Bimbo is slang for a conventionally attractive, sexualized, naïve, and unintelligent woman.[1] The term was originally used in the United States as early as 1919 for an unintelligent or brutish man.[2] As of the early 21st century, the "stereotypical bimbo" appearance became akin to that of a physically attractive woman. It is commonly employed to characterize women who are blonde, have curvaceous physiques, wear excessive makeup, and dress in revealing attire while being associated with "the dumb blonde" stereotype.[3]
The word bimbo derives from the Italian bimbo,[4] a masculine-gender term that means "little or baby boy" or "young (male) child" (the feminine form of the Italian word is bimba). Use of this term began in the United States as early as 1919, and was a slang word used to describe an unintelligent[5] or brutish[6] man.
It was not until the 1920s that the term bimbo began to be associated with women in popular culture. In 1920, Frank Crumit,[7] Billy Jones, and Aileen Stanley all recorded versions of "My Little Bimbo Down on the Bamboo Isle", with words by Grant Clarke and music by Walter Donaldson. The song uses the term "bimbo" to describe an island girl of questionable virtue. The 1930 silent film Desert Nights uses it to describe a wealthy female crook, and in The Broadway Melody, an angry Bessie Love calls a chorus girl a bimbo. The first use of its female meaning cited in the Oxford English Dictionary is dated 1929, from the scholarly journal American Speech, where the definition was given simply as "a woman".
In the 1940s, bimbo was still being used to refer to both men and women, as in, for example the comic novel Full MoonbyP. G. Wodehouse who wrote of "bimbos who went about the place making passes at innocent girls after discarding their wives like old tubes of toothpaste".[8]
The term died out again for much of the 20th century until it became popular again in the 1980s and 1990s, with political sex scandals.[9] As bimbo began to be used increasingly for females, exclusively male variations of the word began to surface, like mimbo and himbo, a backformation of bimbo, which refers to an unintelligent, but attractive, man.[4]
In 2017, "The Bimbo Movement" was founded by self-proclaimed bimbo and adult star Alicia Amira,[10] "the woman most responsible for popularizing the idea of reclaiming hyper-femininity"[11] in order to destigmatise women who are bimbos and to reclaim the term "bimbo". The term later re-entered usage by way of some members of Generation Z seeking to further reclaim the pejorative, such as the "BimboTok" community on the social media platform TikTok, where users engaged in stereotypical hyper-femininity to satirise consumerism, capitalism, and misogyny.[12]
The term is sometimes associated with men or women who dye their hair blond, indicating that physical attractiveness is more important to them than other, non-physical traits[3] and as an extension to "the dumb blonde" stereotype.[3]
In American politics, the word was used in the 1990s during Bill Clinton's sexual misconduct allegations, leading to the invention of the term "Bimbo eruptions" to refer to political sex scandals.[13] The expression was also used in a 2014 report[14] in which Colin Powell explained his reluctance to vote for Hillary Clinton in light of her husband's continued affairs with "bimbos".
After the first 2015 Republican Presidential Debate, Donald Trump re-tweeted a message calling debate moderator and Fox News host Megyn Kelly a "bimbo" via Twitter.[15] This took place after Kelly asked Trump a question that referenced his television show The Apprentice from season 6 in 2005. Shortly afterwards, Stephen Richter of The Globalist published an opinion piece in which he accused Trump of being a bimbo, noting the original definition of bimbo as "an unintelligent or brutish male".[16]
In March 2024, the California First Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the lower court's decision to deny a woman's request to change her name to Candi Bimbo Doll, marking a notable legal development in American jurisprudence related to 'bimbofication'.[17][18]
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