could just
list these for a while because I feel like it's
it's so multifaceted. But maybe you're a lewd, malicious, or

(08:58):
irritating woman. Maybe you are just a strong, assertive, independent woman,
that's right. Maybe you're using the word for your best
friend as a term of endearment. Maybe you're calling a
man that you consider to be a woos. I don't
like that one. A bitch. Yeah, it could be a verb.
You could be complaining, you know, bitching. Uh, you could

(09:20):
be whimping out, so you're you're gonna bitch out. It
could be your surfing and that is just bitching. That's right.
So where did this word come from? Thankfully we have
a wonderful history or bitch story that really doesn't work. Um.
This is coming from Claire Bliley's excellent essay bitch a History,

(09:44):
with some help from an Encyclopedia of Swearing by Jeffrey
Hughes and fun fact people. It has the longest history
among animal terms as an insult. Yeah. I super enjoyed
reading the history and the evolution of this word. If
you look back into the fourteenth century, it originated as
a slur referencing promiscuous or sensual women. Because of course

(10:08):
it referenced a female dog, a bitch and heat, but
it was more of a male gendered insult at the time. Yeah,
it was likely derived as an insult from the connection
between the goddess Diana or Artemis and her hunting dogs,
and it resulted from a Christian attempt to quote suppress

(10:31):
the sacred feminine and deter pagan followers of Diana. What
I had no idea. Yeah, so many layers before bitch
was bitch. Ancient Greeks and Romans compared women to dogs
and heat as a sexist slur already. And so even
before you had the word for it, women were already
being compared to sort of crazy, out of control, sexually

(10:55):
promiscuous animals golden retrievers. Well, so yeah, and then you
have the old English word for it, which was derived
itself from the Norse word for female dogs. So yeah,
you never quite get away from comparing women too out
of control animals. But you know, we mentioned a second
ago that even though it focused on we have sexually

(11:17):
promiscus women and dogs that were in heat, it was
more of a male focused insult. And that's because of
the term son of a bitch, because that originated to
ridicule the spiritual pagans who worshiped the quote unquote bitch
goddess Diana, who herself sometimes would turn into a dog
along with her dogs, and it evolved to mean a

(11:39):
hateful man. Yeah. Shakespeare actually uses it only as a
male directed insult in his writings. And what worse though,
could a man be than to be compared to a
dirty female animal. Yeah, obviously this man that you're referring
to came from questionable, dirty origins. So so in eighteenth

(12:00):
century it really began to develop into being a female
targeted insult, almost exclusively. So for instance, in five the
Classical Dictionary of the Modern Tongue described it as the
most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman,
even more provoking than that a whole Yeah, and of

(12:21):
course this forces poor dog people to find different names
for their female dog, so you know it's although you know,
dog people still definitely call female dogs bitches. I can
say this a friend of mine, his mother is super
duper dog person. But it forced dog people to use
euphemisms like dog guests, lady dog, she dog, and puppy's mother,

(12:46):
although of course terms like that still infiltrated insults for
women and men who came from questionable origins. Yeah, and
it's in the nineteen twenties Lately writes that the raw
eyes of the use of bitch to insult women really begins,
and she notes that it's probably not a coincidence that

(13:07):
this is happening right around the passage of the nineteenth Amendment,
when women get the vote enfranchise men is happening um So.
For instance, in nineteen fifteen, the use of bitch in
literature is exclusively limited to dog references, and this is
based off a Google in Graham search that Bailey conducted

(13:28):
um so looking at all sorts of books. But then
just fifteen years later, in nineteen thirty, references to bitch
as an insult to women out number the canine references.
It's almost as if people were eager for a way
to really insult women. Yeah, but so if you are

(13:49):
looking at different uses of it in different connotations. In
nineteen fifty seven, that's when we get the surfer slang
bitchen for awesome, because one of our sources, I think
it was the Encyclopedia, was talking about how different slurs
and slang words and curse words have different meanings and
connotations in different cultures, like the same way that bloody
is awful in the UK, but means absolutely nothing here

