› ›

Does anyone else consider "bitch" to be a sexist slur?

Comments

  • Imipolex GImipolex G
    Touch the cow. Do it now.
    it means a female dog
  • ToolsieToolsie
    ಠ_ಠ
    Not really.

    It's the name of a female dog, so I automatically think of a female dog whenever someone says "bitch".
  • Yarrun XIXYarrun XIX
    Whores! we want "poems that kill."
    Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
    guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
    and take their weapons leaving them dead
    #scaryterry
  • HavenHaven
    Let me tell you. About Fallen London.
    Huh, interesting.

    In the "how much soap will your parents make you wash your mouth with" sense, I always considered fuck and shit to be the highest tier. But bitch is definitely a gendered insult, so now that you put it like that I'd say it's way worse in terms of things that are normalized when they shouldn't be.
  • Sredni VashtarSredni Vashtar
    “I'm surprised. Those clothes… but, aren't you…?”
    It depends on how it's being used. It's explicitly comparing the subject to a female dog, which can and often does have sexist connotations, particularly when "bitches" is used to refer to a group of women or to women in general, but it can also be used to compare behaviour more directly—thus, "bitchy" and "bitching" for behaviour that stereotypically resembles an ill-tempered female dog, and so forth—which is less of a categorical thing and more of a character criticism.
  • KlinotaxisKlinotaxis
    edited 2016-05-17 01:02:29
    kill living beings
    yeah, i've tried to avoid negative senses of 'bitch', e.g., 'it's a bitch to set up', while keepin up my bitchin' usage
  • glennmagusharveyglennmagusharvey
    I find that "bitchy" and "bitching" usually bring to mind a specifically female person nagging/complaining.
  • OdradekOdradek
    My dreams exceed my real life
  • Sredni VashtarSredni Vashtar
    “I'm surprised. Those clothes… but, aren't you…?”
    Haven said:

    Huh, interesting.


    In the "how much soap will your parents make you wash your mouth with" sense, I always considered fuck and shit to be the highest tier. But bitch is definitely a gendered insult, so now that you put it like that I'd say it's way worse in terms of things that are normalized when they shouldn't be.
    There are far worse gendered slurs normalised to differing degrees, at least to me; curiously, "bitch" has been used in a jocular sense without the explicit gendered component for a surprisingly long time, which I don't think something like "twat" has.
  • HexartesHexartes
    My answer is a firm, resounding "kinda"
  • TreTre
    image
    Kexruct said:

    My answer is a firm, resounding "kinda"

  • HexartesHexartes
    With an addendum of "...and it makes me really uncomfortable so most of the time I just avoid the subject"
  • Imipolex GImipolex G
    Touch the cow. Do it now.
    now for the inevitable irrelevant music embed



    that riff
  • LWLW
    edited 2016-05-17 02:17:03

    I do, but I'm pretty sure nobody really cares about my opinion on curse words, haha. Given that I don't like any of them, I think that's pretty understandable.
  • CrystalCrystal
    edited 2016-05-17 01:46:31
    Munch munch, chomp chomp...
    It depends. Context and the person or people involved are important, if not the be-all-end-all.
  • AlirozAliroz
    ...And even when your hope is gone
    move along, move along, just to make it through
    (2015 self)
    It's below the one that starts with P in terms of being offensive in a gendered way, but above the one that starts with P in terms of being mean.

    B and P are both less bad in both ways than the one that starts with C, which I got called in middle school because my last name started with C.
  • Yarrun XIXYarrun XIX
    Whores! we want "poems that kill."
    Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
    guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
    and take their weapons leaving them dead
    ._.

    Jeez, kids can be the one that start with A
  • Sredni VashtarSredni Vashtar
    “I'm surprised. Those clothes… but, aren't you…?”
    ^^ The P you speak of was originally used as an insult not in reference to the euphemism for female parts, but to suggest the same thing as calling someone "'fraidy-cat." Just so you know.

    And I'm really sorry you had to go through that, Roz...

    *hugs?*
  • Yarrun XIXYarrun XIX
    Whores! we want "poems that kill."
    Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
    guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
    and take their weapons leaving them dead
    -also hugs the gator-
  • AlirozAliroz
    edited 2016-05-17 03:02:54
    ...And even when your hope is gone
    move along, move along, just to make it through
    (2015 self)
    -accepts hugs-

    I almost got in trouble when I said it so as to ask my parents what it meant, because it wasn't in the dictionary.

    Middle school was... terrible.  Let's leave it at that.  That's part of why Tv Tropes, and the people I met there, the friends I made, mean so much to me.
  • Imipolex GImipolex G
    Touch the cow. Do it now.
    Middle school is one of the most horrible places on earth.
  • Obā-sanObā-san

    Imipolex G said:

    Middle school is one of the most horrible places on earth.


  • Imipolex GImipolex G
    Touch the cow. Do it now.
    Walmart is pretty bad too.
  • Sredni VashtarSredni Vashtar
    “I'm surprised. Those clothes… but, aren't you…?”
    Middle school is more psychologically traumatic on the whole because it's this whole mass of kids at the worst part of puberty crammed into a single building and forced to interact for educational purposes. Walmart is just K-Mart but less so.
  • AnonusAnonus
    I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
    Today is Tomorrow said:

    Imipolex G said:

    Middle school is one of the most horrible places on earth.

  • BeeBee
    I'm eternally glad I was homeschooled during middle school.  People like to shit on homeschooling and the US provides no shortage of arguments why, but when it works it really works.
  • glennmagusharveyglennmagusharvey
    edited 2016-05-17 04:00:21
    Aliroz said:

    It's below the one that starts with P in terms of being offensive in a gendered way, but above the one that starts with P in terms of being mean.

    B and P are both less bad in both ways than the one that starts with C, which I got called in middle school because my last name started with C.

    it took me a while to figure out what "P" stood for

    at first i thought it was the male sexual organ's actual name, then i was like, wait, that's not even an actually bad word, just one that's socially awkward to mention

    then i thought it was urine, then i was confused as to why it's gendered
  • TreTre
    image
    The worst of my bullying came more during late elementary school, though middle school started off pretty bad too.

    Honestly I was effectively a social pariah from fourth to seventh grade because my classmates thought I was "gay" (even though they were obviously saying so without understanding what that actually meant, in retrospect) and my lack of understanding of social cues made me an easy target.

    Things got better after I'd found myself some friends and did the talent show in the sixth grade, however, and while I wasn't a huge fan of high school as far as the workload was concerned I wasn't nearly as much of a misfit, mostly because I kept myself invested in the social circles where I was well liked, and by then most people had that crap out of their system anyway.
  • BeeBee
    Seconding that high school was pretty okay.  I had friends before that, but not really a whole circle of them.
  • TachyonTachyon
    imagei will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch
    As a rule of thumb: imagine applying the insult to a man, then imagine applying it to a woman.  If the implications are different then yes, it's sexist.

    In this instance, yes, when used insultingly.  Applying it to a man has connotations of weakness, applying it to a woman has connotations of malice.
  • Section42LSection42L
    We can do anything if we do it together.
  • LWLW

    Today is Tomorrow said:

    Imipolex G said:

    Middle school is one of the most horrible places on earth.


    This is true. Doubly so when you have to move to a new city and go to a new school in the middle of nowhere.
  • lee4hmzlee4hmz
    ⚠ THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS
    The reverse of that happened to me between 9th and 10th grades...I went from an alt-ed school in central Virginia to regular high school in the DC suburbs. I'm still not sure how I coped.
Sign In or Register to comment.