I’m a bitch. By that I mean: I am proud to have an essay included in the anthology, The Bitch Is Back: Older, Wiser, and (Getting) Happier, published yesterday. Edited by Cathi Hanauer, this is a sequel to her earlier collection, the bestselling The Bitch in the House—the anthology that changed the national conversation about how we live now for a generation of young women.
Bitch. It can be a term of great love and affection. Yaaas queen—get your power on. But: All too often, it gets hurled at strong women like a boulder of hate tied up with a big red misogynistic bow. We hear it more these days—aimed most often at presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. (I hope we all remember to say, “Bitch is the new president, bitch”, to anyone who calls her a bitch in that snarling, degrading way some people do.) We can (and are) taking back the night, the word—and the world, too, bitches.
In celebration of The Bitch Is Back, I asked Cathi and some of my fellow contributor bitches—along with some guests with bitchy thoughts—to join me and tell us about a favorite literary bitch, or a bitch they love to hate. We even hear from Lassie! C’mon—get YOUR bitch on. This bitch is BACK.
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1. Charlotte, Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
Chosen by: Anna March, Contributor, The Bitch Is Back
No one puts Baby in a corner, but Charlotte lived in the corner of the barn, saving Wilbur from becoming bacon. Radiant. Humble. Some Pig. Terrific. Like all writers worth their egg sacs, Char got the job done with just those few words. Perhaps the ultimate bitch, she had a rat—Templeton—do her bidding and drag back labels and bits of newspaper with words for her to use to do the job. Giving orders with calm aplomb until she died—from having all those babies—she was not quite the bitch in the house, but rather the baddest bitch in the barn.
2. Hermione Granger, Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
Chosen by: Cathi Hanauer, Editor, The Bitch is Back
If you’re using “bitch” as a compliment—a strong woman, the opposite of the “angel in the house” who Virginia Woolf famously spoke of in 1931 (“if there was chicken, she took the leg; if there was a draft, she sat in it…”)—then for me, it’s probably Hermione Granger from Harry Potter. Even at ten or eleven, this pretty little witch suffers no fools (think of her sneering at Harry and Ron on the train when she meets them; immediately, it’s clear who’s the boss of the trio). Despite being Muggle-born, Granger works so hard to learn her trade that she’s soon at the top of her class. By adulthood, she’ll be one kick-ass witch/bitch, though she’ll likely have a few tough years when she’s juggling young kids with her full-time career (and Ron, of course, isn’t doing enough). But by middle age she’ll have figured out what she needs in order to be more content, and she’ll go for it. Will she leave Ron? Have him stay home with the kids so she can focus full-time on her work? For the answers, we’ll just have to wait until J.K. Rowling writes the sequels.
3. Lassie, Lassie Come-Home by Eric Knight
Chosen by: Pam Houston, Contributor, The Bitch Is Back
Yeah, I’m a bitch. What of it? Put yourself in my paws for a minute and you’ll find yourself bitching too. Timmy fell down between two train cars, Timmy’s stuck in quicksand, Timmy’s drowning in a lake, Timmy’s wedged in a badger hole. Timmy, Timmy, Timmy. It’s not my fault the child suffers from a desperate need for attention, but who do you suppose it is who bruises her pads and tears her dew claws week after week running for help? Have the parents not heard of grounding? Might a week confined to his room give Timmy a moment’s pause the next time he has the great idea to lower himself into an abandoned mine shaft? The parents nod and smile, wipe the sweat off their brows with that boys will be boys look on their faces. But you heard it here first: I’ve got a PhD in Tough Love from the University of Whoop Ass, and I’m about to put it to use.
4. Morgause, The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Chosen by Hope Edelman, Contributor, The Bitch is Back
Morgause is the Wickedest Bitch of King Arthur’s Court. Motherless since birth, raised among royalty, she manipulates upward to the throne of Lothian. Morgause is vain, she’s arrogant, she’s obsessed with power. She’s as nasty as the Middle Ages get before she even reaches middle age. You can’t help hoping she’ll implode, but you also want to see how far this bitch can go. The answer is crazy far. As foster mother to Gwydion, Arthur’s secret illegitimate son, she schemes and connives and uses Black Magic to keep Guinevere from conceiving a rival heir. And throughout it all? A parade of much-younger lovers, and full-on disdain for the haters. Morgause gets what’s coming to her in the end, but what a wild ride she takes on us to get there.
5. Amy Dunne, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Chosen by: Robin Rinaldi, Contributor, The Bitch Is Back
Hell hath no fury like Amy Dunne. Most fictional wives who find out their husbands are cheating collapse in tears or leave; a rebellious few take lovers of their own. Almost none go to the lengths of Gillian Flynn’s protagonist: painstakingly concocting a fake, retroactive diary; vanishing incognito to frame said husband for murder; offing an ex-boyfriend who comes to her aid; and finally blackmailing Mr. Dunne into silence by using his frozen semen to impregnate herself. The turns by which we find out Amy’s true motivations are gradual enough that, before shivering with the realization that she’s a psychopath, we can relate to her anger. Her rant on how she spent her entire life pretending to be a “cool girl” (“… a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2… ”) is epic.
