is replacing Choice forum? I looked for it but couldn't find it. I did find the pro-choice group.

I've seen you make vague comments like this one twice now--here and in Feminists. I honestly have no clue. Was there some problem back there?

Everybody is different and has their own story. I grew up in the 70's and figure I'm a feminist by divine right. I'm not a man hater, tho. I believe women should have equal rights. And be free from sex discrimination. I'm just not one to go crazy over semantics like the word 'bitch'.

Why do you believe it's okay to use language like that? Or, why do you think other feminists who DO object to such language aren't correct in their reasoning?

It sidetracks the issue of discussion to a debate about if words actually hurt us. I had some words I didn't allow used in my home around my 3 sons. We had the n -word and the c-word. But I hate that no one can read Huck Finn. It's censorship. I have the right to free speech. And if we have to discuss semantics some of discussion devolves. The c-word means cave when you get right down to it. Much of the offence is in our mind. I think we can go too politically correct so we appear irrational and over emotional. We lose credibility.

Read Gormy Cuss's excellent response, to which I'll add that language both reveals how a culture (and the individuals in it) sees, understand and thinks about things and also shapes and molds how a culture sees, understand and thinks about things.

That's why language is so important. In the early days of 2nd Wave Feminism, women were adamant about changing some of the language to be more inclusive so that it would force people to think more inclusively about women and our place in the world.

For example, if the only word used for the head of a committee is chairMAN, people don't EVER think about a woman being the chair. If "man invented this" and "mankind invented that," women's contributions -- which have been enormous -- are never even considered a possibility. If HUMANkind did this or that, it's gender neutral and automatically implies the work done and advancements achieved were at least due to both sexes' involvement.

Now, if you can call any woman a bitch and other dehumanizing words like chick and far worse, if you can disrespect women or a specific woman so much as to denigrate her on the basis of her gender, then she isn't as good as any man, which means she must be slightly less than human -- because men are the default humans, you see -- if you can do that, you can do much worse to her. The LEAST bad language does is promote disrespect for women as a class and individually.

And where does that disrespect lead? Well, you'll probably see me say this again and again: sexism kills; racism kills; homophobia kills. Sexism kills quickly (e.g., violence against women), and it kills slowly (e.g., less access to heatlhcare, medical studies not including women at all, etc.).

So - whether you know it or not, whether you can see or recognize it or not, YOUR life is much less than it could be and should be because of sexism in our society. One of its most visible -- and challengeable -- manifestations is sexist language. As a society we are getting away from using racial slurs and homophobic slurs, it's time to get away from gender slurs as well.

when there was a copy of a major US publisher's inclusive-language guidelines getting mimeographed around and it was like a breath of fresh air, my response to those who insisted that words like "fireman" were just dandy was always: you let me know when you ask a 5-year-old to draw a picture of a fireman and they draw a picture of a woman.

I mean, it's still not likely a kid is going to draw a picture of a woman when you request a picture of a firefighter, but hey, it's one of those last bastions.

I wonder, y'know. In my neighbourhood, quite a few people (including me and my partner) go to the community health clinic down the street as our primary health care provider. (Ontario built a network of multi-service CHCs a couple of decades ago, and we're lucky we live so close to one.) All the doctors, and of course pretty much all the rest of the healthcare/support staff, are women. If you asked a kid on my block, whose doctor is likely a woman, to draw a picture of a doctor ... would you get a picture of that doctor, or of some archetypal doctor drawn from the media and such, who is still likely to be a man?

the c-word meant beauty. Does anyone have any idea what it really means?

That's a new one to me. The reflexive denial of man hating on the other hand is straight out of the '70s so I get that.

If you believe that women deserve equal rights and freedom from sex discrimination, how can that be accomplished while letting sexist language stand unchallenged? Growing up in that era you must remember the morphing of gender-specific language for professions (e.g. 'policeman' becoming 'police officer', 'fireman' becoming 'firefighter'. ) There was tremendous opposition to this -- nearly as much as the opposition to having women work in these fields. Semantics do matter. There's nothing trivial or PC about it.

-- companion to "Why do you believe it's okay to use language like that?" -- is:

Why do you find it appropriate to call women who disagree with you "crazy"?

