"Many women remember the first time they were called a bitch in pristine detail, like a first kiss or childbirth. For me, it was at a party for my high school soccer team where I got drunk for the first time. An argument with a friend about a boy escalated into yelling and she called me a bitch. I was so startled that I slapped her in the face. It was the talk of the lunchroom the next week, in part because we had just learned about irony in English class and my friend’s last name happened to be Slappey. Being the perpetrator was humiliating. Girls didn’t hit and I had violated the code. But I had to retaliate because innately I knew that being called a bitch was the worst possible slight.
“Bitch” is a gendered insult with a long history of reducing women to their sexual function. Ancient Greeks slandered women by calling them dogs in heat who begged for men—a slur that referenced the virgin goddess Artemis, the huntress who changed herself into a wild dog. According to etymologists, the word has long been used with the intent of “suppressing images of women as powerful and divine and equating them with sexually depraved beasts.” From its very conception, “bitch” was a verbal weapon designed to restrain women and strip them of their power.
Today, “bitch” has been spit-shined, retooled, and given new life. We hear women using it to describe one another—“boss bitch,” “basic bitch,” and “resting bitch face” are ubiquitous terms on social media, in the school lunchroom, and around the office watercooler. What was once a derogation is now seen as an appellation of empowerment and sisterhood. But the attempted reclamation of the word doesn’t change its history or more common use: it has historically been, and remains, the worst invective hurled at women—one that degrades, disparages, and disenfranchises all at once.
This is plainly on display in the historical record. Use of the word has increased as women have gained power and influence, specifically to undercut their achievements and stop their progress. Indeed, this is the real story of how “bitch” and its corollaries were deployed by misogynists in the 90s, and how the word and the concept proliferated throughout society in that decade. This “bitch bias” shaped the way a generation of women and men came of age, and also this current moment. We can no longer ignore the history of “bitch” and how it has influenced the world we live in today."
Prologue, 90s Bitch: Media, Culture, and the Failed Promise of Gender Equality by Allison Yarrow
