How do the women on this board feel about the word 'bitch' to describe a particularly disagreeable woman? I'm not trying to be provocative here, but several times I've been on the verge of wanting to refer to Hillary in a similarly demeaning way, but stopped short because the choice seems to be between words designed to be aimed at men (asshole, knob, bastard... ), or words that I presume would offend many women in general (bitch, or variations of the word whore).
Before I go further, I know this isn't a big issue. I'm not trying to defend the use of bad language or personal insults. It's not big and it's not clever.
But IsiliRunite's use of the word bitch in relation to Hillary reminded me of the dilemma. Most of the harsh insults happen to be gender-specific to men, and considered non-sexist, whereas the only ones that seem to exist for women appear to be considered more demeaning and off-limits (no doubt because they either suggest subserviency or prostitution). The upshot is that I keep referring to Clinton by her name
because she's a woman, when I probably wouldn't if her first name was Bill. Which in a way also seems a bit sexist and patronising to women.
So... not the biggest problem facing the world, and once again I'm not trying to be provocative, but just curious to know how you feel about it.