01x03 - b*tch

[bunniefuu]

Welcome, b*tches,

to the History of Swear Words.

It felt kinda weird

saying that word, "b*tch,"

since I aspire to be the utmost gentleman.

Thankfully, there are

so many ways to say the b-word

without directly insulting a woman.

For instance, I could say,

"I know we all like to b*tch

and moan about air travel.

But if you think about it,

airplanes are totally bitchin'!"

- Fly!

- I can't!

[g*nf*re]

Fly, b*tch!

[sighing] Still, we can't deny

that the b-word holds great power,

and with it comes great responsibility.

"b*tch" is a slur.

I said, "Biiiiitch!

I'm the man of the house."

It's used of women

because they're uncontrollable,

they're too loud, they're too opinionated.

No one's ever

called me a b*tch to my face.

You b*tch!

Probably behind my back.

I think it can be a really hurtful,

misogynistic, damaging word.

You called your wife a b*tch?

[woman] Darryl? Where are those guys?

I would advise any straight man

to never call a woman a b*tch.

I don't use that word. I say "the b-word."

It's a way to disempower,

but it's also a way to empower.

Yeah, I call myself a b*tch.

My female friends can call me a b*tch.

Even my grandma

can call me a b*tch, if she wants to.

But if a guy calls me a b*tch,

I'mma burn his m*therf*cking house down.

Join me on a journey

as we explore the word,

its origin and its impact.

[bleep]

[cat meows]

[Nicolas] "b*tch."

It can be sexist, r*cist,

empowering, offensive, funny.

This word does it all.

[typing]

People use the word "b*tch" nowadays

for a bunch of different reasons.

It's used still as a slur against women.

So it's used to denigrate women.

You g*dd*mn b*tch!

It's used to bring women down to size.

She wants to be some

immature little b*tch and blow everybody.

It's still used to refer

to a malicious or domineering woman.

What kind of cold, heartless b*tch

would do that to someone they love?

My name's Mireille Miller-Young,

and I'm a professor

of feminist studies at UC Santa Barbara.

And my specialty is sexuality and race.

"b*tch" is used

to really disempower women.

When you say someone's a b*tch,

you're trying to take their power away,

and their voice away,

trying to make them shut up.

Women hate to be called "b*tch"

because it is just so dismissive.

And it's actually punishing us

for speaking up for ourselves.

If a woman is addressed as a b*tch,

that's obviously defamatory.

When addressed to a male…

You're a filthy b*tch

and I bust your ba*ls.

…it is defaming that male.

"You are bad.

But also, the way that you're bad

is in a way that is female-like."

So it's insulting the male

and it's insulting women in general.

Because to be female is to be bad.

So, basically, it's a shotgun word.

It hits everyone.

When you hear the word "b*tch,"

what comes to mind?

Okay, maybe don't say her name out loud.

And hey, maybe it's not even a woman.

Men can be b*tches too,

when we want to emasculate them.

But how did this word become

the English language's

most frequent gendered insult?

[typing]

[Kory] "b*tch" is a really old word.

It was first used around 1000 A.D.

So it's about a thousand years old.

It comes from an Old English word,

"bicce," which means the female dog.

There was a time

when we were all growing up,

when we would go around and,

any time we'd meet a lady dog,

we'd be like, "Look at that b*tch."

And be like,

"You can't send me to jail for that!

That's just the meaning of the word!"

I like dogs.

[laughing]

So it doesn't bother me. "b*tch" is fine.

My dog's a b*tch.

Literally. It's a female dog.

But I never call her that.

Um…

I call her a c**t.

[Nicolas] However,

the evolution from dog to woman

is just the beginning

of this, uh, complex story.

In the history of "b*tch,"

we think that it largely

was transported from dogs to humans

through the idea of dogs in heat.

You really start seeing it

taking on a new meaning

around 1400s.

That sense of a dog in heat,

you add in wordplay,

you add in sort of this in-joke,

and it's really easy to…

to see then how "b*tch" gets applied

to women that are thought

to be lewd or immoral

or who want sex too much.

And from there, it grows

and gains this other meaning

to refer to a woman who is uncontrollable,

too loud, too forceful, too opinionated.

So "b*tch" does spike in use

through the suffrage movement

during the 20th century,

and then later

during second-wave feminism.

So through the '60s and '70s,

you see this huge bump.

And you do see the word "b*tch"

applied specifically to feminists

because it's like, "You said

it's fine for us to call you b*tches."

