This past semester at MIT I took a really wonderful class called
“Feminist Political Thought” which had a very open ended essay
assignment. I wrote a history of the word “Bitch,” and several
of my classmates requested to read the whole paper so I thought
I’d post it here. It’s actually quite interesting, if-I-do-say-
so-myself. Bitch is one of the most complicated insults in the
English language. A bitch typically means a lewd, malicious,
irritating woman (the comparison being to a dog in heat), but
some women self-identify as bitches to indicate they are strong,
assertive and independent. A son of a bitch is generally a
despicable or otherwise hateful man, but can also mean a dear
friend who has done something impressive or clever. If something
is bitchin’ it is deemed to be particularly cool or in-style,
but if a person is bitching they are complaining or whining. To
be someone’s bitch is to be his or her servant or slave, to sit
in the bitch seat is to sit in the under-sized seat in the
middle of a car, to