“Hey! You just made it in the nick of time, you know,” said the docent, striding towards me as he checked his watch. “You’ve got about 10 minutes before the doors slam shut. First time here? I can give you a quick run-through of the exhibits.”
I nodded, standing at the threshold of a grand, creaking entrance—arched, dust-lined, and framed by enormous, rusted words carved into the stone:
Don’t you worry, it’s not all bad news. Mostly just… educational.
Before I could second-guess my life choices, the docent grinned, gave a mock-salute, and said, “Buckle up, champ.”
With that, we barged into the museum—the lights buzzing overhead with the energy of repressed rage and bad Wi-Fi. A dusty velvet rope fell off its hook as we passed, like even the decor had given up.
A dusty gold sign swung above us, only slightly askew. In bold, gothic lettering, it read:
“Catchy, isn’t it?” the docent smirked. “Marketing insisted we make it interactive.”
“Right this way,” he gestured with theatrical flourish. I chuckled nervously.
“Can’t believe this place has got reviews!” I said.
“Oh, five stars! Great for ruining childhood fairy tales and family dinners. Follow me.”
We entered the first corridor—lined wall to wall with glass cases, each one housing a single word, spotlighted like a cursed artifact from an ancient grimoire.
“Welcome to Exhibit One,” he announced, with the lilt typical of a game show host. “We call this: ‘Oops, She Spoke.’”
He swept his hand across the first glass case, the spotlight intensifying on the single word within—Virago.
His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, leaning closer as if sharing a forbidden secret.
“My friend, within these syllables lies the genesis of a thousand silenced voices, the echo of every opinion deemed… unladylike.”
The placard beneath read:
Etymology: From Latin virāgō, combining vir (‘man’) with the feminine suffix -āgō. Initially a term of praise, denoting a woman of exceptional strength and courage. But observe the insidious reversal! Ironically, it devolved into a derogatory descriptor used to label women perceived as domineering or overbearing—or any woman not adhering to the delicate damsel dogma!
This semantic shift reflects society’s discomfort with women who defy conventional gender roles and exhibit assertiveness or authority.
Plaque: Too bold for you? She’s a virago.
“Well, guess this isn’t the only term to have suffered such… semantic sabotage. Here’s another,” the docent said as he directed to the next vitrine, where the word “Slut” lay bathed in an equally dramatic spotlight.
Etymology: First attested c. 1400 as a term for an “untidy, slovenly woman,” it morphed over the centuries into a blunt label for lascivious women. In 1386, even before it began to be used to describe women, Geoffrey Chaucer, the Father of English literature, used the word to describe a slovenly man. But it was only after the mid-1400s that it underwent a grotesque alteration to question the morals of women! The audacity!
Plaque: Has authority over her own body? Label her with this scarlet letter of promiscuity.
Indeed, a society where a man’s ventures are often lauded and met with backslaps and bravado, a woman’s similar explorations are so frequently met with scorn and slut-shaming. Just like our ‘virago,’ it’s a word whose journey reveals a rather unflattering truth about our collective biases.
Next—because there’s always a next:
Cunt
Plaque: From Anatomy to Anathema
Etymology: This one’s been around since at least the 1230s. Once, just a word—clinical, anatomical, descriptive—simply a term for genitalia, a source of life, of creation—would become a term of abuse by the 20th century. It was a word without taboo in its beginnings; by the time of the Shakespearean era, it had already become one to censor with euphemisms, and lately so a slur and an abuse. It has perhaps become one of the most visceral and violent insults imaginable when directed at a woman, stripping her of her humanity and reducing her to a mere physical object. Feel the raw power of this linguistic obscenity—the centuries of shame and subjugation it carries within its single syllable!
“Are you beginning to perceive how they took the very essence of womanhood and weaponized it? Each word we examine is a thread in this dark fabric, revealing a persistent and pervasive bias. And there are still more threads to unravel…” He gestured towards the coming displays.
