If I really hate my ex girlfriend and think she is a horrible evil woman, what would be a good biting derogatory word to use that would connotate "awful female" without other women seeing it as an attack on the entire gender?
If she is an awful person, just say so. The fact that you connect her awfulness with her gender is the problem. Consider the fact that I am an asshole. I can describe this in many ways without needing to describe my so-called color. But the moment someone calls me a Nigger... That's wrong.
When I imagine myself calling some woman a bitch, my mind doesn't seem to contain the idea that all women are bitches. I can sort of sympathize with your having an overactive detector of bigoted speech, but I'm uncomfortable with your trying to shut me up based on the detector's output instead of what I actually meant.
If you are uncomfortable with push back against your choice of words, your best bet is to avoid using controversial expressions in public.
Regardless of what you think you mean, it's a statistical certainty that someone, somewhere is going to regard words like "bitch" as inappropriate, or will feel uncomfortable, or will think poorly of you for making that choice.
It's not like I'm this lone, eccentric weirdo suggesting that it is not necessary to use the word "bitch" to describe a person whose behavior displeases you.
Update: And yes, of course, it's not like you are a sexist oppressive pig either, nor are you in an isolated minority. We're two people arguing opposing points that are both well within the range of normal human behavior. What makes the subject "controversial" is that there are large numbers of people on either side of the question and many on each side take it seriously. All I'm trying to say here is that since it is controversial, it's safest to use the word in a more private setting, not an Internet forum and especially not a conference presentation. I think we can agree on the question of avoiding controversy even if we disagree on whether the word describes a specific woman.
Can you be a bit more specific? What is sterile about describing a person in opprobrious terms without using the word "bitch?"
What realms of human experience and observation are we ignoring? I suggest the opposite: Slurs like "bitch" are lazy, they ignore the myriad of subtle colours and shades of human behavior and replace them with a catch-all that means roughly "we disapprove of you."
I am certain that a man can damn his ex with far more wounding intent by expanding his vocabulary and unleashing his inner poet. Such insults would hardly be sterile, they would be fecund.
First of all I want to make it clear that I'm not defending Noah's use of that slide - I think it was dumb. I don't think that you think I approve of it, but I just wanted to get that out of the way up front. For the sake of argument though I'll be operating under the assumption that denigrating an ex- in a slide is a good idea, and the issue is to choose the correct word.
Back on topic, the ideology I was thinking of is the idea that men and women aren't statistically different (or if they are, that mentioning such things is impolite). I would argue that "bitch" captures a characteristically female way of hurting a man with whom she's had a relationship. (See Carmen for the high-culture version, or Louis CK for the pop-culture version - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpW3orlfp7E) It's true that the word also carries other connotations, but I don't think that was the intent.
I agree that it may be "lazy", but from a purely practical perspective, it would be tough to find a similarly short word (short enough to fit on the bobble-head) that conveys the meaning. "Evil" might work and is gender-neutral, but the class of actions that make one "evil" are broader than the class that make one a "bitch".
There should always be a divide between public life and private life. It's called professionalism. Unless your profession revolves around peoples private lives you should avoid the 'realms of human experience' and focus on 'experiences related to you getting money/work done'. There is a time and a place, and knowing this is an important part of being an adult and fitting into society.
If you really hate your ex-girlfriend and think she is a horrible evil woman, what would be the point of gratuitously parading your hatred in a technical presentation?
The easiest way for you to avoid having other women see your comment as an attack on the entire gender is to make sure that the comment is appropriate to the context.
It could be that her awfulness has a female quality to it rather than a gender-neutral or male one, in which case a female-specific insult could be appropriate (to the extent any insult would be appropriate to the listener, that is - the tone of this discussion is quickly heading toward the case where it is not appropriate to insult people at all, ever).
Female quality of the awfulness? You know, why it's mostly okay for you to decide against continuing a relationship if some physical quality of your partner disturbs you beyond the point when you can deal with it. It's sad but it happens. But I can't really imagine when such a situation would qualify someone as a horrible person.
And, I think that it's okay to insult people, for example it's okay to call someone who assigns "femininity" to character flaws a male chauvinistic pig.
And, I think that it's okay to insult people, for example it's okay to call someone who assigns "femininity" to character flaws a male chauvinistic pig.
Do you really believe that there are no linkages between sex and certain character flaws? Or is it just that this is one of those things that people should know better than to talk about when being polite? [I'd probably agree with the latter, FWIW]
Because in my life, the character flaws that I've seen in people absolutely tend to cluster based on sex. The stereotypes of the violent alcoholic boyfriend and capricious hypersensitive girlfriend come to mind as patterns that I've seen played out way too many times for the correlation to be a statistical anomaly, given that the inverse situations are very rare. I'd never say that women can't be abusive drunks that cheat on their SOs with 20 year olds and pay more attention to their jobs than their kids, but if you heard that a person of unknown sex was described that way, where would you put your money? Is it really so unfair to make that assumption?
In the end it doesn't really matter w.r.t. the current debacle - it's flat out wrong to refer to people as "bitch", and even more wrong to do so at a professional conference, and I just won't stand up for that. I do, however, think that it's fine and proper to consider certain personality traits to be more prevalent in women than men and vice versa, as long as the correlations are real (whether or not they're to blame on genetics or culture); to do otherwise is to pretend to live in a world that only exists in our imaginations.
Saying "my ex was abusive" makes you sound a bit like a victim, though. Why did you put up with being abused? Just saying, it is probably not the effect you wanted to achieve.
It is also more detailed, which might be even worse to spill in public than just generic insults.
Same thing.