Can we discuss whether "bitch" is offensive? (Again?)

[redqueen]

I don't think it's offensive full stop... but I think when it's used in anger, it's hate speech and should be called out as such.

In other words, if friends want to use it among themselves in a humorous tone that's one thing, but using it to label or as an insult about someone in a hateful way (against a male or female) is misogynist hate speech IMO.

What do you think?

I think I came down on the other side of this discussion back in the day... thinking that since it was 'socially acceptable,' that that pretty much settled it.

Now I think back and wonder if anyone mentioned to me at the time that racist epithets were also socially acceptable at one time. If someone did tell me that, and I didn't get it, I would like to thank them for trying.

[laconicsax]

1. I see it as offensive.

When you call a woman a bitch, you're saying she isn't human. A bitch is a dog: something to kick around when it isn't lovingly obedient.

Calling a man a bitch as an insult is based on the idea that it's bad to be female.

[redqueen]

3. Believe it or not most people seem to think it's not even gender specific.

Is it me? Or is that idea just way off the deep end?

[ThomCat]

2. I don't get upset if I hear women use it.

But I get upset when I hear men use it.

Just like I get upset when I hear straight people use "fag" but I don't get upset when I hear gay people do it to each other.

And, just like I don't get upset when I hear black people using "ni**er" but I'll definitely be upset at any white person who does, I don't care how cool and how much a part of the hip-hop crowd he thinks he is.

The right to use slurs in a social way is an insider privilege.

That said, I still consider it pretty low class to use slurs in any context, even as an insider. I understand the whole thing about reclaiming language to take the sting out of it. But personally, I'd rather retire the language altogether, and let slurs disappear from use.

[redqueen]

4. I agree with everything you said.

Especially the part about retiring it completely. It seems to me that 'reclaiming' these things is just a method of dealing with an unjust society where these things are used to humiliate and insult. If there was no humiliation and insulting going on, I think the use of the words as jokes to take the sting out would naturally fall out of popular use.

[BlueIris]

5. Even I use it. Rarely directed at women, though.

And in the last couple of years, I have really tried to remove it from my vocabulary altogether. It's not just offensive, it's offensive in a weak and pathetic way that frankly reminds me of what angry, inadequate men do. Since these are the last creatures I want to resemble, I've tried to rise about casual use of an anti-woman slur.