In her latest podcast episode, Meghan Markle is dissecting the word “bitch” — and how it’s used to gaslight strong women.
The Duchess of Sussex, 41, dropped the latest episode of her Archetypes podcast Tuesday, where she welcomed Mellody Hobson, co-CEO of Ariel Investments and chairwoman of Starbucks, and Victoria Jackson, makeup mogul and medical advocate. In a conversation titled “To ‘B’ or Not to ‘B’?” they unpacked the charged term that holds women back, especially in the working world.
Meghan, who described herself as a “word nerd” in the episode’s intro and never said “bitch,” instead using the term the “B-word” or spelling it out, first welcomed Robin Thede, writer and creator of A Black Lady Sketch Show, who argued that the negative label is “still just used to describe a woman who goes after what she wants” and isn’t afraid to say no.
In a voiceover, Meghan said that the implication of the “very charged word” is that such women are “difficult.”
“Which is really just a euphemism, or is probably not even a euphemism. It’s really a code word for the B-word,” she said before Thede dug into the power of reclaiming the word. While Meghan later said that she had “zero interest” in doing the same and joked that she hates the term so much that the conversation was giving her “hives,” she praised the notion, saying, “these women I respect, whose work I love, a lot of them are entirely comfortable with that. They want to do that, to take the power out of it.”
Introducing zoologist Lucy Cook, author of Bitch: A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal, Meghan pointed out a parallel “especially in the context of this, larger notion of difficult women who are threatening the human social order. Being masculine is being aggressive and dominant and being feminine is being submissive.”
“It really annoys me, these labels, because actually being feminine, you know, amongst the animal kingdom, involves being aggressive and promiscuous and competitive, and dominant, and dynamic and varied and all the things that males are so these distinctions between masculine and feminine,” Cook offered. “And I think are our cultural not biological. I don’t think the word ‘bitch’ should be a swear word, why? Should be being a bitch, a bad thing.”
In another voiceover, Meghan reflected, “So, perhaps the truth is that labeling a woman is the B-word, or is difficult, is often a deflection, a way to hide some of her really awesome qualities, her persistence, her strength, her perseverance, her strong opinion, maybe even her resilience.”