I grew up in the 50s and 60s, and I'm a feminist by choice and a fair bit of work.

And I haven't felt the need to say "I'm not a man hater" since about 1970, and then it was just because I was very young and hanging around with Trots and bought their lines for a couple of months.

To hear you talk, one would think that the rest of us, or some of us anyhow, are man haters ...

So much crud in one so short post.

Not a good foot to start off on here, I'd say.

I was just proving your point. If you are not in lock step with the particular pc, you get hated on. Don't you all know I know the b-word is loaded?
It means female dog. What is more fierce than a mother animal protecting their young from attack. Often it is an alpha female that is in charge of a wolf pack. I do not deplore the image. Hate on me anyway.
I'm not one to argue or fight over "crap" especially with a group I'd like to consider sisters. Like the word queer which means odd or different if you reclaim bitch it is less damaging. Even guys call each other that now days. It's an equal opportunity offender. However, I'm not advocating name calling anyone, anyperson, or anything.
Since I grew up during the 60's I have a traditional background in wife and mother. I had to learn from friends and books about equal rights. That makes me less than all of you. I see that. You must have had a special anointing to claim your feminism,

i dont really care about bitch and douchebag, but i know those that do and i get their point. language matters. i know it effects the way we think. conditions us. that is important to at least realize.

i have an evolving thought on taking ownership of a word. blacks started doing it with nigga. we are told that they are allowed to use the word. it is changing the meaning and harshness of the word, or something.

we do it with bitch. slut. ho. my niece and her friends were calling other females ho. she was telling me she called her teacher this in a friendly, welcome into our young group, world. i asked, you know what you are calling her, right?

slut walks. we are suppose to all call ourselves sluts in order to take back the word.

what the black community is finding, is taking back the word, is not really taking it back and accomplishing shit. it is beyond my ability to explain.

calling myself a slut or a ho is not going to empower me. it validates the male misogyny.

until someone much smarter is able to explain it, i cannot go further in this, but i do not believe that we can take ownership of these words and defuse the hate or discrimination that comes in these words. personally, i think we feed it. ooops, misstep.

they are not just mere words. words matter

i, too, have never been a part of any group and i am blindly trying to figure this shit out. in the last decade there seems to be such a backlash against women that is effecting every part of our lives. i was telling hubby last night, and in affecting all women, it is affecting our men and boys too, you can be sure. this is a human issue. not a woman issue. imo.

but, if people disagree with you, or are even angry, dont walk away. learn, grow, think, evolve and even disagree back. you are allowed. as am i. and everyone here.

It's called a discussion.

Keep in mind that there's no requirement that one be a feminist to post here, but feminists do post here and if you aren't posting about women's rights from a feminist perspective you will be challenged -- it's in the nature of the discussion.

Was just a way to say I'm a feminist because I say I am. It's okay to challenge my perception of myself. I'm just not very aggressive. I've seen some conversations miss the whole point because an author referenced teabaggers as the p-word, meaning cowards, not female genitalia.
Life's a bitch, or bitching about something does not, have to be a gender-specific slur, if it means difficult or to complain. I'm speaking about context as well as semantics. I think we look foolish rushing up out of the basement to pile on someone for saying douchebag in GD.

I understand the perspective of feeling that conversations go off the rails because one party uses a sexist term and another shifts the discussion focus to that term rather than the original subject. I also agree that contextually bitch has differing levels of power behind it as a sexist term. "Life's a bitch" is in stark contrast to "She's a bitch," for example. But "the p-word?" That's always sexist because it links weakness with female genitalia directly and with women in general by extension. IMHO the mere fact that many still won't write it out implies its power. Then there's the "c word, which even fewer people feel comfortable spelling out or saying in public.

But back to the use of the "p-word." Here's an exercise that I found instructive. Write down all of the insults you can think of that are used against men to imply weakness, starting with pussy. Once you're done with the list , go back and cross off every word or phrase that are based in any way on female/feminine aspects. For most people after crossing off the female-related insults, there's few if any left. That's just one example of why I wrote up above that to me it's important to pay attention to language as well as actions when discussing women's rights because it always seems to be interrelated.
IMHO as long as we tolerate language implying that we as a gender are weaker, dumber etc. we will be treated that way regardless of our individual capabilities.