“The kindly, gentle influence of the mother in the home and the dignified influence of the teacher in the school will far outweigh all the influence of all the mannish female politicians on earth.” Sanford, the chair of the state’s Democratic caucus, in 1911. She can do little good by gadding the streets and neglecting her children,” wrote California state Sen. “The mother’s influence is needed in the home. Those who pushed back against the suffrage movement felt that women should remain exclusively in the private sphere, and argued that the country’s very democracy was at stake if they didn’t. Much like the anti-suffrage movement, the term “bitch” was and is about containing women, says Karrin Vasby Anderson, a communications studies professor at Colorado State University. By 1930, the number of references that called a woman or women “bitches” outnumbered those that referred to dogs. However, in 1925, there were numerous articles and books that used the word as a slur against a woman or women. In 1915, most of the books and articles published used the word “bitch” only to refer to a female dog. The biggest rise of the word as an insult against women was in the 1920s. And in the 1900s, its use soared, Zoë Triska writes for HuffPost: The word “bitch” has been around for some time, though it wasn’t directed at women until the 1400s.Īs far back as 1000 AD, “bitch” was being used to reference a female dog, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.īy the 18th century, it had become “the most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman, even more provoking than that of whore,” according to the Atlantic. The rise of the term “bitch,” briefly explained In retrospect, its emergence was distressingly unsurprising: Whenever women, minorities, or other groups have successfully gained greater power in America, they’ve seen swift backlash.Īlthough there are more women in Congress than ever - or perhaps because of it - those attempts to contain newly empowered groups continue, as Yoho’s comments toward Ocasio-Cortez made clear. “Bitch,” a word that referred to an unpleasant or promiscuous woman at the time, was a slur designed to remind women of these same boundaries. And in what historians see as a clear example of slut-shaming, they attacked women’s sexuality too, denouncing suffragists as “loose” women who had questionable social mores. Using terms like “mannish” and “unsexed,” they sought to portray suffragists as encroaching on male gender roles. The term “bitch,” after all, echoed the messaging of the anti-suffrage movement.Īs anti-suffragists argued, if women were to leave the private sphere, or the home, for the public one, they would be stepping out of bounds. Ken Florey Suffrage Collection/Gado/Getty Images Anti-suffrage poster issued by the Oklahoma Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, circa 1918. “If there was ever a time for this term to gain prominence, it would be with the passage of the 19th Amendment, when women were given the right to have an independent voice,” says Kira Hall, a linguistics professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. “There is an uptick in use of ‘bitch’ as a term of abuse for women that starts gradually in the 1920s and 1930s, and then really gains traction in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s for a woman who is seen as conniving, malicious, or just plain bad,” says Kory Stamper, a lexicographer and former associate editor for Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Īlthough scholars are unsure whether this trend is directly tied to women’s suffrage, several noted that such backlash made sense and spoke to overwhelming discontent with women’s power. While part of this surge was due to a spike in the word’s use to describe female dogs, as well as the rise in popularity of the term “son of a bitch,” some of this increase was also driven by its use as an insult against women. Ted Yoho (R-FL) call her a “fucking bitch” earlier this summer.Īccording to a 2014 Vice report by Arielle Pardes, the use of “bitch” in literature and articles doubled between the years 19. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after a reporter witnessed Rep. It’s a point she emphasized while speaking in support of Rep. “Because in 1920, this body gave women the right to vote - and that was just a little too much power for too many men across the country.”Īs Jayapal noted, the decades following women’s suffrage saw the rise of the term “bitch,” which is still frequently used against women today. and you know why?” Jayapal said in a House floor speech this July. “From 1915 to 1930, Madam Speaker, that word suddenly took off in usage. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) wants people to know when “bitch” became a go-to insult.
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