I found my favourite feminist magazine four years ago after reading it cover to cover on a road trip that ended with a shockingly beautiful red sunset across a dusty prairie horizon (I was passenger). Bitch magazine caught my attention with an article about girls in horror cinema, an in-house illustrating artist, and an absence of wasted pages of advertising. Since then, I've tried to buy every issue and I absorb it with as much voracity. Feministe directed me to this article in the Washington Post by Bitch editor Andi Zeisler. Here's an excerpt:
Bitch is a word we use culturally to describe any woman who is strong, angry, uncompromising and, often, uninterested in pleasing men. We use the term for a woman on the street who doesn't respond to men's catcalls or smile when they say, "Cheer up, baby, it can't be that bad." We use it for the woman who has a better job than a man and doesn't apologize for it. We use it for the woman who doesn't back down from a confrontation.
Bitch is a word we use culturally to describe any woman who is strong, angry, uncompromising and, often, uninterested in pleasing men. We use the term for a woman on the street who doesn't respond to men's catcalls or smile when they say, "Cheer up, baby, it can't be that bad." We use it for the woman who has a better job than a man and doesn't apologize for it. We use it for the woman who doesn't back down from a confrontation.
The reclamation of pejorative words is a powerful process and an important evolution.
If you're interested in what else Zeisler has to say, you can read the whole article here.
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