Recently in Language Category

Let's talk a bit about taking back words.

If I had a dollar for every time someone has asked me about one of my nicknames this bitch would be damn near debt free (wink). I've had the nickname Shark-Fu...or some variation on that theme...since I was a wee bitch of five. And the ABB nickname was the inspiration of readers of my blog AngryBlackBitch.com. The interesting thing is that both my nickname and the name of my blog are the result of my deliberate claiming of language and words previously used against me.

Shall we?

I became the victim of a bully the first day of kindergarten and remained a steady target throughout my grade school career. There were a lot of reasons why I appealed to bullies...this bitch was one of the only students of color, my brother was well known around the neighborhood for public displays of autism and I was always good for a post ridicule cry. But when I began to experience dental drama as a result of an overcrowded mouth...well, an already miserable situation went into overdrive.

Two of my permanent teeth decided to come in where they could get in and that happened to be behind my bottom row of teeth. While my mother consulted with my dentist and the family pocketbook, my fellow students began to taunt me on the bus. When I came home...crying, of course...because I'd been called a shark my mother rolled her eyes and told me "then you need to be a shark, girl, and stop letting those fools get under your skin."

I thought about it all night and decided to give it a try. So, I spent a week researching sharks at the library and found out that they are fantabulous and fierce creatures worthy of respect not bus-based taunting. The next time a classmate called me a shark I replied with a "thank you." And damn if that didn't shut him up for a week!

The teeth eventually were pulled but I've been Shark-Fu (my sister settled on that version) ever since.

Years later I found myself gifted with a blog for my birthday and searching around unsuccessfully for a title. I thought about what I wanted to share and discuss through my blog, but that didn't inspire any title ideas. Then I thought about how people may respond to my posts and added a dash of fucking with folk's expectations and that led to the AngryBlackBitch title.

See, I realized that the women being labeled angry black bitches were pretty damned fantabulous. The label was meant to diffuse their power and shut them up...it being built on an understanding of the so-called benefits of conformity and silence that my family passed down like other families passed down good glassware.

Don't raise your voice...loud black women are threatening.

Don't use naughty language... they already think black people can't speak proper.

Don't make and maintain eye contact...you may come across as intimidating.

Try not to be so "ethnic"...you don't want to go around reminding folks through your name, accent, hair, clothing, food or music that you are different.

And, for the love of social acceptance and peace, don't get angry!

Just don't...or you'll pay a price.

Hold it in, because if you let it out they're going to you're just another...uh huh, that's right.

And then they will dismiss your point but only because you frightened them...right?

If you had only sat perfectly straight in your chair whilst wearing that acceptable outfit with oh so non-ethnic hair and spoken in low viciously proper sentences as you expressed your frustration over the wrong done to you without passion or conviction they would have listened.

Blink.

That's the pitch...trust a bitch, I've heard it my entire life...and it is, has always been and will always be bullshit.

I reject that contract even as I reclaim my anger and my bitchitude...and a bunch of naughty words that I simply adore using.

Now, I'm not saying that all y'all need to get down with it.

Some folks will never dig it and that's cool - there isn't a bitchitude mandate that I'm aware of...yet.

But for this bitch claiming and taking back language has proven to be just as empowering as embracing my inner shark...

...with the added benefit of stumping those knavish trolls who can't come up with anything else to call me in the comments.

My best friend has long been quick to scold me, in the motherly-yet-not-annoying way that only she can, not to use the word "douchebag" as an insult. Granted, it's not something I say all the time. But admittedly, it's a word that slips out sometimes to describe people (usually guys, if I'm being honest) who do something shitty to me or to one of my friends. "Ugh!" says my dear friend, who is normally not a language-policing type. "Don't use a word that's related to a woman's anatomy as an insult."

I'll be honest: It's a word we're not shy about using on Feministing. A quick search of the archives shows we've applied the term "douchebag" to people who have been shitty to us and our friends, Joe Francis, anti-feminists, Joe Francis, John McCain, and, uh, Joe Francis.

