I try to refrain from commenting on posts that read as argumentative to me, but I think both sides of this argument made claims that need to be interrogated.
Rebutting with the fact that it’s the proper terminology is completely fallacious as an argument, and honestly, so what? Just because it’s the term in use and has a documented history of such usage we should just keep using it? Really? Words change meaning, they fall out of favor or use and become archaic, connotations shift, etc. Language is inherently nebulous, and therefore subject to constant revision. Acting as if terminology with an established history shouldn’t change, especially in the wake of a new context (in which the word has an offensive secondary meaning) is silly. Besides, operating as if language is apolitical when it comes to dogs is ridiculous because humans are the ones doing the naming. It’s not as if the term ‘bitch’ is the natural and objective ‘right’ term for female dogs and would exist whether or not humans choose to use it.
The original claim that it’s offensive to women generally is a weak argument too, especially since a lot of women could care less whether or not it’s used. However, I think that a lot of people (myself included) actually take issue with the term for two major reasons, regarding the way that it’s used–the first being how eager some people are to use it (and the frequency with which it’s used as well), and the fact that there is a term for female dogs but not male dogs. Even in your examples of other species, there is a specific term for each sex, but in the case of dogs there’s only one…and it’s for females. With deer, the male isn’t a ‘deer,’ it’s a ‘stag;’ with chickens, the male isn’t a ‘chicken,’ it’s a ‘rooster/cock;’ with horses, the male isn’t a ‘horse,’ it’s a ‘stallion.’ With dogs? A male is…a ‘dog.’ Not only that, but claiming that ‘why not just say female?’ isn’t a valid alternative is baffling, because if you just say “dog” and sex is relevant to the conversation you’re probably going to have to specify ‘male’ because ‘dog’ doesn’t automatically signal or implicate ‘male’ as it’s the umbrella term for the species.
What I’m most troubled by is men overeager to rebut with flimsy arguments like “it’s the right word” instead of listening to women when they say they’re uncomfortable and respecting that. It’s an extremely minor change to shift from saying ‘bitch’ to ‘female,’ and is a fairly benign concession in the scheme of things. But I’m not surprised that rather than listen to women and respect their wishes the tune usually falls in favor of maintaining the lexicon instead of modifying it, and we see this all the time with words that are controversial or express power dynamics. People with power and privilege refuse to make small changes like this because it’s comfortable and easy to maintain the status quo, it reinforces their power, and making those changes would require listening to and respecting people who are oppressed by that language. To be clear, before anyone responds that this is a word for dogs and the word has a completely different significance for women, therefore it’s not transferrable, this line of thinking fails to understand how much damage that word does to girls and women. Does it hurt the dogs? No. Does it hurt women? Some, yes, very much. Why? Because women are forced to hear and see, constantly, a word that is also used to abuse, dehumanize, and humiliate; because women are forced in the dog world to use a word that clearly demonstrates, even with dogs, the power men have to name women as the ‘other,’ the marked object, while holding that male dogs are simply ‘dogs’: the standard. If anyone thinks this mentality doesn’t reflect how men actually behave, think, and feel about women outside of the world of dogs then they are mistaken. To demonstrate this, I read a book a while ago titled Training Your Retriever by James Lamb Free (1991) in which he only refers to female dogs throughout the entire book as “black bitches,” saying things like “dispose of the bitch if it won’t respond to you,” and advising to keep your “incompetent wife and kids” away from the dog to avoid “ruining it;” suggests isolating, beating, and shaking dogs regularly; and argues that if the dog isn’t responsive to these methods then it’s a dud to be abandoned. My father read this book when he first started training dogs, and recently passed it down to me to reference when I got my retriever Frost. He didn’t see any issue with the text. He also, when it comes to humans, doesn’t believe that women are oppressed. I would be willing to bet that James Lamb Free didn’t shut off that way of thinking when he wasn’t working with dogs, and that’s the problem. These mentalities are never isolated to the realm of dogs alone–in which they’re still damaging by the way because these perceptions result in female dogs being stigmatized as expressing certain behaviors that are classed as undesirable among other things–they bleed into human interaction too, and regardless a word is never just a word. A single word can reflect entire belief systems.
Anyone who reminds us all the ‘bitch’ came to refer to dogs before women is still neglecting the reality that when ‘bitch’ became an insult to women it was (partially) because of the view that female dogs in heat “would let any male mount her” …but do you all see what this language does? It poses the female as a passive recipient, rather than the male as an active agent. It’s been acknowledged in this post that the word is used to dehumanize women by comparing them to dogs, but fails to grasp the significance of that. Of course a word for a female dog came to be an insult to women because people perceive female dogs in a way that is derogatory, insulting, and reflective of misogyny. It’s why when I was thinking about getting a puppy people clamored to remind me to get a male because they’re ‘easier,’ ‘better,’ ‘less standoffish,’ etc. For the term ‘bitch’ to be an insult to women, there has to first be the perspective that female dogs are worthy of being mocked, of being used as an insulting comparison, of being seen as lesser.
We can recognize that this is a poor argument when comparing it to someone who tries to justify calling someone a f****t and then smarmily retorting that “all it means is a bundle of sticks!” when confronted. Once a word crosses a threshold into a realm where it becomes derogatory it doesn’t (since it usually can’t) come back or be used in an inoffensive way anymore because it’s haunted by that secondary meaning. “Correct” terminology means nothing. It’s just a way to justify continuing to hurt others because it’s established and easier to maintain.
Do I think that the dog world is going to change it’s vocabulary because it’s insulting? No. Do I think this means that this is okay and we should just roll over and it accept it? Definitely not. Honestly? The way this post started was embarrassingly immature. The OP never should’ve posted an anonymous comment in which the person failed to approach Jazi privately because that’s an automatic pot-stirrer. Should the person who misgendered Jazi apologize? Yes. Did Jazi’s argument invalidate what the anonymous person is feeling or justify using the term? No.
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