Randi Solomon

I recently had a serious argument with an exceptionally good friend. It wasn’t our first. Both in our fifties, we go way back to childhood — and there was lots to argue about back then, especially as we approached our teen years. Suffice to say, it’s a rare occurrence these days. It started with a text from me to her [hurt, angry, harsh, direct]. A brief apology followed from her [I’m sorry 😦 ]. Not feeling certain she meant it for its blanket generality, and still feeling scathed, I said more. [No need to fact check here — full disclosure: it wasn’t pretty.] Back and forth we went, building our arguments for what became opposing views about a single moment in time.

Once face to face, she no longer felt sorry, for she did nothing wrong, and I was wrong. My feelings could not be wrong, I said. Perhaps inflated by the circumstances. You don’t know me at all, she said. You think the worst of me. No, I’m upset about what happened. This is situational. Not a character assassination. Back to texts, it elevated to the need to be right. She hurt me, so I hurt her, and so on…

And then it happened and it dropped like a smoke bomb designed to quell the chaos: the B-word. “You are a real bitch inside,” read a portion of her text; although the who dunnit was no matter, as I could have done the same. Woman to woman, it’s a handy weapon to toss. And it hurts.

So is that why we go there? Up to that point, we hadn’t resorted to name-calling, and no more would follow. She threw it, and there’s no picking it up and tossing it back. “Oh, no, you’re wrong. You’re the bitch.” Yeah, far less impactful on the rebound.

So why? After all, it’s a derogatory placeholder applied when lacking further points of substance, a dagger made by men to subordinate women, put them in their places, especially easy to grab after finding themselves on the short end of a disagreeable situation. It’s a divisive, conclusive, seemingly non-negotiable declaration. Ah, so there it is. Well, that explains everything. It negates all other reasons for a negative emotional response. The implication goes further to suggest that the victim of said bitch is beyond reproach, unfairly treated by a chronic condition that spoils all interactions. She’s just a bitch — an accepted premise we’ve all at some point given the nod to.

Of course we know that the original meaning of the word is a female dog (or wolf, or fox). The tone is one of contempt in describing a vicious, barbaric and ruthless creature — for the wolf’s reputation is well documented in Judeo-Christian based literature. A search on etymonline.com reveals that once upon a time, the word was “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). By 1930, it was used to describe a “spiteful, catty, bad-tempered woman”.

Its pervasiveness today has not diminished its level of offensiveness, and only serves to further sexist tropes in our language — a language mostly born out of and sustained by the (internalized) patriarchy. Some of us would believe that there has been a positive reclaiming of the word by women and homosexual men, used to celebrate the strength and solidarity of the “sisterhood.” For a critique of how the word has socially evolved, I suggest reading the academic paper by Kleinman, Ezzell, and Frost who offer a deeper look into this phenomenon and argue that the praxis remains harmful.

Used in the context here — woman to woman as a slur — bitch is particularly problematic. It’s a simplification at best. Momentarily, one’s emotions, whether driven by one’s head, heart or clitoris, can slip into dark places, can go into overdrive, can suffer a loss of dignity and restraint, can be downright ugly. We’ve all experienced these moments, and if you haven’t, you will if you live long enough. Of most importance in the latter statement is the word ‘momentarily.’ Not definitive nor static, instead a trip along the spectrum of emotions. (I used to sing a made-up song to my kids when they were very little, that rhymed out the words, “Am I happy, sad or mad?” I thought it could help them move on without shame after a situation – we’ll call it.) In her iconic feminist song, “I’m a Bitch,” Meredith Brooks writes, “I hate the world today,” as she attempts to educate her (presumably) male listener about the complexities of her emotions, (and I would suggest, of feminine ones in general), and says that she gets that her “softer side” is a relief for him, an ideal default. An addendum song to the book, Men Are From Mars & Women Are From Venus, it’s both instructional and affirming for all listeners. Circumstances, external conditions, and internal state all contribute to the varied faces that we wear at any given time. Albeit, some men would have us believe otherwise, and can have a more polar perception of the female condition. And speaking of iconic feminist rockers — when David Coulier is asked how he felt about being the infamous and anonymous subject of Alanis Morisette’s “You Oughta Know,” he responds in a way that reveals his dichotomous view of who she is. The range of poetry, subject-matter, and emotion covered in Jagged Little Pill appears to elude him. Amongst a trio of men, Coulier smiles and says, “I never saw her […] as this angry-white-girl-thing that people have kinda coined her as”. And when asked about seeing her after hearing the song, he says, “She was really sweet about it,” as though we’d all expect her to be walking around perpetually in a state of pain and anger that the song’s tone emits. And to prove her sweetness, he shares an anecdote about her sitting at a sick relative’s bedside, playing guitar, singing a song, because if you’re a real angry bitch, you could never do that. Still in a moment of insight he does acknowledge that he “really hurt” this woman. Well, duh.

Therein lies the problem: the antithesis to bitch is the nice girl. And here we get to the answer about why we really resort to using the B-word. We, as women, have internalized the need to have people like us. We are taught from a young age to “be nice,” to smile, to be agreeable is to be a good girl. Our facial expression has historically had more immediate value than our ideas, our minds. Today, the word “sweet” has seemingly replaced “nice.” Not at all synonymous with intentional compassion and kindness to others, the blanket term “sweet girl” to me conjures a Stepford Wife or a dystopian Handmaid. It’s enforced niceness; it’s Aunt Lydia instructing her student while wearing a smile and gentle eyes as a visual aid to “be a good girl”; it’s compliance to the implicit laws of the patriarchy.

Ultimately, the ramification of being labelled a bitch is having failed at being the feminine prototype that society has expected of women for eons. And is that why I’m over a thousand words in to process the label being levelled at me? Was it an indictment that I was failing at this thing called womanhood? Or failing at female friendship? Is it that I’m unwilling to accept being put into a small enclosure with a sign on the door that reads, do not disturb, for a bitch lives here? After all, aren’t I a member of the population that has inhaled the conjecture that floats around the air we breath?

You may be asking that I explain what happened between me and my long time friend. It’s not lost on me that what set me off is a story as old as Gilgamesh and as inciting as a scene out of Bachelor in Paradise. After having been officially “friended” by a new romantic lover, my close friend decided to endear herself to him in a bonding tet-a-tet at a social event we attended two days after the heavily-felt demotion. Still hurting from the male rejection, I was freshly hurt by the breaking of an unwritten rule amongst female friends: give nothing to a man who hurts a friend. Still, to sacrifice the major life-long because of a minor night-long seems an ill-placed anger, where my friend was essentially just doing what she’s been programmed to do: be nice.

There’s no doubt that the noun, bitch, is a slur, lurking around women’s behaviour like an angry mall cop. I say we skip the saccharine sweet and reject what men have been propounding for centuries — too much is no good, too strong is a threat, too assertive is ugly, too loud is shrill. C’mon, my feminist friends. Let’s do better. We are loving, passionate, strong, vulnerable, complex beings, and none of those qualities are mutually exclusive.