(14:12):
and all of our British listeners just turned off the
podcast Lets Your pearls Well. In the nineteen sixties there
was a reclamation of bitch along with second wave feminism. UM.
In general, its use was pretty steady until about nineteen
sixty five, when it's used shot up and just for

(14:35):
a little bit of context. The Feminine Mystique by Betty
for Dan was published in nineteen sixty three seminal second
wave text, and it was also the final report of
the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women, which came
out in nineteen sixty five as well. And then three
years later, in nineteen sixty eight, leading second wave feminist

(14:57):
Joe Freeman publishes this in credible document called the Bitch
Manifesto and bitches in all caps because she wants it
to denote an organization that has yet to be developed,
but she really devotes the paper to talking about what
a bitch is. It's an incredible read. I was sort

(15:18):
of blown over by it. Um. She writes. Basically, she's
talking in the context of the idea that that is
so pervasive in our culture that humanity is male, whereas
female as other so basically gender equals female in a
lot of cases. But she writes that bitches refused to serve,
honor or obey anyone. They demand to be fully functioning

(15:40):
human beings, not just shadows. They want to be both
female and human. And one of the things she notes
too in her very detailed description of bitches is how
they tend to make people uncomfortable because of an inherent
androgeny of not being fully female in a sense of

(16:04):
like playing up that feminine gender performance to the inn degree,
while also embracing some of that masculine gender performance in
the sense of being abrasive and assertive and independent. Right. Well, so,
when we get into the nineteen nineties, there is a
further feminist reclamation of the word bitch along with its

(16:25):
use in hip hop. For instance, we see the first
publishing of Bitch magazine, which we do site so often
in the podcast, and they were very clear that they
definitely purposely chose that name to reclaim the word. But
also at this time it's not being used just as

(16:48):
a word for feminists like the publishers of Bitch, who
are really seeking to reclaim it in that sense that
Joe Freeman outlines in nineteen sixty eight. But it's also
taking on a new level of self labeling among women,
not to denote outsider status or not being thrown at

(17:09):
women in order to force them into outsider status linguistically,
but also being just claimed by women who want to
be thought of as strong and independent, who are still
shopping at Bloomingdale's perhaps and socialize and they're just they're
just bit just Yeah, Suddenly it's more normalized almost that

(17:32):
you know, you're not just what society considers an angry feminist.
Suddenly you're just you know, you can embrace the word
too as some woman who's not considered a radical. So
those were the original basic bitches. Yeah, I think so
it sounds like it. Um. Also, this is when it's
starting to get a lot more attention from critics of

(17:52):
gangster rap in particular because obviously the use of bitch
and wrap is something that's been talked to about a
lot in terms of how rap and hip hop uh
talk about and treat women, and also involved descriptions of
violence toward women, because a lot of times in when

(18:12):
it's men wrapping about bitches, it is usually pretty violent
and very sexually explicit or it's an angry uh use
of bitch in the sense of a woman who will
not offer herself sexually to a man. But two and
we'll get into this a little bit more, um in

(18:33):
just a minute. Female mcs are also though, using bitch
in similar in all so different ways and rap as
well at the time. Well, so then it's when we
get into the two thousands the aughts that we see
bitch used in a couple of different ways. Um. It's
being used a lot more as a term for a wimpy,

(18:57):
feminized man, but also women are using it self referentially
and among their friends. And of course we can't forget
that Britney Spears song after she returned from her mental
breakdown where she announces herself by saying, it's Brittany bitch.
And with that, we're going to take a quick break

(19:17):
and we'll come right back to talk about the rise
of bitch on television. And now back to the show.
So when we left off, it was the two thousands,
Brittaney was back bitch, and it was on the rise
on TV as well. In fact, The New York Times

(19:39):
reported that its use tripled from four uses on one
hundred three primetime shows to almost thirteen hundred uses on
six eight five shows in two thousand seven. So bitches
are everywhere on TV. What's going on with that? Well,

(19:59):
basically with the court helped out a little bit in
the Second Circuit Court of Appeals nipped the FCCS regulatory
powers against quote unquote fleeting expletives. And this unleashed a
whole ton of bitches. And this is, according to the l. A. Times,
um because they weren't they still weren't going to use
the F word. They're still not going to use the