6. Aomame, 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Chosen by: Robin Rinaldi, Contributor, The Bitch Is Back
(Robin loves bitches so much, she couldn’t decide on just one.)
The main female character of Murakami’s thousand-page, surrealistic fairy tale isn’t the kind of woman who gets called a bitch. Reticent and petite, Aomame (Ow-mamay) works at a gym and is secretly in love with the distant memory of a boy whose hand she held in fifth grade. She owns only one sexy dress, which she occasionally uses to pick up a one-night stand. Otherwise, she swears by flats, ponytails, soap and water, and moisturizer. She’s also an assassin, employed by a rich dowager who runs a shelter for abused women—beat your wife and she will find an opportunity to inject an untraceable poison into your brain stem. In the novel’s pivotal scene, Aomame murders a cult leader who practices ritualized sex with young girls (or perhaps not with the girls themselves but their magical shadow selves because, you know, Murakami). Then she goes into hiding, eating balanced meals and doing calisthenics in her small one-bedroom apartment while biding her time. Badass women don’t always announce themselves.
7. Natalie Blake, NW by Zadie Smith
Chosen by: Jennifer Baker, Creator, Minorities in Publishing podcast
The crux of Natalie Blake’s story line in NW is the conflict of identity. Hers is an internal turmoil affecting her daily and intimately, though outwardly one wouldn’t be able to tell because of her confidence and tenacity to handle her business. Natalie’s successful in her career. Natalie is forceful, committed to what she wants, well-educated, respected, and in a good job with stability. She also has two lovely children with a husband who checks “all the boxes” so to speak in terms of looks, social standing, education, and otherwise. She has what appears to be the perfect life for those of us who may want to throw stones and yet, and yet, there is something missing. That niggling feeling of being between two worlds as an educated Black woman, which leads Natalie to disrupt, and possibly destroy, her life of domesticity. Some may be quick to judge Natalie for her actions more so than her dilemma. Does that make her selfish, unlikeable, a bitch? Or is she all of the above and more, making her one of the more honestly rendered characters in NW?
8. Suparnakha, The Ramayana
Chosen by: Minal Hajratwala, Author & Coach, Write Like a Unicorn
Suparnakha the monstress, following her desire into the dark of the forest. Into the path of the exiled prince-king-god, who cuts off her nose: to spite her brother, to start a war, to invade and conquer the great golden south that is her homeland. Suparnakha, daughter of sages, warrior and witchling, incendiary indigene, ample of belly and voluptuous of breast, voluminous in rage against the pale sanctimonious thrust of the Aryan invasion.
9. Dorothy Gale, The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Chosen by: Rebecca Chamaa, Writer/Bitch Enthusiast
Dorothy sets out on an amazing trip (solo traveling with just her dog Toto as a companion). She becomes the head of a band of misfits and teaches those bros about feminism—heart, brains, and courage. She doesn’t monkey around with other bitches (I mean witches) and can take whatever those sisters throw her way. She is successful at taking down the curtain surrounding the patriarchy. She is an animal lover, adventurous, and a leader in the best possible bitch kind of way. She follows a winding trail that has danger at every turn, but Dorothy has the skills to put those roadblocks (and there are many) behind her as she makes her way home. The best part of all? That bitch has the shoes!
10. Carrie, Carrie by Stephen King
Chosen by: Ashley Perez, Writer/Proud Bitch
Who’s the baddest bitch who won’t be ignored? That’s right. It’s my telekinetic badass Carrie. Essentially a fable on morals, Carrie’s outbursts of telekinetic power is really a lesson on empathy and being kind to one another, and ya know, a big glowing neon sign that says, “Do not fuck with me.” Bonus bad bitch: the mother in the titular story, “The Bloody Chamber” by Angela Carter, who rides up on a horse, skirts up and hair flowing, to save her daughter like a boss.
11. Eowyn, Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Chosen by: Joyce Hayden, Writer/Bad Bitch
As Pat Benatar, Coolest Bitch of Rock n Roll, knew, “Love is a battlefield.” That’s where we find our hero: in war torn Middle Earth, amid boil covered orcs, manipulative wizards, a forked-tongued pedophile, and ineffectual men. Because she’s a grown ass woman, Eowyn ignores orders and single-handedly engages the most frightening enemy, the Witch-King, Lord of the Nazgul, whose presence shrivels men quicker than a cold shower. Despite threats of bodily torture and mind control, and with an arm broken by the Witch-King’s mace, Eowyn fearlessly informs him that she is the only soldier with the means to defeat him: the power of Bad Ass Warrior Bitch. “I am no man,” she roars, plunging her sword, and the Nazgul leader evaporates at her bloody feet. Thus does Eowyn, Bitch Queen of the Battlefield, bring peace.
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Original logo art by Esme Blegvad.
