the B-word

Since when has it become okay for men to respond to women's posts in online articles beginning with "Bitch"? I've seen it often, but the one that set me off today is in the comments to a Daily What article, where Obvious says "`with reason and science' Bitch, don't make me laugh."

Men online continually address women as "bitch," and women say nothing in reply. They call one another "bitch," for that matter, and the women they write about are "bitches."

I've raised a stink about this before, and have been told, firmly, by younger women that they are reclaiming the world and expressing the inner bitch. Well, in these instances, the men who constantly refer to women aren't reclaiming the word for women unless they're doing so in a "heel!" way, and the writers aren't reclaiming it for the women they write about.

So will someone tell me why people are just accepting this without at least trying to point out this is an unacceptable term to use for women and to ask why it's still used when it's clearly pejorative in these contexts? Because I'm hoping that some of these people didn't really put it together.

Honestly, I'm hoping, because it's that or slug somebody.