“A highly competent Bitch often deprecates herself by refusing to recognize her own superiority…. Bitches are among the most unsung of the unsung heroes of this society. They are the pioneers, the vanguard, the spearhead. Whether they want to be or not this is the role they serve just by their very being. Many would not choose to be the groundbreakers for the mass of women for whom they have no sisterly feelings but they cannot avoid it. Those who violate the limits, extend them; or cause the system to break…. Their major psychological oppression is not a belief that they are inferior but a belief that they are not…. 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 cliches about them. Only with political consciousness is it directed at the source — the social system…. 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.”

— Jo Freeman

The BITCH Manifesto (Fall, 1968, © 1969) http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/bitch.htm, as accessed Aug. 22, 2010 (also published as Joreen, The Bitch Manifesto, in Notes From the Second Year (N.Y.: Shulamith Firestone & Anne Koedt, 1970))

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Jo Freeman 1

writer, lawyer 1945

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“Whenever anyone has called me a bitch, I have taken it as a compliment. To me, a bitch is assertive, unapologetic, demanding, intimidating, intelligent, fiercely protective, in control — all very positive attributes. But it’s not supposed to be a compliment, because there’s that stupid double standard: When men are aggressive and dominant, they are admired, but when a woman possesses those same qualities, she is dismissed and called a bitch.These days, I strive to be a bitch, because not being one sucks. Not being a bitch means not having your voice heard. Not being a bitch means you agree with all the bullshit. Not being a bitch means you don’t appreciate all the other bitches who have come before you. Not being a bitch means since Eve ate that apple, we will forever have to pay for her bitchiness with complacence, obedience, acceptance, closed eyes, and open legs.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

[Foreword, Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine, Lisa Miya-Jervis, Andi Zeisler, New York, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 9780374113438, 7422990M, xv, http://books.google.com/books?id=tmgYKGjl9BcC&pg=PR15]

“The memory of most men is an abandoned cemetery where lie, unsung and unhonored, the dead whom they have ceased to cherish.”

Marguerite Yourcenar book Memoirs of Hadrian

La mémoire de la plupart des hommes est un cimetière abandonné, où gisent sans honneurs des morts qu'ils ont cessé de chérir.
Source: Memoirs of Hadrian (1951), p. 209

“Life's not a bitch, life is a beautiful woman, You only call her a bitch 'cause she won't let you get that pussy, Maybe she didn't feel y'all shared any similar interests, Or maybe you're just an asshole who couldn't sweet-talk the princess,”

Aesop Rock (1976) American rapper

Source: "Daylight" from the album "Labor Days and Daylight"

“Why do we allow the people who just want to bitch to always win?”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

New Rule: ‘The Woke Olympics’, (2021)

“When women take their education and their abilities seriously and put them to use, ultimately they have to compete with men. It is better for a woman to compete impersonally in society, as men do, than to compete for dominance in her own home with her husband, compete with her neighbors for empty status, and so smother her son that he cannot compete at all.”

Betty Friedan book The Feminine Mystique

Source: The Feminine Mystique (1963), Ch. 14 "A New Life Plan for Women".

“Sometimes, Delores, you have to be a high riding bitch in order to survive, because being a bitch is all a woman has to hold on to..”

Stephen King book Dolores Claiborne

Dolores Claiborne (1992)

“Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Letter to Edward Newenham (20 October 1792) http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=WasFi32.xml&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=155&division=div1, these statements and one from a previous letter to Newenham seem to have become combined and altered into a misquotation of Washington's original statements to read:
1790s
Context: Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society.

“I have spent many days stringing and unstringing my instrument
while the song I came to sing remains unsung.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

“Once a bitch always a bitch, what I say.”

William Faulkner book The Sound and the Fury

The Sound and the Fury (1929)

“It is obvious that many women have appropriated feminism to serve their own ends, especially those white women who have been at the forefront of the movement; but rather than resigning myself to this appropriation I choose to re-appropriate the term “feminism,” to focus on the fact that to be “feminist” in any authentic sense of the term is to want for all people, female and male, liberation from sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

(1981)

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Jo Freeman 1

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