Writer, political scientist and lawyer, Freeman’s activism began whilst studying at Berkeley in the early 1960s, when she became involved with the growing civil rights movement. After graduating in 1964, she headed to Atlanta, where she worked for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) headed by Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
When Freeman first applied for jobs at mainstream newspapers she was told that they tended not to employ women, because ‘girls couldn’t cover riots’. In the final years of the 1960s, she formed the influential Westside group with fellow radical, Shulamith Firestone. It was this group that began the newsletter, Voice of the Women’s Liberation Movement, and thereby gave the movement its name. The following article first appeared in this newsletter (which Freeman personally sent out to feminists all across the US) and has since become one of the key texts of feminism’s second wave, stridently reclaiming the word ‘bitch’.
. . . man is defined as a human being and woman is defined as a female. Whenever she tries to behave as a human being she is accused of trying to emulate the male . . .
Simone de Beauvoir
BITCH is an organization which does not yet exist. The name is not an acronym. It stands for exactly what it sounds like.
BITCH is composed of Bitches. There are many definitions of a bitch. The most complimentary definition is a female dog. Those definitions of bitches who are also homo sapiens are rarely as objective. They vary from person to person and depend strongly on how much of a bitch the definer considers herself. However, everyone agrees that a bitch is always a female, dog, or otherwise.
It is also generally agreed that a Bitch is aggressive, and therefore unfeminine (ahem). She may be sexy, in which case she becomes a Bitch Goddess, a special case which will not concern us here. But she is never a ‘true woman.’
Bitches have some or all of the following characteristics.
1. Personality. Bitches are aggressive, assertive, domineering, overbearing, strong-minded, spiteful, hostile, direct, blunt, candid, obnoxious, thickskinned, hard-headed, vicious, dogmatic, competent, competitive, pushy, loud-mouthed, independent, stubborn, demanding, manipulative, egoistic, driven, achieving, overwhelming, threatening, scary, ambitious, tough, brassy, masculine, boisterous, and turbulent. Among other things. A Bitch occupies a lot of psychological space. You always know she is around. A Bitch takes shit from no one. You may not like her, but you cannot ignore her.
2. Physical. Bitches are big, tall, strong, large, loud, brash, harsh, awkward, clumsy, sprawling, strident, ugly. Bitches move their bodies freely rather than restrain, refine and confine their motions in the proper feminine manner. They clomp up stairs, stride when they walk and don’t worry about where they put their legs when they sit. They have loud voices and often use them. Bitches are not pretty.
3. Orientation. Bitches seek their identity strictly thru themselves and what they do. They are subjects, not objects. They may have a relationship with a person or organization, but they never marry anyone or anything; man, mansion, or movement. Thus Bitches prefer to plan their own lives rather than live from day to day, action to action, or person to person. They are independent cusses and believe they are capable of doing anything they damn well want to. If something gets in their way; well, that’s why they become Bitches. If they are professionally inclined, they will seek careers and have no fear of competing with anyone. If not professionally inclined, they still seek self-expression and self-actualization. Whatever they do, they want an active role and are frequently perceived as domineering. Often they do dominate other people when roles are not available to them which more creatively sublimate their energies and utilize their capabilities. More often they are accused of domineering when doing what would be considered natural by a man.
A true Bitch is self-determined, but the term ‘bitch’ is usually applied with less discrimination. It is a popular derogation to put down uppity women that was created by man and adopted by women. Like the term ‘nigger,’ ‘bitch’ serves the social function of isolating and discrediting a class of people who do not conform to the socially accepted patterns of behavior.
BITCH does not use this word in the negative sense. A woman should be proud to declare she is a Bitch, because Bitch is Beautiful. It should be an act of affirmation by self and not negation by others. Not everyone can qualify as a Bitch. One does not have to have all of the above three qualities, but should be well possessed of at least two of them to be considered a Bitch. If a woman qualifies in all three, at least partially, she is a Bitch’s Bitch. Only Superbitches qualify totally in all three categories and there are very few of those. Most don’t last long in this society.
The most prominent characteristic of all Bitches is that they rudely violate conceptions of proper sex role behavior. They violate them in different ways, but they all violate them. Their attitudes towards themselves and other people, their goal orientations, their personal style, their appearance and way of handling their bodies, all jar people and make them feel uneasy. Sometimes it’s conscious and sometimes it’s not, but people generally feel uncomfortable around Bitches. They consider them aberrations. They find their style disturbing. So they create a dumping ground for all who they deplore as bitchy and call them frustrated women.
Frustrated they may be, but the cause is social not sexual. What is disturbing about a Bitch is that she is androgynous. She incorporates within herself qualities traditionally defined as ‘masculine’ as well as ‘feminine’. A Bitch is blunt, direct, arrogant, at times egoistic. She has no liking for the indirect, subtle, mysterious ways of the ‘eternal feminine.’ She disdains the vicarious life deemed natural to women because she wants to live a life of her own. [. . .]
Bitches were the first women to go to college, the first to break thru the Invisible Bar of the professions, the first social revolutionaries, the first labor leaders, the first to organize other women. Because they were not passive beings and acted on their resentment at being kept down, they dared to do what other women would not. They took the flak and the shit that society dishes out to those who would change it and opened up portions of the world to women that they would otherwise not have known. They have lived on the fringes. And alone or with the support of their sisters they have changed the world we live in.
By definition Bitches are marginal beings in this society. They have no proper place and wouldn’t stay in it if they did. They are women but not true women. They are human but they are not male. Some don’t even know they are women because they cannot relate to other women. They may play the feminine game at times, but they know it is a game they are playing. Their major psychological oppression is not a belief that they are inferior but a belief that they are not. Thus, all their lives they have been told they were freaks. More polite terms were used of course, but the message got thru. Like most women they were taught to hate themselves as well as all women. In different ways and for different reasons perhaps, but the effect was similar. Internalization of a derogatory self-concept always results in a good deal of bitterness and resentment. This anger is usually either turned in on the self – making one an unpleasant person or on other women – reinforcing the social clichés about them. Only with political consciousness is it directed at the source – the social system.
The bulk of this Manifesto has been about Bitches. The remainder will be about BITCH. The organization does not yet exist and perhaps it never can. Bitches are so damned independent and they have learned so well not to trust other women that it will be difficult for them to learn to even trust each other. This is what BITCH must teach them to do. Bitches have to learn to accept themselves as Bitches and to give their sisters the support they need to be creative Bitches. Bitches must learn to be proud of their strength and proud of themselves. They must move away from the isolation which has been their protection and help their younger sisters avoid its perils. They must recognize that women are often less tolerant of other women than are men because they have been taught to view all women as their enemies. And Bitches must form together in a movement to deal with their problems in a political manner. They must organize for their own liberation as all women must organize for theirs. We must be strong, we must be militant, we must be dangerous. We must realize that Bitch is Beautiful and that we have nothing to lose. Nothing whatsoever.
This manifesto was written and revised with the help of several of my sisters, to whom it is dedicated.