(20:20):
C word, but bitches in that happy medium. Yeah. The l. A.
Times writer described bitch as quote a hard working multitasker,
happy to switch from now into verbs pejorative to endearment,
even female to mail with the flip of an inflection.
So it's not surprising that the B word is tossed
about with the most abandoned in comedies, often though not exclusively,

(20:45):
those written by women. But of course there's the issue
of the majority of show runners and writers and producers
and uh executives still being men. And so there's the
bait thereof well, is this really a woman driven trend
or is this just more male writers finding ways to

(21:07):
work in pejorative words. Well, I also thought it was
interesting that bitch is considered such a funny word. I mean,
it's very much a punchline in the way that other
words that we can't say on this podcast right now
are maybe harder to make light of because they're so
they're so harsh almost all the time. But by the

(21:28):
time we get into when was that second court decision
in two thousand eleven, by that point, bitch is taken
on so many different meanings, whereas a lot of other
of you know, George Carlin's seven words you Can't say,
are far more inflexible. Um. But the rise of bitch
and use of bitch in music is also interesting to

(21:50):
look at because most of the focus has been on
rap and hip hop, but if you go all the
way back to early R and B and even out
law country music, it shows up in there as well. Yeah,
we have Jelly Roll Morton, who sang some saltier songs
containing the word bitch. Partly is a way to masculinize

(22:12):
himself away from the image of the feminine piano player
in New Orleans, because a lot of piano players in
New Orleans at the time were women. Um, and you
know some female contemporaries of his, we're doing the same
thing using that word. But when we look at the
contemporary music scene, and we've talked about hip hop getting
a lot of heat using the word bitch, but it's
important to remember that a lot of female rappers use

(22:35):
the word bitch and also wear the word with pride. Yeah,
so you have just two examples of Little Kim calling
yourself queen bitch, and we're recently Nicki Minaj as the
Baddest bitch because there is I mean, that's just another
one of its manifold meanings of Yeah, I'm a bitch,
I'm I'm the top I'm the top dog. I'm the

(22:56):
top dog is if you will, um. But what is
really fascinating was how in two thousand and twelve, Lupe
Fiasco releases this single UM called Bitch Bad that got
a lot of people talking about the use of bitch
and hip hop because in the song he attempts to
break down hip hop's bitch problem and he talks about

(23:19):
how like bitch is bad and ladies better, and he
though ends up coming across kind of blaming women for it.
Especially the way it's set up in the music video
where it's a girl hearing her mom used the word bitch,
rather than really focusing on how men often use it

(23:41):
to refer to women in the more inflexible way of
being a difficult woman. Um, but I gotta give him
props so for at least trying. I mean, and and
he said that too. He's like, I mean, I'm starting
a conversation about it. This clearly needs to be talked about. Well, yeah, mean,
but wasn't it. Right after that, the Kanye West made

(24:04):
a song for Kim Kardashian following her, the Perfect Bitch. Yeah. Yeah,
but again though, I mean like and we could also
at this point mentioned how with Beyonce, the fact that
in her song Flawless, the hook is about down bitches.
That is often thrown out as um some people's rationale

(24:26):
for not believing when she calls herself a feminist, because
how could she use the term bitch? Oh, it just complicated, Caroline,
It just complicated, And it's so loaded. It's such a
loaded term, Yeah, because it, I mean, it could really
mean anything. If you write bitch in sharpie on a
piece of paper and just handed to someone and asked

(24:48):
him what it means. It could be so many different things. Yeah, absolutely,
And I mean, well, obviously have to look at the
gender divide and what's going on there In terms of
the use of the word um. Timothy Jay's book Cursing
in America found that bitch is the number one curse
word used by women, but it's number six for men,

(25:10):
which is really interesting that women use it, I would say,
so much more often than men, But it might be
because when men use it, it rarely tends to be complimentary,
because between women bitch can be sort of an in
group term of affection, whereas I think it is understandably