Over time, the definition of "b*tch"

expanded to include

basically any woman we don't like.

A sexist slur.

[typing]

It's not that complicated

to avoid being called a b*tch.

All you have to do is…

Well, don't… smile, don't… talk.

Don't be too pretty. Don't ask

for a manager at a restaurant.

Don't turn a guy down.

Don't walk down the street

with confidence.

Don't hold a job.

Don't stay at home with your kids.

Don't be loud. Don't be quiet.

Don'tbe mean.

Don't stand up for yourself.

Be a congresswoman.

Don't be a congresswoman.

Don't stand up.

Don't sit down.

Don't drive. Don't frown. Am I a poet?

[laughs]

"b*tch.

A female dog."

No mention of how 99.99%

of the people use the word.

I mean, what year is this from?

1885? No. It's from 2015.

That's right.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary

didn't label the word "b*tch" offensive

until the same year

it added the word "twerk."

The job of every lexicographer

isn't just to enter new words.

It's to also to make sure that words

that are already in the dictionary

have as many meanings

as we currently use them with.

When I was working at Merriam-Webster,

I noticed that the entry for "b*tch"

in one of our dictionaries had no labels.

It just said that the word "b*tch"

meant "a female dog"

and "a domineering woman."

So it didn't say that "b*tch"

was an offensive word.

It didn't say that it was

a disapproving or disparaging word.

So that really is kind of what sent me

down the rabbit hole of… of "b*tch,"

and how did it end up

not having a label in the dictionary?

It now does. I put one in.

It was high time the dictionary

recognized "b*tch" for its true meaning.

For over a thousand years,

we've been using it

to b*tch about humans we don't like.

So, let's honor and remember

some of our…

Bygone b*tches! ♪

Nefertiti, queen of Kemet.

14th century B.C.

Famous queen b*tch.

Known as one of the most despised women

in human history.

Elizabeth Báthory. Famous crazy b*tch.

A real Hungarian noblewoman

who k*lled more people

than Bram Stoker's fictional Dracula.

But you don't see her bragging about it.

Lizzie Borden.

Famous axe-murdering b*tch

who was acquitted.

That's kinda bitchin'.

Anna Wintour.

Legendary editor of Vogue.

Ice-cold b*tch.

[Kory] "b*tch" is one of the few slurs

that is undergoing

the process of reclamation.

Reclaiming of language

seeks to empower women

through their experiences

of repression and discrimination.

My friends are allowed to call me a b*tch,

if they do it in, like, a loving way.

If I got, like, a promotion or something,

and someone's like, "This b*tch, yay!"

I remember the first time I called

a group of women "b*tches" from the stage.

Someone told me,

"Just call them b*tches. They'll love it."

And I was like, "No, they won't."

And they did.

"Yo, my b*tches."

"Yeah. b*tches, make some noise!"

I know that when I was finding

my sense of feminism,

I was like, "I'll never use

the word 'b*tch' again,

and I'll never let anyone use

the word 'b*tch' or call someone a b*tch."

Um, and now

it's one of the words I use most.

[London] It's powerful, it's feminist,

it's sexy, it's quick, it's snappy.

You can put things before and after it

to make it better or worse.

We need "b*tch."

It's so important to the English language.

Don't get rid of "b*tch."

You call yourself a b*tch…

- I'm a b*tch.

- I'm a bad b*tch.

I am a b*tch.

…people who see you

and hear you will think,

"I guess it's not

such a bad word after all."

You don't get called a b*tch as a woman

unless you're making a man realize

that he's a little b*tch.

You are such a b*tch.

I think that

there's a certain weird magic to slurs,

that make it so that

only people in that targeted group

have the right to play with it

and try to make it into something else.

"b*tch" has seen a little bit of uneven,

not-quite-negative use

in the 20th century.

Ernest Hemingway used it of his mom

to refer to her strength.

For Hemingway, "b*tch" was a way

of separating men from the women.

Sort of say, "Men are these people,

and women can be b*tches."

But it can also be that combination

of the… the sacred and profane.

It could be a b*tch goddess.

It became almost a proprietary thing

for him,

and he would use it

as his way of acknowledging your presence,

that you had power,

that you inflamed him in some way.

A b*tch is a b*tch.

He was so attached to the idea of

giving the ascendancy to the ideal

of American masculinity,

that nothing else

could live up to it, I mean

And by that,

white male American masculinity.

