benedict cumberbatch would like his fans to stop calling themselves bitches

We can now add ‘Cumberbitches’ to the list of fan groups in existence – a list that includes ‘Twihards’ and ‘Beliebers’. But it seems the group, dedicated to English movie star Benedict Cumberbatch, may be contemplating a name change.

In an interview for the August issue of InStyle UK, Cumberbatch acknowledged the devotees (a social media creation) but expressed concern with the name, saying: ‘It’s flattering, though I worry about what this says for feminism, it’s quite a pejorative term… “Cumberbabes” might be better.’

Some among the Cumberbitches thought the alternative was better, others wanted to stick with their name and some were just happy to be acknowledged by their celebrity crush of the moment.

I was late to the Cumberbatch craze, occupied as I am with my crushes on Ryan Gosling, Donald Glover, and Amos Lee. I don’t know Cumberbatch’s political feminist beliefs, or his level of engagement in gender issues. Like any so-called ‘regular person’, the War Horse actor is the sum total of everything he says in interviews, and his abilities on screen.

I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of Cumberbatch’s concern, and any man who provokes honest conversation about how society treats women deserves kudos. But his comment and the subsequent debate say more about feminism than he may have realised.

Anytime I, or any other woman I know, has been called a bitch, it’s not been for any behaviour I thought I should be ashamed of. Comedian Margaret Cho, in the foreword for the Bitchfest, has her own definition: “To me, a bitch is assertive, unapologetic, demanding, intimidating, intelligent, fiercely protective, in control – all positive attributes.”

That’s not to say that because Cho and some fans on the Internet are embracing it, every woman should. Earlier this year, Christina Aguilera slammed contestant Tony Lucca on the season finale of The Voice for his cover of ‘99 Problems’, disapproving of the song choice because it repeatedly uses the word, calling it ‘derogatory towards women’.

A dissection of ‘99 Problems’ would be futile and unproductive here, but is there not a difference between its use in that song (to describe a ‘problem’) and the way it is used by Cumber-fans? Similarly, don’t most women understand the difference between a stranger on the street calling you a bitch for letting their harassment go unacknowledged and someone like Tina Fey declaring bitch the new black?

Cumberbatch’s feelings about it – that it is a ‘pejorative term’ – is fair, but really, what else could he have said? Had the actor expressed his joy that women were calling themselves bitches in his honour likely wouldn’t have gone over well. Women bristle when men use the word because it hasn’t traditionally been used to hurt them. It has been used by them to deride women who posses the very qualities that make it possible to survive in a patriarchal society. This is probably why whenever another woman has used the term against me, it has always hurt more than when a man has.

When it comes down to it, when someone, man or woman, is calling you a bitch, it usually says much more about him or her than it does about you.

But is ‘Cumberbabes’ really better? The suggestion seems unintentionally anti-feminist. Here is the lusted after movie star, taking away this group’s right to self-identify in any way they see fit. Cumberbatch proposed a term that evokes, in this writer’s mind at least, memories of sexual harassment, adolescent insecurity, and extreme body-image anxiety.

A ‘babe’ is someone who fits a specific ideal of beauty. ‘Babe’ equates to ‘physically attractive’ as someone else sees you. It strips someone of the core elements that make them who they are – their thoughts, their experiences, and their beliefs – and reduces them to their appearance. If we’re going to argue etymology, ‘babe’ is infantile, helpless, and dependent.

A ‘bitch’ is active; she is doing something and usually with an attitude – maybe that’s problematic to Cumberbatch but it sounds pretty good to me.

That’s the problem with words: they can be used by anyone, at anytime to mean anything. And when one definition catches on, it sometimes crushes the others into lexical obscurity. Once harmless words have become slurs, and plenty of slurs are now being adopted by their original targets. Therein lies another important concept to reclamation, whether of gender, race, or sexual orientation: you cannot reclaim something that was never yours.

What ‘Cumberbitches’ says about feminism is that women are defining themselves in a world that has historically defined them, and having serious discussion about what those definitions mean.

In that case, I’d much rather be a bitch than a babe.

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