This post started with me suggesting a FAQ on reclamation for the “Finally, a Feminism 101 Blog” blog: “But there’s a whole feminist magazine called Bitch and a book called The Ethical Slut, so why can’t I call you a slutty bitch?” I tried to write a one-paragraph answer, but things snowballed a little. Here’s my attempt at answering; I welcome yours, and have put in a few questions at the end.

I’ll open with a quote from Robin Brontsema’s “A Queer Revolution: Reconceptualizing the Debate Over Linguistic Reclamation”:

Laying claim to the forbidden, the word as weapon is taken up and taken back by those it seeks to shackle, a self-emancipation that defies hegemonic linguistic ownership and the (ab)use of power. Linguistic reclamation, also known as linguistic resignification or reappropriation, refers to the appropriation of a pejorative epithet by its target(s).

As with just about any topic in feminism, when stripped to the bone, reclamation is about power. The patriarchal position is that people with power get to set the agenda, control the discourse, define people in pejorative terms, and decide what is or isn’t offensive – not only to themselves, but to others. They place themselves firmly in the subject position, and unilaterally assume the role of making decisions for less powerful people – the objects.

Feminism is about turning that dominance model on its head in every realm, including language. One recurring feature of feminist discussion about pejorative speech is that the person with the lesser power gets to decide what is offensive to them, and that we should be listening to their voices, not those of the dominant group. In the case of sexist language, women have the voices that count, the voices that all need to listen to. For racist speech, women of colour. For classist speech, poor women. For disablist speech, disabled women. For anti-lesbian speech, lesbian women. Fattist speech, fat women. And so on, and so on.

Linguistic reclamation is the re-appropriation of a term used by those in power to demean and disparage those in a less powerful group. One way in which women refuse the object position and reclaim their subjectivity is to take back control of pejorative terms such as “bitch”, “slut”, “chick”, “crone”, and “harridan”. Defused, a reclaimed word can become an in-group identifier, with a positive, powerful spin. It’s all about who gets to define “us” – “them” or “us”? Reclamation is about refusing to let others define your group, set the parameters, or establish the meanings. In some instances, reclamation is about reclaiming not just an arbitrarily-defined pejorative word, but about proudly reclaiming the pejorative meaning, when it is based in the fear of women speaking their minds, defending themselves, not letting their personal value be defined by their sexual worth to patriarchy.

Examples

Here’s a smorgasbord of examples of reclamatory language. Going by the principle of “In their own words”, I’ve pulled out snippets of discussion about or explanation of the specific reclaimed terms in a few cases.

Bitch magazine‘s About page:

The writer Rebecca West, back in the day, said, “People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.” We’d argue that the word “bitch” is usually deployed for the same purpose. When it’s being used as an insult, “bitch” is an epithet hurled at women who speak their minds, who have opinions and don’t shy away from expressing them, and who don’t sit by and smile uncomfortably if they’re bothered or offended. If being an outspoken woman means being a bitch, we’ll take that as a compliment, thanks.

Linuxchix and its subgroups, “grrltalk” and “grrls-only” were the subject of a debate in which some interlocutors whined that reclamatory language was an inappropriate “Special Privilege!” for women:

I think it’s more about being ironic than about having special “privileges”. And the irony wouldn’t work if you aren’t a part of the group in question. [Cliff Crawford]

Insider language often can include the same words which when used by an outsider are derogatory but when used by an insider are a friendly sign of inclusion. [Shulamit]

The Ethical Slut author Janet Hardy takes this approach to defusing the word:

Slut has been used for many years as a way to shame women out of their sexuality. We think sluts are adults of any gender or orientation who love sex and welcome it into their lives in whatever form feels best to them.

And possibly the most taboo anti-woman expletive of all, “cunt”, commonly called just “the c word”, the one my grandmother steadfastedly refused to explain to my mother, has been reclaimed by feminists – including the author of Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, Inga Muscio. From the Library Journal review:

Muscio encourages women to reclaim the word “cunt”, rejecting its negative connotations and reincarnating it as a symbol of women’s power and strength. She invites women to disregard the derogatory messages they receive about their bodies and their womanhood: both “the anatomical jewel”, as she terms it, and the essence of femaleness.

Kate Townshend, in her War of Words article on The F-Word blog, discusses the reclamation of the word “Feminist”:

In order to effect a shift in the meaning of a particular word we need to use language in a more general sense to frame it. That we talk about feminism at all, that the debates still exist and are invigorated is a crucial and continuing victory. Male gaze has always positioned women as objects to be seen, decorative, visual creatures. Feminism and its associated movements announce women as creatures to be heard as well.