(25:33):
and this kind of came up to in our conversation
about lady um. There there are a lot of parallels
actually between these two words and in the question of reclamation.
But I think it's a lot more challenging for a
guy to walk stay into his you know, the break
room of the workplace, and see a group of female
co workers and say hey, bitches and it not make

(25:54):
a record scratch. Well, then, I mean that gets into
issues of sexuality and sexual orientation and the way that
you identify and the way that other people identify you
because I have heard gay male friends use it both
for women and for other gay male friends, and nobody
bats an eyelash. But yeah, like you said, if if
the straight man were to walk in the room with
a bunch of women and say it, I think they

(26:15):
were just like you could hear a pin drop. What
what do you mean by that, um, Because a lot
of times when it is directed at a woman, particularly
by let's say a straight dude, it usually is that
harsher sort of original bitch of describing a woman acting
against the expectations of her feminine role. Whereas when it's

(26:42):
directed when it's guys directing at other guys, especially like
straight guys to straight guys um, or straight guys to
gay guys, it's usually subordinating. There's actually a two thousand
five New York Times article on the rise of quote
little bitch and the male directed bitch um, which really
started it with the HBO show OZ, which started in

(27:04):
because that gets into the prison lingo and uh, male
prisoners being other male prisoners little bitches. Yeah, and then
it's interesting to see the way that characters on television,
but I mean also culturally kind of distanced themselves from
any threat of perceived homo eroticism. Um. In the paper

(27:27):
reclaiming critical analysis the social Harms of Bitch, the writer
says that even with the let's hug it out bitch
quote on Entourage, the word bitch is a tool for
distancing themselves from homeoroticism. In other words, when men are
doing something like hugging it out, when you throw that

(27:47):
word in there, it's like, oh, you know, we're just
we're all just kidding. Yeah, I'm gonna hug you. I
don't want to kiss you, So don't get it twisted,
which reminds me of this quote from that two thousand
five New York Times articles saying the word that wants
to find a misogynistic double standard. If a man is asserted,
he's called ambitious. If a woman is assertive, she's a bitch.

(28:10):
Now defines another, If a woman is called a bitch,
she's powerful, formidable, a winner. But if a man's called
a bitch, he's shamefully weak. And she also cited the
premiere of the classic teen drama primetime show The o
C in which bitch is the main character. I forget

(28:33):
his name right now, but I can remember his brooding glance.
Uh he's called bitch twice, and I think Misha Barton's
character like at the end of it is like, welcome
to the c bitch, and thus it begins, Uh well yeah.
But so then when we look at women's use of it,
You're right, it is all over the place in terms
of the way we use it. So it makes sense

(28:54):
that it's our number one curse word and not for men.
But it can be a term of endear aman. I mean,
I remember my freshman roommate in college. That's how she
referred to all of her close female friends. And I
started doing it too, because you know, I was like, oh, well,
this is great, we're friends. And then after uh we

(29:15):
moved out, I was like, why did I ever do that?
I never liked it. I did not like the use
of bitches like a term for my friends. But I
mean it could be everything from that friendly term of
endearment to a feminist statement to referring to someone as
angry or misogynistic. Yeah, I mean, clearly, As we mentioned

(29:36):
with Joe Freeman's Bitch Manifesto in nine eight and also
the magazine now Bitch, there is a close relationship between
this word and feminism UM and speaking about the use
of bitch as their intentional title UM for Bitch Magazine UH,

(29:59):
the magazine's cove founder, Andy Ziesler wrote in The Washington Post,
Let's not be disingenuous. Is it a bad word? Of
course it is. As a culture, we've done everything possible
to make sure of that, starting with a constantly perpetuated
mindset that deems powerful women to be scary, angry and
of course unfeminine, and sees uncompromising speech by women as

(30:21):
anathema to a tidy, well run world. And she goes
on to stay as Joe Freeman also said, to be
called a bitch is ultimately a compliment, even if in
those cases they say, even if you're labeled a bitch
from someone who means it as you were being an angry,
unpleasant woman who is acting out. Yeah, and Joe Freeman,