I bring all this up because a few weeks ago I read this post at Jezebel, and it reminded me of my best friend's stance on "douchebag." But it slipped my mind until I saw this post by Andi on the Bitch Blog: Douchebag lawyer and his douchebag lawsuit: "Feminism violates men's rights!" (Not to call you out, Andi! Like I said, we do it here, too...)

It's pretty easy to see why this evolved as an insult. Douchebag is funny because it's anachronistic. It was a device once promoted for health reasons, but as science has marched on, douching is generally just thought of as an embarrassing (and definitely not-talked-about) product for women who are paranoid about good old-fashioned vagina smells. If we're honest, we also laugh at it because it grosses us out. (Call it the bro-ish side of some feminists, myself included.) Like Dodai at Jezebel, I'm not calling for a ban on the word. Just asking feminists to think about it a bit more before saying it. To consider whether using "douchebag" as an insult is just another way of saying "everything associated with vaginas is icky!"

And so, here's a long, rambling rumination on the D-word -- and the book that changed my mind about it...

Like Cara, I don't respond well to "sweetie."

Obama has apologized to the reporter:

“Second apology is for using the word ’sweetie.’ That’s a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front.�

Indeed, it appears to be a habit. Over at Broadsheet, Rebecca Traister explains why it doesn't matter that he "meant no disrespect," why it doesn't matter that it was a spontaneous utterance, why it doesn't matter that he uses this term with "all kinds of people." It's still sexist.

Please, pretty please, someone tell me that a misogynist hacker got into thesaurus.com. Because this just seems to crazy to believe. Screen shot is here, in case it is a joke and gets taken down...

Thanks to Christine for the heads up...

Seems Jezebel caught this yesterday as well.

Does is matter if women identify as feminist or is just important that they live feminist values?

It's a question that has haunted the movement for ages. It came up quite a bit for me when I was teaching gender studies at Hunter College. I could see that I was reaching the young women in men in my class--that they were moved to think about race and sex as constructs, sexism in the workplace, rape, sexuality as a spectrum not a binary (in other words, they were really "getting it")--but few of them left my class wearing the feminist label proudly on their sleeves. Did I fail? Or was it enough that they were thinking and acting like feminists?

As I've been speaking at college campuses around the country about my book, I'm running into the same questions. I always argue that being involved in feminism is one of the solutions to the crisis of self-hatred and eating disordered behavior in this country (basically that having a systemic lens to apply to all of this personal suffering can be totally healing and liberating). And sometimes "the kids these days" seem to embrace my point. Some ladies at Illinois College in Jacksonville, IL (home of the first ferris wheel) started a feminist group on campus after I was there (yeahyeahyeah). Sometimes, they take their own creative spin on it...

I was at Princeton recently and one of my student guides was the fabulous and brilliant Chloe Angyal. Not only is she studying sociology and thinking about working in public health, but she had great cowgirl boots and an Australian accent (swoon). Anyway, we're new best friends. She sent me this link to a piece she wrote called "How to be a feminist without anyone knowing." In it, she claims that she is "a self-confessed raging feminist," that she doesn't "think anyone should be ashamed of the label." At the same time, she writes, "I can understand how many women are not quite ready for it yet." She then goes on to detail five great feminist mindsets/actions for the "I'm not a feminist but..." types that don't involve truly coming out as feminists.

Okay, so what do we think? Obviously the best case scenario is girls and women around the world embracing the term and being raging, out, joyful feminists. BUT, given that best case scenario isn't always possible, is this a good alternative perspective? Will thinking and acting like a feminist long enough lead closeted ladies into the light? Does it matter--really and truly--if they ever embrace the label as long as they're contributing to the movement? (I think it does, but I'm asking for fancy rhetorical effect).

There's this other book out, I don't know if you've heard of it, called Full Frontal Feminism. Um, obviously FFF is--in part--an argument for why young women should and need to embrace the label. And what a wildly successful argument it has been! I run into young women all the time who say that the book turned them into out feminists, that they named their clubs on campus "Full Frontal Feminism" in honor of their awakening etc. (Go Jess, go Jess, go go go Jess!)

But what about those gals who are still hanging out in the in-between? Must we convince them to take the label or is it enough that they're down for the cause?