Blogger Bitch, Ph.D. explains her blogonym:

So I think that’s kind of the thing about bitching. If you’re doing it all alone, and it’s falling on deaf ears, and you feel powerless, it’s easy to feel like bitching is pointless. And that, of course, is why some people call other people bitches–to try to isolate them, marginalize what they’re doing, keep other women from joining them in bitching. But when bitchy women start bitching at each other, and then bitching together in a kind of bitches coven, it does make a difference. It makes you realize you’re not alone, and you do have the right to feel ticked off about whatever’s twisting your knickers, and hey, now that you mention it, my panties are in a bunch too, and why the fuck don’t clothing manufacturers make underwear that doesn’t ride up your crack? […] And the cacophany of bitchiness gets so loud that everyone else finally hears it and realizes that they need to move the hell over to where we are and include us in their conversations, and join our conversations, bring us into the party, or else the party is effectively over.

Reclamation isn’t limited to nouns. Just as Bitch PhD is reclaiming the act of bitching, other feminists are reclaiming adjectives: “angry”, “uppity”, “fat”, and even “hairy”, all terms used to denigrate and dismiss women who aren’t adequately submissive or ornamental.

Angry Black Bitch:

For the record…a bitch doesn’t need permission, tolerance or acceptance to celebrate the wonderful diversity that is me.

Empowerment gave me that.

You feel me?

Fuck you if it intimidates you…if you anticipated gratitude…if you prefer submission…if you are more comfortable with Toby.

Yeah…fuck you.

I stopped trying to put The Man at ease years ago.

Uppity Women Magazine proclaims on its banner:

This is a place for uppity women. You know who you are. You are a woman who refuses to keep your place, to limit yourself in any way, to live down to others’ expectations. You are a woman who gets up again and again, every time life knocks you down. You’ve learned how to survive. Now it’s time to learn how to prosper.

“Uppity” isn’t confined to antifeminism; it has been used in attempts put activists of all kinds into place, including people of colour and disabled activists. Ragged Edge magazine reviewed Harriet McBryde Johnson’s Too Late To Die Young:

The chapter “Art Object” is the story of her contretemps with the New York Times Magazine photographer sent to record her image for the “Unspeakable Conversations” article. But in Johnson’s recounting of the test of wills between a New York artist used to seducing her subjects into pliability before the camera and the immovable object that is the attorney Johnson at her finest, we see both the mindset of the “uppity cripple” — which most of us will cheer — and its very unsettling effect on those not used to power in wheelchairs coming from driver rather than battery.

“Protesting is contrary to the teachings of Charleston’s civil religion, politeness,” she tells us. But she’s an uppity crip, and her book is a manifesto for uppity crips everywhere: “I believe that living our strange and different lives, however we choose and manage to live them, is a contribution to the struggle.”

Krista Scott’s thesis “Girls Need Modems!”: Cyberculture and Women’s Ezines quote a FaT GiRL ezine article, “A Fat, Vulgar, Angry Slut” by Betty Rose Dudley:

I usually tell people that I am a fat, white, working-class bitch who comes from a small town in the slightly southern, mostly midwestern state of Missouri:I am an angry woman, a very angry woman: I am a slut. A fat, lecherous, rude, crude, and very nice slut: I am tacky and vulgar. I wallow in vulgarity, consume it with the hunger fat girls are famous for: I make words and music my own. I take back my power: I no longer give you the power to tell me who to be or how to behave: I am a vulgar woman. I am a powerful female.

The book Fat! So? and Big Fat Blog are in the forefront of fat-reclamation. The Fat! So? tagline is:

for people who don’t apologize for their size.

Big Fat Blog has taken a slightly different approach to reclamation, arguing for a broad, society-wide reclamation of the word “fat” – one not restricted to use by fat people.

Fat is a descriptor. It is what it is. Fat is fat. Fat is not bad. What’s worse is that actions like this put fat people, collectively, in a bad position. The supposition here is that we’re so “offended” by the use of the word “fat” that we don’t want anyone to use it.

Truth be told, I say go for it. This is a word that we should own and ultimately is a word that should empower. It’s not something to be ashamed of. It’s not something that other people should get in trouble for – no. It’s ours.

“The Bitch King” talks about power (read the whole thing at the link):

I transgress when I define myself.

Naming is power and naming myself gives me power. When I define myself, I become the subject of this sentence.

Because the Bitch King does not negotiate.

