Women are loathsome, scandalous beasts. Personally, I hate them. They wear crop tops and access the internet, and oh boy, some of them even have sex– with men!

We are well-equipped when it comes to words for women like this. “Sluts,” “whores,” “hoes,” or even “harlots” works. Most people know exactly what these words mean, and can picture exactly the kind of woman being referred to. She’s promiscuous, she’s sexual, she’s a bad person. Why is she a bad person? She just is. Even if a woman’s perceived promiscuity doesn’t hurt anybody, it’s just bad. It’s a value judgment that we can make.

While I was just kidding about hating women, I’m serious when I say that the words have very strong, unambiguous meanings. Calling a woman a slut is a severe insult. Even when it is used jokingly among friends, the significance remains. In this case, it only highlights the closeness of the relationship involved. While obviously, hateful language like this is bad, at the very least, it can accurately be read as rude or offensive language, which is better than the alternative.

Cue the word “bop” entering the cultural zeitgeist. For a long time, the slang term was used to mean a good song, and perhaps this is the definition that you are aware of. No longer. Now the word is used in the same contexts as the word “slut.” Contrary to popular belief, this isn’t a new term. One of the earliest instances that I’ve seen the shortened term defined in this way was on Urban Dictionary on January 4, 2005 by user “slim” who went on to explain that “i bop is a gurl of the streets, mall, party, club something of that nature that is down to do sum stuff…” Riveting. 

For the purpose of my research right now, as funny and nonsensical as it is, Urban Dictionary has been a great help. Anybody can put a definition on Urban Dictionary. You are not required to be a certain age or have a degree or any kind of certification, or any kind of knowledge, really. There is no process of verification or peer review, just a big blue button with a plus sign on it that you can click to instantly define a term. This is utterly perfect, because even uncommon slang is likely to end up in the dictionary, and I am even able to see the date and year that it was written.

Much more recently on May 21, 2023, a brave TikTok user, @missingbrian, attempted to define this term for us. “This is for men and females,” he explained, but then quickly added, “this is mostly for females because they don’t, kinda, get it.” He then goes on to say that the slang is for people who “post their body on the internet,” or “get around.” 

This video rubs me the wrong way. Firstly, his repeated use of the word “female” as a noun in contrast to his use of the word “man” already tells me that he holds gendered biases. It might sound like a trite criticism, but the fact that men are spoken about from a perspective of personhood, while women are named by their reproductive functions hints at a belief that women and men are not equal. A dog, cat, or fish can be female, but they can’t be women, get it? This dive into the subtext of his speech is completely unnecessary though, because he immediately reveals that he thinks that the term better lends itself to women’s behavior.

To an extent, I actually agree. Hear me out, please. It is not that I think that women simply act more like bops than men. I just know that the term was created to demean women. Now, I understand that language evolves and changes over time to fit our needs. However, I don’t believe that is what happened, at least not in good faith. When I hear the argument that “bop” is a gender-neutral term, it feels very disingenuous, and I think that it is. As long as the consensus is that “bop” can be used to describe both men and women, nobody can be called out as a misogynist for saying it. A veil of plausible deniability forms, and worse, it allows more “wiggle room” for sexist rhetoric. If women are getting called “bops” more often than men are, it must be their fault. It’s a gender-neutral term, after all.

I’ve seen a lot of videos of women on Instagram and TikTok advocating for the use of “bop” to extend to men. On paper, I appreciate the way that these ladies are thinking! They have identified an injustice, and want to right the wrong. That is completely understandable. That being said, it doesn’t really do any good. Women acting out the same bad things that men do is not a step in a positive direction. Under patriarchy, men are not oppressed on the basis of being men. Women are. Even if all women banded together to shame men for their promiscuity, it wouldn’t harm their image or respectability like it would to a woman. Not only does it not pack a punch, but it normalizes a misogynistic term, making the problem worse. Nonetheless, I far prefer these misguided actions over actions that directly perpetuate the issue.

Confusion was a very common response when “bop” was ramping up in popularity, which naturally divided the internet into the “in crowd” and the “out crowd.” Those in the “in crowd” left comments calling women, but mostly young girls, bops. To counter the confusion, a new trend emerged of telling clueless girls that “bop” is just an acronym for “bestie on point,” leading them to believe that they received compliments. Unfortunately, a large portion of people involved in this trend were other girls. It’s hard to witness so many kids taking on sexist language. 

For a younger person, it is more difficult to identify the social implications of a mean comment. Of course, bullying behaviors shouldn’t be dismissed, but I definitely think that it’s likely that kids are not seeing the problem from an intersectional perspective. I also believe that if the word in question was “slut” or “whore,” pre-teens would be much more conscious of the ramifications. Again, these words are easily recognized to be derogatory. “Bop,” on the other hand, is a term that many people have never heard of before. It is also relatively contained on the internet. I have yet to hear anybody yell “bop,” at a woman in public, which makes sense, because the word does sound pretty silly. It’s a soft word that can be pronounced with a cute, popping “p” sound, which makes it sound less violent. I can recognize that based on its prevalence, it is less damaging than the word “slut,” or “whore,” but that isn’t to say that the word could never reach that level. “Bop” also has a unique potential to cause harm as a word commonly used by younger Generation Z and Generation Alpha internet users. In other words, these are people at an age where their ideals and self-esteem are becoming solidified. 

Older internet users, ever fascinated with the brain-rotting back and forth of middle-schoolers, have also adopted the phrase, albeit with a little bit more irony. However, as internet users with common sense, we can’t be so quick to completely disregard the word based on its goofiness. What might be stupid for us is also stupid for anybody younger, only they might not yet have the media literacy to be making those connections.

Often, I think we are too afraid to take something too seriously. This is something that needs to be challenged. I am working on it by writing an entire article about the word “bop.” It might just seem like trash content on TikTok, and you are right, it is, but through the waste, we are witnessing the rise of a demeaning term. That should feel serious. Sadly, I don’t have a solution, although I wish I did. This is the symptom of a systemic issue presenting in younger patients. It won’t mend the problem, but we can start by understanding the problem, or perhaps even just identifying the presence of a problem.