According to Chuck Schumer's office, he made an "off-the-cuff comment under his breath" on Sunday after a US Airways flight attendant told him to turn off his cell phone. According to a Republican aide who was lucky enough to overhear the exchange, that "off-the-cuff comment" would be the b-word. This was apparently enough for Republicans to accuse Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who was sitting next to Schumer, of being a bad feminist. The National Republican Senatorial Committee says:

For a politician who claims to have a "family first" agenda and who claims to fight for women's rights, Kirsten Gillibrand's silence is stunning. It appears clear that when push comes to shove, she's far more worried about offending her political mentor, Chuck Schumer, than standing up for women in the workplace. It's our hope that those womens' rights organizations that have already endorsed her campaign for the Senate will ask Kirsten Gillibrand why she believes it's acceptable to call a female flight attendant a "bitch."

Why didn't she strangle him with her bra immediately? Sarah Palin totally would've. Kidding aside, though, the whole incident raises the question of whether "bitch" is a big deal anymore. On the one hand, Bitch Magazine and others have worked to reclaim the word. It's so much a part of common parlance that I hardly think twice when someone uses it casually. And it was hardly shocking when Double X ran a piece by Hanna Rosin yesterday under the headline, "The Rise of the Kitchen Bitch." Then again, that essay also illustrated some of the lingering problems with the word. Rosin says Sandra Tsing Loh uses the term "kitchen bitch" to refer to "a friend's husband who was anal and fussy and altogether too feminine-he belonged to an online fennel club, for God's sake." When a man gets called a bitch — as when he's called a pussy — it usually means he's acting stereotypically feminine. Which means, in turn, that simply being a woman remains a stinging insult.

But what of "bitch" as applied to women? Like "slut," women sling it around often enough affectionately. And many who say it without affection just use it as they would "asshole" — a word to describe someone whose behavior sucks. But it can also be used to put a woman in her place — to insult her, for instance, for rejecting a man's advances or for speaking her mind. The word "bitch" can imply that a man is too feminine, but it can also imply that a woman isn't feminine enough — and these connotations alone make its use problematic, even if the user doesn't mean to make any kind of gendered statement.

I'm a pretty conciliatory person, and I don't get in a lot of wars of words — or any other kind. But I do remember the first time (that I know of) that someone called me a bitch. It was early in college, and I'd been clashing with a fellow student who was my superior at work. After a particularly heated argument, I heard that my superior was telling our coworkers what a "bitch" I was. To be honest, I was thrilled. "Bitch" meant that I'd stuck up for myself, when I'd often been too passive to do so in the past. It meant someone thought I was difficult, and perhaps even insufficiently feminine — but it also meant I had a certain kind of power. I'd become someone who wouldn't back down, someone whose opponents' only recourse was to throw around a word whose meaning I could, in fact, choose to interpret for myself. And if bitch is to be truly reclaimed, that's what I'd like it to mean.

Sen. Schumer Regrets Comment To Flight Attendant [AP, via MSNBC]
Word Prompts Apology From Schumer [NYT]
NRSC Plays The Feminism Card [Washington Independent]
The Rise Of The Kitchen Bitch [Double X]
Bitch [Dictionary.com]

While I think that Perez Hilton—who has repeatedly called Prejean a bitch, among other nasty things—has been out of line, I don't believe the same is true for Whoopi. Whoopi referred to Prejean's hostile and defensive demeanor and attitude as "bitchy" during an interpersonal exchange. There's a big difference between calling someone a name, and describing someone's behavior. The former is an insult and the latter is an inference.

Elisabeth didn't seem to grasp that, and accused "the liberals" of "hating" Prejean "for no reason." You can be sure that Joy checked her on that.

Both in the trailer for the upcoming season of The Hills (which premieres September 29) and additional advertising spots, Kristin has been billed as "the bitch," literally, in this marquee style ad:

For her part, Kristin says she believes that people use the term refer to women who speak their minds, so she doesn't mind it all that much.

• Less than 50% of female residents of Ontario who had abnormal pap smears received follow-up care, a new study says. Unsurprisingly, many of the untreated women were from lower-income communities. • AdAge breaks down what we can learn from online dating. Among the bullet-point nuggets of wisdom: "the vast majority of people out there are hurting, confused, bitter, uncertain, cynical and, yes, crazy" and "We are all biologically programmed to be 'about the looks.' Apple has built a small empire based on its remarkable aesthetic." • Ever wondered what happens when you sneeze? This article will answer that question, and several others, like why does a sneeze sometimes feel so fucking good? • Margaret Atwood on the environmentalist message of her new novel, Year of the Flood: ‘‘We tend to pay attention to immediate needs and desires, but we are not so good at looking down the road, and it is really hard for us to look a hundred years down the road.'' Read the rest of the (awesome) interview here. •  A 14-year-old mixed race girl from the UK was driven to attempt suicide by the taunts of her racist 15-year-old classmate. Last month, the boy was convicted of racially aggravated harassment, but he was only sentenced to a six month supervision order and a fine. The victim said of the ruling: "That's pants." •  One Texas sheriff's deputy has been fired and four other deputies have been disciplined for asking a scantily-clad waitress named Bambi to pose on the back of their police cruiser holding a AR-15 rifle. • Controversy is brewing over a book on Frida Kahlo coming out this fall that the publishers say contains "an astonishing lost archive of one of the 20th century's most revered artists … full of ardent desires, seething fury, and outrageous humour." Unfortunately, Kahlo scholars say the items are fake and are pushing Mexican art institutions to step in and "put a stop to this type of fraud." • Director Kathryn Bigelow says she filmed The Hurt Locker, her critically-acclaimed film about the Iraq War, in Jordan because, "It's a movie about the Middle East and, call me crazy, I wanted to shoot it in the Middle East. I don't think Arizona would have been quite right... The nature of this film was so reportorial – if you don't immerse yourself, how are you going to tell the story responsibly?" • A federal judge ruled today in a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota challenging informed consent laws that South Dakota abortion doctors must tell pregnant women the procedure terminates the life of a human being. However, she ruled that pregnant women don't have to be told abortion increases the likelihood of suicide or that they have an existing relationship with the fetus. • A British man who had a cornea transplant says he must have received the "cornea of a woman". His wife used to have to pester him to do housework but he says, "Because of my new eyesight I now notice every speck of dust and dirt and immediately want to clean it up... There is a reason why men don't clean normally and I think it's because we just don't see the dirt. But since the transplant I now see it wherever I go."