So anything else was,

at best, second-rate.

If you were lucky,

you were a b*tch goddess.

"b*tch" got paired with "goddess,"

so you would see "b*tch goddess" used

to refer to anything changeable

and uncontrollable.

Um, Fate was often called a b*tch goddess.

But these uses were also done by men.

By the people who use "b*tch" as a slur.

So it's not really reclamation.

It is setting up a usage pattern

that reclamation can go off of.

[Nicolas] Some of the earliest examples

of women empowering themselves

using the word "b*tch" was in music.

Curse words are something

that we've been using

in the Black community for generations.

In street corners, in the jazz clubs.

I mean, even going back

to, like, the '20s and '30s,

it was a sanctuary where people

could say what they wanted to say.

And part of people saying

what they wanted to say

was women using the "b*tch" word

and really embracing their sexuality.

And a great example of that

is Lucille Bogan.

They know I'm a b*tch from Baltimore ♪

Anybody who's a real blues fan

knows who she is

and has sung some of her songs.

In fact, the last line

of The Rolling Stones' song "Start Me Up,"

"You make a dead man come,"

is a tribute to Lucille Bogan's song

"When the Cows Come Home."

You can f*ck my c*ck or suck my c*ck

Baby, until the cows come home ♪

You actually felt like you wanted

to have a cigarette

after you heard a Lucille Bogan song.

I mean, she completely owned who she was,

let you know who she was,

let you know what she could do.

If you suck my p*ssy, baby

I'll suck your d*ck ♪

- I'll do it to you, honey ♪

- [laughing]

- Till I make you sh*t ♪

- Oh!

- What year is this from?

- Oh, baby ♪

This is like listening

to my grandma do porn.

This would make Cardi B blush!

If "b*tch" meant promiscuous,

- this lady was a b*tch!

- Do it to me, Papa ♪

Break me in until tomorrow come ♪

"b*tch" really begins this reclamation

in earnest in the 1960s.

So, 1968, Jo Freeman publishes

The b*tch Manifesto,

about what it means to be a b*tch

and what it means to live into bitchhood.

What you start seeing in the '90s

and in the 2000s

is "b*tch" being used positively

in TV and in music.

Meredith Brooks' song "b*tch"

was, like, so exciting.

"I'm a b*tch, I'm a lover,

I'm a child, I'm a mother,

I'm a sinner, I'm a saint,

I'm your hell, I'm your dream,

I'm nothing in between."

"b*tch" is an intelligent song.

It's not something

I would have written when I was 19.

You got to say the word

and your parents couldn't get mad,

"'Cause it's in the song, Mom and Dad!"

If you don't wanna be called a b*tch,

definitely don't listen

to rap or rock from the '90s.

The majority of rap music

in the '90s on through the 2000s

was really male-oriented.

I think hip-hop gets way too much lenience

when it comes

to using that kind of language.

Any song with Snoop Dogg,

any song with Tupac.

"Smack my b*tch up…"

[laughs] Why did I think of that one?

That one's brutal.

I don't… I don't condone that song!

It's a horrible song, it's a bad song!

Men use the word "b*tch"

to kind of claim their power over women.

And, in that way, it's often misogynistic.

A lot of hip-hop lyrics

can really be demeaning.

You know, the b-word, uh… at times,

is definitely, you know, demeaning.

I feel like people who normally

would not allow that type of talk

in… in any other media

or any other kind of conversation

are okay with it in hip-hop.

That okayness makes me uncomfortable

in some ways.

Because I wonder if there's not

some underlying racism to that okayness.

I'm definitely not, you know,

the type of guy that demeans women.

And I think that sometimes

you just need to chalk it up as hip-hop.

I think it's something that I'd…

I'd like to challenge people not to do.

Women pretty early on in hip-hop…

stake the claim for themselves.

There's a call to reclaim "b*tch"

among feminist rap in the mid '90s.

That sort of pushes it forward.

Earliest memory of "b*tch" is,

of course, Queen Latifah's "U.N.I.T.Y."

She has this really strong lyric

that just says,

"Who you callin' a b*tch?"

I'm like, "Yeah." I was so young,

but I'm like, "That ain't right."

Since Queen Latifah through the present,

we see the use of "b*tch" evolve.

I honestly like when someone

who's angry with me calls me a b*tch

because it means I stood up for myself.

Took a DNA test, turns out

I'm 100% that b*tch ♪

Lizzo says she's "100% that b*tch."