Western culture perpetuates this myth that god gave Adam the power to name. He named Eve, along with the rest of the world. This story is a cultural symbol of gendered power relations. Man becomes the center of the universe. Woman becomes a part of the scenery.

For too long, women have been the objects of naming, labeled by males, defined by patriarchal standards.

I write my own history because the time for revolution is now.

By defining myself, I exert authority and agency. I reclaim what has been taken from me.

Critiques

There are strong arguments made for the position that some words can’t successfully be reclaimed. That the terms are inseparable from their pejorative meanings, that the pejorative meanings are unreversible, and that attempts at reclamation are at best misguided, or at worst, counter-productive. Blackademic has written about her feelings about the controversies and debates on the reclamation of racist language.

lost clown, at Angry For A Reason, is pessimistic about all attempts to reclaim gendered language:

Men have defined our sexuality; they have defined words used to describe women’s sexuality and behaviors such as bitch, slut, whore, cunt, etc. Where are the positive words to define women’s sexuality? The lack of their existence is proof that women have never defined our own sexuality. When we attempt to “reclaim” these words, and give them a new meaning they remain hurtful to us, as they retain their original meanings and are still used negatively by others. An example: the American Heritage Dictionary defines the term bitch as “a female canine animal, esp. a dog” and “a spiteful or overbearing woman.” I am neither, and no matter how positively I use the term it will always mean a female dog and a spiteful woman. As long as we continue to use the words and behaviors defined by the oppressors we will never break the cycle of oppression; we will never truly be free. Female sexuality can never be reclaimed; it must be defined in the first place, something that has never happened. Reclamation is misleading, and an ultimate dead end. We can never reclaim anything that was never ours in the first place.

Dr. Crazy, at Reassigned Time makes the (rather obvious) point that changing language won’t put an end to oppression:

All language is gendered. All language regulates behavior, determines identity, and ultimately polices the individual. Claiming or reclaiming a particular word isn’t going to make language itself any less oppressive. At the end of the day, if we successfully “reclaim” Bitch, or Crazy, or Slut, or Whore, or Cunt, another word is going to crop up in its place to “oppress opinionated women and to marginalize stereotypically feminine behaviors in men and women.” The point in any project of reclamation as far as I can tell is not that it’s going to stop oppression. Rather, it’s to change the terms of the discussion.

This is, to at least some extent, an argument against a position that most reclaimers don’t take. The “strong”, deterministic version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in linguistics has been long since discredited. However, weaker versions of Whorfian linguistic relativism have retained currency and relevance under scrutiny, though they are the subject of many a late-night debate. In the words of Whorf:

We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way – an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language. The agreement is, of course, an implicit and unstated one, but its terms are absolutely obligatory; we cannot talk at all except by subscribing to the organization and classification of data which the agreement decrees.

(For a densely nuanced reinterpretation, read Mark Liberman’s take on Whorf here at the Language Log.)

Dr Crazy elaborates on her own moniker in the comments, hitting one of my pet peeves in the process:

my being “Dr. Crazy” is actually ironic, rather than some kind of meaningful appropriation. I mean, call me crazy, call me a bitch – whatever – don’t we have more important things to talk about?

Concerns have also been raised about commercialised corporate meta-reclamation: re-re-appropriation? Bitch PhD commenter Susan writes:

I love Bitch magazine, and am sympathetic to the goal of feminists’ reclaiming of the term bitch. However, I also know that the word bitch has been commercially appropriated as a “hip” fashion statement or as a “sexy” reference to being some man’s bitch. Kind of like the rhinestone-encrusted t-shirts I see with the words porn star emblazoned across the front. Either could be used as a reclamation of a term or as a questioning of ways women are stigmatized (for doing social critique or for ways we use our sexuality). But both could also be used to commercially co-opt that impulse in order to reinforce negative perceptions of “bitches” and porn stars.

I have my own issues with some “reclamations”. Women who are privileged to have never been involved in sex work commonly use the words “tart” and “whore”. They may have had these words used against them in anger as generalised misogynistic epithets – does this “lend” them the word for reclamation, or does their privilege, their position in the hierarchy allow them the unexamined use of these words? “Nazi” is my pet peeve – women labelled “boob nazis” and “feminazis” may be rightfully angry about being slapped with these terms by asshats, but are their reclamation attempts unproblematic in a post-Holocaust world?

Where are the reclamatory grey areas? What’s off-limits? Which words have you reclaimed? Have any of these examples made you think, challenged your assumptions, pissed you off? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences.

Categories: gender & feminism, language

Tags: feminism friday, reclamation, sexism