When the latest progressive movement focuses on banning the word “bossy”, it would be intriguing to learn what perspectives the editor of “Bitch” magazine may have.

The students at the University of South Dakota had the opportunity during their “Diversity Symposium.” It was everything you would imagine it to be…and more!

The 1995 Vanity Fair Hollywood issue is a cover Andi Zeisler, editor of “Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture,” is quick to point out. Beautiful women, scantily clad in suggestive poses — with little indication these women are a success for not just their looks but for their acting chops.

….In her keynote presentation at the University of South Dakota’s Diversity Symposium Thursday, entitled “Don’t Just Change the Channel: Why Pop Culture Matters to Feminism, Activism and Social Justice,” Zeisler addressed how media and pop culture are inescapable.

It is a matter of ‘not hating the media, but making the media’ to present women as they are, three dimensional beings, she said at the event that was first started three years ago by Tiospaye, USD’s Native American Student Council.

Zeisler is the cofounder of Bitch Media, the author of “Feminism and Pop Culture” and the coeditor of “BitchFest: Ten years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine.” Her work has also been featured in numerous newspapers and magazines, including Mother Jones, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Washington Post.

“People think (Bitch Magazine) is about man bashing, and it’s something ugly — but it’s not,” Zeisler.

Just “turning the channel” when someone witnesses sexism in pop culture is not the answer, she said. It is the sexualization of girls with dolls like scantily-clad Bratz that need to be talked about. People instead need to capitalize, because these are the “opportunities to make media and pop culture a better, more diverse world are all around us.”

“Feminism’s image problem was something we wanted to up-end (with Bitch magazine),” Zeisler said.

..Zeisler’s keynote presentation included on her experience with the re-appropriation of the use of “the B-word.” If being an outspoken woman means being a bitch, Zeisler said she takes that as a compliment, and while some people are offended by its use, she and her coworkers choose to reappropriate the word. It is a matter of getting people to think about what they are saying when they use the word.

“Our use of bitch is about speaking up and being a worthwhile part of activism,” she said.

But, alas, no comment on the word “Bossy”