Reply #99: It's different when it's an insult, yes

[Goldmund]

But the difference doesn't (necessarily) subsume a gender-based attitude.

You're right, it is tragic how much of our language is steeped in hate. It's historically tragic. If you or I were linguists we'd be able to sit down and find that if we were to filter our vocabulary of terms that originate in hate, we'd probably be left with the vocabulary of a 4-year-old. But you know, it's not my fault, and it's not your fault. There are many equivalent examples of this in language. I'm an atheist and I use "god-given", because I don't know of a term that better fits the substance I want to express in certain situations. Or, have you ever red a book on Big Bang? It's pretty funny to read the verbal acrobatics Steven Hawking has to resort to to try to explain that before Big Bang, there was no time. There was no "was". "Something" didn't come out of "nothing". There's always been something, but before this something there was nothing, not even time. So there's no "before". You can't even say it and make verbal sense, because our language developed with the assumption that time flow is universal. You have to work with what you're given.

For that matter, the very ground you walk on and the very house you live in are afforded to you only because there was a genocide of American Indians. The lifestyle you enjoy is partly a consequence of limitless free labor during centuries of slavery. There are all kinds of historical injustices that resulted in the world you live in, language included; but you know, you didn't commit them and I didn't commit them and we _wouldn't_ commit them and we have no reason to feel constant guilt. I know of no other word that has the same fluid nuance, the same bite, the same wit, in certain contexts as "bitch" does, and whether you admit it or not, it has evolved far beyond its origins.