If she said she was 100% a b*tch,

that would be a negative thing,

because being a b*tch is bad,

but being that b*tch is good.

Okay, so my DNA test

for that b*tch came back,

and I am 92% that b*tch,

and I am eight percent empathetic,

nice, and caring,

and sweet, and so charming.

I am 50% that b*tch. That's great.

I am 30% some wh*re.

And 20% Cherokee.

Oh, my God, I had no idea! Fun!

The reclamation of the word

also happens for g*y men,

who take a word

traditionally used to hurt them

and turn it into a way of fostering

community and friendship.

I was called a b*tch growing up so much.

It was a workaround for a lot of people

who didn't want to call me a f*gg*t.

In the h*m* male community,

in… over the last 40 years,

it's taken on a special status

where it's a joking term of affection

for another h*m* male.

It is… sort of like, "I recognize you."

Like, "We had the same, like, sh*t

growing up together.

You were called a b*tch

like I was called a b*tch."

In terms of my g*y friends,

a lot of these are g*y men

who absolutely worship women,

and, like, all their idols are women.

All of my best friends are b*tches. Like,

"Hey, b*tch, you did an amazing job."

"b*tch, your workplace is elevated

because you show up every day, b*tch."

There's nothing better

than a g*y man calling you a b*tch.

The word "b*tch" has been

on an interesting journey

as feminism has progressed.

There's, like, you know, internal debate

of how it can be reclaimed.

I have a boy and a girl,

and they both use "b*tch" all the time.

Like, "b*tch!" And it's just

what they call their friends.

For me, it's still a bad word,

and something you don't call women.

It does disturb an older generation

that feels that

they had to fight for respect,

and that there's something

ultimately disrespectful

about the word "b*tch."

I don't think we can ever fully reclaim

the word "b*tch," unfortunately,

because it's a man's world.

We may think we've reclaimed it,

but then they'll have a little man group

and say it to their friends.

But people like Lizzo and myself are doing

their best to make it sound good. [laughs]

So, where do we land

with the word "b*tch"?

Are we allowed to use it or not?

Can someone please just clear this up?

[typing]

The reclamation deals with

an area of linguistics called semiotics.

And that is really,

what's the intention of the speaker

and what's the reception of the hearer?

"b*tch" can mean one thing

when spoken by one person,

in one context,

to one particular listener,

and it can mean a totally opposite thing

when spoken by that same person,

in the same context, to a second listener.

I may say to one of my closest friends,

like, "b*tch, I gotta tell you something,"

you know?

But if a woman who I don't know

comes up just wanting to, like, gossip

and she's like, "b*tch, I wanna"

I'm gonna immediately be like,

"I don't I don't know you."

It's a word that we can use

for each other,

and we can be empowered by it,

but it's not a word that men

will ever be able to freely call us

and have it be like, "Oh, thanks, John!"

It seems to me that "b*tch" isn't a word.

It's a moment, an experience.

Other swear words

like "sh*t," "f*ck," "damn,"

are reactionary and universal.

But "b*tch" can be used like a weapon.

And it's personal.

I do still use the word "b*tch,"

though I use it

a whole lot less than I used to.

You know, language is pattern,

and if you have learned the pattern

of "b*tch" being used

as a slur against women,

it takes a lot of conscious effort

to unlearn that pattern,

even if you're a recipient of that slur.

Instead of using the word "b*tch,"

I'd rather refer to women as "queens."

But I do recognize

that "b*tch" hits different.

If you on a plane

and people start fighting,

you gotta be like,

"b*tch, they was fightin'."

You can't be like,

"Queen, they was fightin'."

It just It doesn't go.

You know what I'm saying?

You gotta show some discernment.

[laughs]

If I ever have a daughter someday,

I would much rather her identify

as a b*tch than a nice girl.

I mean, I guess the ultimate goal

is for her to be a nice b*tch.

Like Malala.

On my group thread with, like, 11 g*y men,

seven of which hate me

and three of which are close friends,

will I continue to use the word?

Yeah, probably.

The word "b*tch" has gone on a journey.

From meaning a female dog…

to then, like, a slutty woman,

and now to a great woman like myself.

I like it! It's gone on a journey.

It's really…

It's it's grown. It's growth.

You know what that is? That's growth.

Good for you, b*tch!

You started off as a dog,

and now look at you, you're Cardi B.

Good for you! [laughs]