How We Became Two Old Bitches?
Would you rather be called “old” or “a bitch”? What happens when you’re both?
True confessions: there is something totally exhilarating about calling yourself an Old Bitch. It feels honest, edgy and unpredictable. Go ahead. Try it. It evokes different reactions from different people. From an older woman who told us that she’d love to tell friends about our podcast (Two Old Bitches) but she can’t say the name. Or a colleague who asserted, “it is defiance…whatever you think about what it is to be old. It also tells you that there is wisdom. These were the women who were burned at the stake. The witches. You go ahead with that name!” That’s what we love about our name.
We had separate and intersecting journeys to become Two Old Bitches (TOB). There was the natural progression of our age (at 66 and 70 years of age when we started TOB) and our attitudes. There was the shock of having young men and women on the subway pop up and offer us their seats provoking our visceral reaction of outrage that anyone would think we were not tough enough to strap-hang like everyone else! We stepped down from leadership jobs in different organizations and transitioned to lives of consulting, of possibility, of having conversations with many of our friends about how to use our time in ways that satisfied our curiosity and pursuit of pleasure, of exploring different ways of gathering.
“we are our best old bitches when we manifest that absolute undiluted truth telling where there’s no hesitation between what’s in the gut and what comes out of the mouth.” Alta Starr
Before there were Two Old Bitches, Idelisse the Bitch started an art project. She called it “Who Is That Old Bitch?” She took photographs of the parts of her body that most women try to hide. She asked friends to do likewise and send the photos to her. We thought about how to celebrate the lines in our faces, the whites and greys of our hair, and the sunspots on our hands. We started calling each other old bitches. Affectionately. We were curious about what this part of our lives — the second half — could reveal. When we decided to launch a podcast in 2017 (without actually knowing what a podcast was and learning everything from our amazing technical producer, Katharine Heller, the Bitchette!), the title Two Old Bitches appeared like a magic carpet ride to exhilaration. We read somewhere that BITCH could be an acronym for Being In Total Charge of Herself. We both loved it!
Can the words “old” and “bitch” ever be reclaimed and re-framed?
We grew to realize that our choice of podcast name was more complex than we understood when we blithely launched it. What progress we’re making on this major project to reclaim “old” and “bitch” and transform them from words of insult into words that evoke power? Many women we interview on TOB share their ongoing internal debates and evolving thinking about the term. Alta Starr said, “I’m totally ambivalent. We have to detoxify words and there’s so much toxicity in all the misogyny and hatred of women. Then to add “old” to it is everything terrifying and awful. So all the more reason to glorify it!” Inca Mohammed pointed out how the term might resonate differently with black women: “It has a lot of different meanings for me. The way it’s used against black women and how freely it can be used. So I respect black women not wanting to reclaim that term. I also think of it as a powerful term, because by the time people call you a bitch, it’s usually because they’re not getting what they want and you’re not doing what somebody wants you to do.”
We stand on the shoulders of many who have explored how to reclaim “old” and “bitch” and transform them from words of insult into words that evoke power. The Bitch Manifesto (Jo Freeman, 1969) declared that “Bitches prefer to plan their own lives…They are independent cusses and believe they are capable of doing anything they damn well want to. If something gets in their way; well, that’s why they become Bitches”. Diverse communities — from women of color to gay/trans people and Valley girls — have injected a playful and affectionate note to the moniker. Bitch Media and its magazine stand firm in “refusing to ignore the uncomfortable and complex realities of life in an unequivocally gendered world.”
Old is an even harder concept to transform. The British TV historian Mary Beard made headlines in the UK when, in 2014, she pledged to reclaim the word old and build a political debate to take away the word’s negative connotations, “partly to annoy people, I say ‘how could you say that to an old woman like me’. I do it to reclaim the word ‘old’. Old instantly connotes the hunched lady… I want an old movement. By the time I die I want “old” to be something we say about ourselves with pride.” Over the past years, we’ve seen an outpouring of blogs, newsletters, podcasts, books, networks and other media emerging with different representations of “old” and “old women” from Idiosyncratic Fashionistas challenge to fashion choices to Ashton Applewhite’s ongoing crusade against ageism.
Reframing, reinventing, revolutionizing a whole basket of antiquated ideas — about aging, about older women, about pleasure, about what it means to look forward — are all part of what we committed to when we became Two Old Bitches. And more than 70 old bitches we’ve had the pleasure of interviewing over the past 4 years have echoed each other’s message that we are our best old bitches when we manifest that absolute undiluted truth telling where there’s no hesitation between what’s in the gut and what comes out of the mouth. That remains true whether we can actually reclaim these terms or not.
The oldest person we interviewed on Two Old Bitches was Dodo Berk, who was 103 years old when we visited her Long Beach Island condo. The world lost Dodo at 105 years old two years ago, while she was very busy making lists of the people she wanted to have tea with when she got to heaven. We remember every aspect of our conversation with her. Dodo was a master of finding silver linings, turning crisis into opportunity, and spinning hardship into an adventure. When we interviewed her, Dodo had gotten to a point where all she really wanted to eat was white fish salad and bagels. Defending her choice, she wagged her finger at us warning, “Once you’re past 90, you can eat anything you want all day long. Never tell people over 90 what to eat!” And if that’s not an advantage of becoming an Old Bitch, what is?
