Feminists don’t all think women should reclaim hate language

Someone called me a “chick” today–just after she accused me of being a “leftist gatekeeper.” My generation of feminists didn’t use language like that to describe other women–even if we hated their guts. We weren’t into that reclaiming hate language crap because we considered it a concession to our oppression–& because we understood that language matters. So we rejected bitch, chick, slut, whore, bimbo, & the entire panoply of demeaning terms for women.

Jackass is a gender-neutral term & quite frankly cuts much more quickly to the chase. But I must say, when you’re 70, being called a chick has a certain appeal to it.

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