(30:44):
I think definitely would not have appreciated or approved of
today's basic bitches as we think of them in pop culture.
She describes a bitch as being a revolutionary. These are
the women who helped us get the vote. These are
the women who first went to college, you know. These
are the women who have led the feminist movement and
risen to the top of fortune companies. Um, so you know,

(31:07):
she absolutely thinks that it is a positive term because
it's a positive concept. Yeah, but not everybody agrees. Not surprisingly. Um,
we sited just a minute ago the paper Reclaiming Critical
Analysis the Social Harms of Bitch by Cheryl Kleinman, Matthew
b Zl, and A. Corey Frost, and in it they

(31:29):
argue that bitch cannot be effectively reclaimed because of its
inherently misogynistic baggage, which reminds me so much, Caroline of
our podcast on the word lady, because there are a
lot of people, especially older women from second the second
wave era, which is kind of ironic, who want nothing

(31:52):
to do with lady whatsoever because of its baggage. Yeah,
it has so much baggage. It meant something very very
different to to the generation and the generations before, and
so yeah, it is interesting to draw those parallels with
the word bitch, especially when you have so many women
who call their friends bitch or who claim the word
for themselves just meaning like yeah, I'm strong and no

(32:12):
I'm not going to take a back seat. Well, so
these writers basically argue that any use of the word
bitch hurts women. They say that when women are calling
themselves bitch, it's just dawning what they refer to as
an honorary man's status instead of pushing any actual gender
equity forward. They say it's not part of a movement
like feminism is self identifying as a bitch means you're

(32:36):
no threat. It's that whole idea of like women policing themselves,
women doing men's jobs in policing other women. And they
said that, you know, if feminists want some empowering label
to use to describe themselves, why don't they just call
themselves feminists, to which I said, well, maybe because other

(32:58):
people refer to feminists inherently as bitches. So like, I
definitely see what they're saying. I mean, they say, quote,
unlike the term feminist, which is tied to a movement
for social change, bitch provides women only with false power,
challenging neither men nor patriarchy. But to me, this also

(33:21):
it seems like nothing can be reclaimed. I mean, what
about the word queer, which in a lot of ways
has absolutely been reclaimed from a very harmful slur that
also has you know, a lot of baggage pass baggage
tied to that, but it has been successfully reclaimed. Yeah,
and I mean talking about that, I mentioned the honorary

(33:43):
man status. They they're claiming that young women are finding
the use of the word cool because it's slang used
by men. It's a tool of the patriarchy, and so
basically women who use the word to self describe are
delusional and don't know that they're being oppressed. But see,

(34:04):
I also think, like, do you think that the women
in a lot of ways, especially in the sense of
how we sometimes use it casually among ourselves, as in
like like in group speech among like groups of women
and our friends, that we have repurposed it because we
kind of say it sometimes in different ways than men do.
Like our definitions of bitch. It's so much more flexible.

(34:29):
I mean, I do I think you have to watch it, like, uh,
being called a bitch as in like the harsh bitch
is still I mean, that's that's a hard thing to
be called. I am not immune to being called a bit.
And yes, I have been called a bitch no surprise,
um and saying it and when I have caught myself

(34:51):
saying it in the same way I mean, it's um,
it's one of the most insulting things I can think of. Yeah,
I have actually, just in a short time since we
were researching for this podcast and coming into the studio today,
I have caught myself thinking that about another woman, like,
oh god, she's a bitch? Are you trying to tell
me something? But like literally stopping myself and being like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa?

(35:15):
What do you mean? Did she just make you angry?
Or did she do something that a man would have
done And you would have just rolled your eyes at
it if a man had done it, But because a
woman is doing it, you think she's a bit. So
I've had a lot of interesting conversations with myself on
the toilet as I've thought about stuff this week. But
also fascinating too though that if you were thinking that

(35:37):
about a man, it would have also had a different meaning. Yeah,
I think the gender stuff with it too is so
fascinating as well. Um, So I don't. I mean, honestly,
I don't have a clear cut, um, some clear gut
ethical guide to bitch, if that makes sense. I part

(35:58):
of me, like that part of me see sees how
it's hurtful I think basic bitch is part hilarious and
also I see what Nourine Malone points out of, Well,
what are we really talking about when we talk about
basic bitches? Um? I don't know. Lady was an easier one. Lady.
I can say, yep, I'm fine with lady. Yeah, but bitch.

