I think the gay world has the right twist on "bitch!" It can be used as an endearing and funny aside. We also use it to express ourselves like, "Quit bitching and get busy." I think it's the intent of the word in context and, in speech, inflection. I once called my boss in the gallery chain I worked in, "A bitch on roller skates." If you ever met her, you'd know what I meant. It's one of my favorite sayings:
If a woman wants to act like a man, why can't she act like a nice man?
This thread calls to mind a fellow I knew through work, probably around 3 - 4 years older than I was, who, upon walking past my office in the morning, would greet me with, "Good morning, my dear, and how are you today?" One day I responded, "Just fine, sweetie. How are you?"
I absolutely agree with Matrix' take on it, though I'm comfortable with "ma'am" and "Mrs."
Has anyone been reading "The Bitch In The House"?
It points out some vague yet insidious ways in which
we IMAGINE that we have gained equal rights with males,
while in reality, we have gained nothing that's remotely
like equality at all. Unless one could call working full time,
a new freedom!! By the estimation of all the women
that I know, 90% of them will be happy to point out that
NOT ONLY HAVE WE THE MOST DUBIOUS HONOR OF
HOLDING DOWN A JOB OUTSIDE THE HOME,
but in addition to this, we also have the rather questionable
HONOR of continuing doing what we always did. Example:
1 Doing housework
2 Cooking dinner
3 Cleaning up after dinner
4 Doing grocery shopping so we have food to cook
5 Primary care of children (when hubby cares for the kids,
it's called "babysitting")
6 Getting the kids to daycare,school, before getting to work.
7 Cleaning bathrooms, kitchens, sinks, toilets, bedrooms etc
8 Doing laundry, treating stains, folding, pressing, sorting
putting away and hanging up clothing.
9 Taking clothes to drycleaners, pick up from drycleaners and
all the general care of clothing
10 Taking kids to soccer, baseball, basketball, etc practices/games
11 Picking up articles of clothing that the "man of the house" tends
to leave lying about anywhere from floor to kitchen table
12 Not to mention - working at the exact same job description
as a male, yet we get paid less - THIS I learned firsthand
And so society goes on, and on in the same vein as always.
The backlash from the word "feminism" or "equal rights" has
been SO SEVERE that no woman would dare allow anyone to
think of her as "one of those kind of women"
Maybe we read books like "Zoya's Story to comfort ourselves
that, at least our lives are not THAT BAD.
There is a truly bizarre situation in India - where 20 milllion women
have disappeared over a period of 10 years. That wouuld be at a
rate of 2 million per year. No one is the least concerned with this
it is just the norm, and a common practice in their country that if
the wife is so unfortunate as to give birth to a female child she is
killed. Men do not understand that it is THEIR sperm which
determines the sex of the child. But, on with the story, the known
practice is that husband & his family burn her to death, (alive)
using some accelerant, from their little cooking stoves. Hence
there is an abortion clinic on EVERY streetcorner, even
in the most poverty stricken areas. IF a wife can determine
the child's sex in time, she may be able to abort the pregnancy
& save her own life. However, as one Indian doctor described
this "self limiting" situation (I believe is the term he used)
the rate of female children being aborted, or drowned will result
in a vast shortage of women in the future. The doctors all agree
that this is, of course, a self limiting kind of condition because not
to far in the future, there will be very few women around to give
birth to any children at all. Perhaps then, said the good doctor -
the Indian culture will begin to value the female, as she becomes
an endangered species.[/color]
I think the word has become ambiguous enough to apply in all categories, depending on the people involved. Even if I were to use the word (which I don't) toward a certain type of woman, I might use it toward a different type of woman the same day and mean something entirely different.
