The "B" Word

This is it. It's coming your way, my fellow women. I'm convinced nearly every woman has been called one at least once in her lifetime. Yes, my friends, it's one of the gros mots, bitch.

Why do we abhor it? Why do we think little of its meaning and the true vulgarity? Naturally, I can imagine at least one person saying, "What the hell? It's just another choice word I like to use. No different from bastard, shit, etc. What makes this any worse?"

Indeed, what makes such a word as bitch worse than some of our other pretty expletives? Let us take a look to its etymological roots.

I am sure it doesn't take a philologist to know that the word harbors its beginnings in canine breeding terminology. In order to obtain the good traits for the work that humans want the dog to do (i.e., hunting, rat catching) it is of course necessary to make sure that there are good breeding dogs, male and female. The female, a dog whose purpose is expressly to breed, is (and was) called a bitch.

Let's think on this for a minute. A bitch is a female dog meant for breeding purposes. (I will grant that not all female dogs were bred, but the reproductive was seen as their major purpose as a whole.) This of course leads the average observer to recollect the estrus of a female dog, of a bitch. Dogs in heat are not fun. They howl and become easily agitated. They are looking for one thing: the mating, the intercourse. It is an overwhelming urge, a drive, a force so intimately connected to the female dog's psyche.

And of course, if you've ever seen dogs mate, you can see how the bitch reacts. She is still, passive, as the male eagerly humps her. I am no expert on dog psychology, but this passivity, the way the dog turns her head, it is as though she is looking for something else to do, but by her nature forced to submit.

A bitch, in human terms, is interestingly enough a woman who will not submit, a woman who is angry, moody, or otherwise disagreeable. A woman who is irate when it comes to sexual matters. I do believe that in very contemporary terminology, it is how one refers to someone under one's power, sexually or otherwise (e.g., Sally is my bitch).

Are women bitches? The short answer is no. In biological terms connected with dogs, women are not merely reproductive creatures. A woman's life does not merely consist of birthing children on a yearly basis. As Simone de Beauvoir has said, women have their own plans and ideas: they are not wombs. Breeding bitches are just that.

Furthermore, to imply that a woman who may have spells of anger of irritation is likened to a vicious dog is less than apt. Most people have changes of mood and become angry. Also, certain ways of approaching things in the professional world call for being aggressive. Being aggressive is not only a male trait. Aggressiveness and assertiveness are seen across the board.

I end this discussion noting that in calling a woman a bitch, even in jest, you categorize her and package her into the straight jacket of sexism. Such restraints only increase resistance and a will to escape.

FdS