(36:19):
What do you think, Caroline? Um? I think, well, kind
of like what I was just saying, I think that
I have caught myself using it in so many different ways.
I personally am not comfortable calling other women like as
a term of endearment. I'm not comfortable with that. Um.
I don't like it, and I don't want other women
to call me like, hey, bitch, because I mean, I

(36:41):
just don't like it. I have caught myself thinking about
a male acquaintance of mine who is uh, he's rather
on the uh stormy, tumultuous, moody side, and I have
caught myself thinking about him as a bitch, and and
then I'm just like, oh my god, the layers my

(37:02):
brain is exploding. What does it all mean? Because you
know what, then what does that say about me? What
does that say about stereotypical perceptions of women? And then
the use of the term for a guy who's moody.
I just you know, yeah, And Joe Freeman's essay certainly
made me think twice about how sensitive I have been
to being called a bitch as an insult, you know, like, well, well,

(37:27):
why don't I take it as a compliment. Well, because
sometimes maybe I am just a bit and that's not pleasant. Well,
we could go around and around and around with this,
but now we need to hear from our listeners. Help
us figure this out. What is the status of bitch?
Let us know mom Stuff at how stuff works dot

(37:48):
Com is our email address. You can also tweet us
at mom Stuff podcast or messages on Facebook, and we've
got a couple of Facebook messages to share with you
when we come right back from a quick break and
now back to the show. Okay, I have a letter
here from Petra from Toronto. She says, I know one

(38:09):
of your recent podcasts you mentioned doing an episode on
female arm hair. I would like to encourage you to
do that because arm hair is a subject I feel
very conflicted about. As a matter of fact, I'm waiting
right now for the wax to heat up so that
my mom can help me wax my arms I've always
been a very hairy girl, and it's caused me great embarrassment.
In my teenage years, I've done everything under the sun

(38:30):
to try to get rid of my hair. Arm hair
included from simply shaving to getting laser hair removal treatments.
I've resorted to waxing because it's cheaper than laser and
doesn't lead the equally embarrassing stubble that shaving does. In
my teenage years, I never thought twice about any feminist
implications of getting rid of my arm hair. It was
something that had to be done because I was so
much hairier than the other girls, and I didn't want

(38:52):
people to think I was gross. Now, I still feel
disgusted by my arm hair, even though I think critically
about beauty standards and was on women, and often wonder
why I feel so strongly that I need to do this,
whereas my brother doesn't. I know it's my choice whether
to remove the hair, but I wish it felt like
a fair one. Thanks for your time, love your work,

(39:13):
and thank you Petra Well. I've got a Facebook message
here from Morgan who writes, I just discovered your podcast
and am hooked. I was scrolling through the recent ones
and just listened to the Seafaring Ladies episode Her Deepness.
Sylvia Earle comes up at the end, and you asked
about oceanographers and marine biologists who know Dr Earle. Well,

(39:34):
I don't personally know her, I wish. I am a
marine biology master's student in San Francisco, and I've met
and seen her a couple of times. The first time
she was giving a short talk is part of the
America's Cup Healthy Oceans project in summer. I actually got
the privilege to meet her, do some small talk and
get my picture take in. And I can't say that

(39:56):
just being that close to her felt unreal because I
couldn't help but think how much this person has impacted
women in the marine sciences and science in general. And
then thinking that she had actually lived on the ocean floor.
I mean, what touching her made me feel almost like
I was on one of her incredible ocean adventures for
just an infinitesimal amount of time. Totally surreal moment. Thanks

(40:21):
for creating great podcasts and talking about really interesting stuff. Well,
thank you, Morgan, and thanks everybody who's written to us.
Mom Stuff at house stuff works dot com is our
email address. And for links to all of our social
media as well as all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts,
including this one with links to our sources so you
two can read up on the history of bitch Head.
On over to stuff Mom Never Told You dot com

(40:48):
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