Release Your Inner Bitch

Who hasn’t used the term “Bitch?” We have all been called one or uttered the word at some point in our life.  No one prefaces the term anymore by saying the “B” word.  The term is now heard on television, in film, in music lyrics and is read in articles, fiction and non-fiction alike.  Singer/songwriter Meredith Brooks’ solo debut album blurring the edges  featured a song entitled “Bitch” that was a platinum single.  The chorus follows:

            I’m a bitch.

            I’m a lover.

            I’m a child.

            I’m a mother.

            I’m a sinner.

            I’m a saint

            I do not feel ashamed... so take me as I am.

(Meredith Brooks/Shelly Peiken, Capitol Records, l997)

Brook’s message is all women are/can be bitches.  She reclaimed the word bitch and perhaps that explains the song’s popularity.

Release Your Inner Bitch is a one of a kind book featuring stories, essays, and poems by women who on their own terms reclaimed the word bitch.  These courageous women, ages 20-81, defined the term for themselves.

What follows is a compilation of humor, heroism, and honesty.  The reader will find guidelines for joining a bitch club and learn new ways to discover bitches.  You’ll meet a battered woman in prison for manslaughter who said perhaps if she’d been a bitch, her life would have been different.  Bitches often do the unthinkable.

Some are hairdressers, counselors, lawyers, firefighters, teachers, prostitutes, and truck drivers. Some are mothers, daughters, grandmothers, lovers, friends and wives.  Some are employed, house-hold engineers, or retired.  Some brave bitches find the courage to leave abusive partners and survive breast cancer.  Some begin to take responsibility for their own lives.

You will discover bitches you never knew existed.  You’ll meet a Goddess bitch, a Tsunami bitch, and serial menopausal bitches.  The word bitch is incredibly versatile and is used in the essays to express a variety of emotions. As Rose Stadler describes it, becoming a bitch is a process - - an on-going life long process.  Some of us began the process  earlier than others.  Some of us had  better bitch mentors than others.  You will meet bitches in training and bitchettes.  My two year old niece is often referred to as a little bitch.  At first I was startled to hear a baby referred to as a bitch, but then she has earned the name because when she is not happy she lets you know in all the ways a two year old is capable of expressing herself.