One of the things that happens when you edit a book called The Bitch in the House is that you become a sort of honorary bitch. People send you stuff: bitch chewing gum, bitch cocktail napkins, the Badass Bitch Soy Candle, even the Spray the Bitch Away aromatherapy mist/perfume ("for when you’re irritated, pissed off, or have an overall bad attitude"). When I walk into my bookstore, the employees yell, "The bitch is in the house!"I love it. As Olympia Dukakis once said, "You say I'm a bitch like that's a bad thing?"I would not, however, have been thrilled about all this a few decades ago. In my teens or 20s, “bitch” was something no woman wanted to be called, or to call herself — at least in my world. The word was reserved for, say, the girl who hooked up with your boyfriend, the teacher who humiliated you in class, the beautiful but evil villain on your favourite soap opera (watched on one of the seven channels on your TV — I know, I’m dating myself). And even now, if my husband called me a bitch (which he never would, or he would not be my husband) or some random person yelled “bitch!” after I’d, say, honked at them for cutting me off — well, that’s a whole other thing. At best, I’d be insulted or enraged; at worst, I’d yell (something worse) back, or even get out of the car and confront the person.I’m not proud of my knee-jerk rage, which I inherited from my father. But I am proud of my toughness, which is not a bad thing for a female to possess. I once fought off a guy who jumped me. I’m not a large woman. Just one who doesn’t take any shit.Does that make me a bitch? Hard to say. Because, as with “queer” or “dank” or even “bad,” the word has evolved, and these days it can have a very different connotation depending on context and whose mouth it’s coming out of. This election season, of course, has highlighted this polarity: When Trump supporters say “Trump that Bitch” referring to Hillary, for example, that’s insulting. (I probably don’t need to explain why, other than to say that these are the same people who hold signs that say, “KFC Hillary Special: two fat thighs, two small breasts…left wing”.) But if Hillary wants to stand up and call herself one tough bitch, all but the most rigid of her supporters would probably be delighted.Andi Zeisler, the founder of Bitch Media, noted that "bitch" is both an epithet and an honorific for Clinton. "For more than 20 years in American politics, Mrs. Clinton has embodied what we might call Classic Bitch,” Zeisler recently wrote in The New York Times. "She’s perceived as an interloper who challenges or threatens masculinity, entitlement and a status-quo worldview; she’s the scandal magnet who can seem as heartless and venal as any old-boy’s-club member. Worst of all, she’s the woman who accepts that she will be disliked and carries on anyway."To which I say: Go Hillary. To which I also say: Here’s to The Bitch in the White House. Fingers crossed.