I looked back at the rows of illuminated words, with the dramatic persona replaced by a quiet thoughtfulness. The air in the corridor, once feeling almost theatrical, now seemed thick with the unspoken history of hurt.
[Esteemed visitors, the curtains are closing on yesterday! The museum is mere moments from closing. Kindly—]
I turned back to ask the docent. But seems like he had Houdini’d his way out of there.
An announcement boomed. [Anyone left will be locked in with the relics! Consider it an immersive, albeit involuntary, historical experience!] A low mechanical whirr stirred the silence.
I ran, weaving through the vitrines. The corridor seemed to stretch endlessly, each illuminated word a silent, accusatory witness to my predicament. The floor warped, pulled, rewrote itself beneath me as I dashed past spinster, shrew, hag, and homewrecker—their glass cases now seeming to leer, whispering things I didn’t dare decode. The lights flickered wildly.
[The past is over. Snap back to reality, please.] The pronouncement was firm.
I jolted upright, disoriented, as surroundings shifted in a split second. Slowly, the edges of my dream began to fade into the background as I realized, with a sinking feeling, that it had all just been a dream.
And just then, as I was shaking off the lingering residue of that immersive historic hunt, a gentle ding from my phone punctuated the quiet contemplation. I glanced at the screen.
[1 New Message]
Instagram:
“What—?! Are we back to the”
I pinched myself. No, for real? Is this 2025?
Then I guess the nightmare wasn’t that.
Perhaps we just forgot all this time that the world is the museum.
Welcome!
Where the swear words are now almost the common currency, dealing mostly, yeah you guessed it right—women!
The glass cases crack.
The museum fades.
I’m back in 2025.
And these “prehistoric” comebacks?
Still very much alive. Thriving. On mute. In memes. In manels (all-male panels), in meetings.
“The worst kind of person is someone who makes someone feel bad, dumb, or stupid for like being excited about something.”
Taylor Alison Swift (American singer-songwriter)
Two grown men fight—and somehow, a mother gets dragged in.
One guy fails at something—and suddenly, he’s being called a girl.
A woman stands up for herself—boom, bitch mode activated.
Seriously, did women sign up for this?
Why is it that in nearly every insult — whether directed at women or through men — women are involuntarily involved?
In the Olympics of verbal jabs, femininity is the go-to punching bag.
Whether you’re insulting a man or shaming a woman — the slur usually targets… a woman.
So let me get this straight.
The same gender that carried you in a womb, wiped your tears, and did emotional cartwheels to raise you — is now your go-to metaphor for weakness?
An ‘estrogen-laden weakling’ raising your so-called sigma-alpha-supreme masculinity?
And what do these biologically-blessed, testosterone-soaked, emotionally-repressed warriors do with that maternal magic?
They wrap it up in punchlines.
Hey bro, don’t be a girl.
Stop acting like a b*tch.
Your bro wants to call his friend weak?
Boom: “Don’t be a girl.”
You want to insult someone’s audacity?
Boom: “Son of…”
You’re angry at a man?
Boom: enter female anatomy, relationships, or professions.
Like, hello? Why is your vocabulary built on the backs of the women who birthed, raised, loved, or ignored you?
They didn’t want to be in your fights, roasts, and comebacks.
But here women are — casually referenced, culturally reduced, comically disrespected.
Words have histories. But they also have futures. We get to decide what makes it to the next chapter. So let’s leave hysterical, bossy, and witch behind—right next to the floppy disk, rotary phone, and powdered wigs. Because frankly, your comeback shouldn’t come with a century stamp.
Language evolves. So should we.
It’s high time we looked at our everyday expressions the way museums look at outdated artifacts: as relics. Appreciate their past. Understand their damage. Retire them with grace.
“…people eat a lot of chilli because the food is bland. So they—just to get some taste—they eat chilli. Gaali (i.e. cuss word) is the chilli of language. If you can speak good language, and if you are witty enough, you don’t need this chilli. If the conversation is bland, you’ll put some gaalis in it, just to give it some energy.”
Javed Akhtar (Indian screenwriter, lyricist, and poet)
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