Colbert explained that one way to combat the neutralization of masculine terms — like changing "Congressman" to "Member of Congress" — is to replace "female" terms with male ones. He'd start things off by replacing "bitchy" with "teste," the better to describe the way white men feel marginalized in a society that's slowly recognizing the existence and power of women and people of color.

This month's issue was so comparatively tame we're wondering if it was penned by the Seventeen readers Gossip Girl is actually aimed at. Leighton Meester's profile notes in the headline that she's "not really a bitch." Reassuring us that she's a "good girl" in real life is a total teen mag move, and frankly, we enjoy Meester's teen series forerunner Shannen Doherty more because we know she's as bitchy off-screen as she was on 90210. This month's sex advice was also more taint-free than usual. Basically, if you prolong sex, you'll stay aroused for a longer period of time. The mag says this is how people achieve a one-hour orgasm, but quickly squashes readers' hopes by explaining that won't actually happen. In "Recession-Proof Your Love," we learn that "a guy's self-worth is often directly tied to his ability to earn big," so we should be sweeter and less demanding of pricey dinners if he loses his job. Finally, an article reveals that it freaks men out when you "try to be sneaky," "when you're jealous," or "when you're downright crazy." Below, we take a look at the various ways this month's Cosmo recommends taming our inner Blair.

The thing is, this isn't the first time the mag has had its hand out for "donations." For a publication that is so concerned about the way women act and are portrayed in the media, I'm afraid its publishers are reinforcing the negative stereotype that women are shit when it comes to business.

Granted, I doubt that Bitch's "noncommercial publishing policy" deters larger companies from advertising, anyway. With a circ of only 47,000, Banana Republic and Absolut probably aren't banging down its ad sales team's door for placement. But its ad policy (its website is an "ad-free blog") is perhaps an indication of why such stringent idealism isn't exactly realistic.

But here's the question, if Bitch is only asking for enough money to print one issue, what happens after that? What's the long-term goal here? In the FAQ on the magazine's website, editors state that "we’re in the process of evolving into a multimedia organization. Right now our sights are set on building a strong online presence, but in the not-so-distant future, we’re hoping to get into book publishing, audio and video production, and more." I don't see how this is possible.

Like I said, I worked at the same kind of publication — granted with a much higher circulation — with an incredibly small staff (4-6 women at a time), in a city (New York) with tons more overhead, and managed subscriptions for a time, so I'm fairly familiar with these kinds of budgets. And I know this sounds kind of assy, but maybe it isn't about doing business poorly at all. Maybe the reason why Bitch isn't succeeding is because, although it's trudged along for 12 years, it just isn't successful. Has anyone stopped to think that it's the content, and not the mean, evil corporate world that's costing them money? A lot of women don't really subscribe to the stilted rhetoric of first-year women's studies. And it would seem that a lot of women don't really subscribe to Bitch either.

Bitch Magazine Needs Your Help! [Feministing]

[Malibu, August 25. Image via Splash.]

[bitchmagazine.org]

from "Some not-so-petty criticism" by A.Z. p. 18-19:

"So let's talk about Jezebel, the women's destination in the Gawker media empire, which, for a site that likes to front as feminist, is occasionally far worse than Jane ever was in dealing out baldly antiwoman claptrap.  Now, the whole Gawker ethos goes something like this: Snarky, provacative posts + even snarkier commenters = mad page views.  Since writers are actually paid according to their posts' page views, inflaming readers means easy money.  Which brings us to the recent post by blogger Moe Tkacik, who fancies herself Jezebel's rebel ideologue— a stance that, more often than not translates into dissing feminism and feminists.... If Jezebel is going to continue to post sloppy, misogynist tripe and call it journalism, at least some of us can take comfort in seeing the number of people who won't let it stand."

cuntificate v. When a chick rambles on and on about bullshit.

Anyway, we hope that's a lesson to the state censors. You try to eradicate something harmful from society, and society thanks you by coming up with the crack rock of offensive slang.

Do us a favor, Councilwoman Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn, and try not to do anything drastic next time, like, you know, outlaw actually being a bitch.

(It's not gonna make that name of yours any prettier-sounding"

It's a Female Dog. Or Worse. Or Endearing. And Illegal? [NY Times]