spelling "women" like this: "womyn" C/D?

man (n.)
O.E. man, mann "human being, person," from P.Gmc. *manwaz (cf. O.S., O.H.G. man, Ger. Mann, O.N. maðr, Goth. manna "man"), from PIE base *man- (cf. Skt. manuh, Avestan manu-, O.C.S. mozi, Rus. muzh "man, male"). Sometimes connected to root *men- "to think" (see mind), which would make the ground sense of man "one who has intelligence," but not all linguists accept this. Plural men (Ger. Männer) shows effects of i-mutation. Sense of "adult male" is late (c.1000); O.E. used wer and wif to distinguish the sexes, but wer began to disappear late 13c. and was replaced by man. Universal sense of the word remains in mankind (from O.E. mancynn, from cynn "kin") and in manslaughter (q.v.). Similarly, L. had homo "human being" and vir "adult male human being," but they merged in V.L., with homo extended to both senses. A like evolution took place in Slavic languages, and in some of them the word has narrowed to mean "husband." PIE had two stems: *uiHro "freeman" (cf. Skt. vira-, Lith. vyras, L. vir, O.Ir. fer, Goth. wair) and *hner "man," a title more of honor than *uiHro (cf. Skt. nar-, Armenian ayr, Welsh ner, Gk. aner). The chess pieses so called from c.1400. As an interjection of surprise or emphasis, first recorded c.1400, but especially popular from early 20c. Man-about-town is from 1734; the Man "the boss" is from 1918. Men's Liberation first attested 1970.

I love the idea of people referring to a male as a 'werman' both 'cause it's related to the 'were' in werewolf and 'cause it was probably pronounced similalry to 'vermin'. So the 'man' in woman originally meant something like mensch. It's the 'wo' part that's really problematic.

quean
"young, robust woman," O.E. cwene "woman," also "female serf, hussy, prostitute" (cf. portcwene "public woman"), from P.Gmc. *kwenon (cf. O.S. quan, O.H.G. quena, O.N. kona, Goth. qino "wife, woman"); see queen. Popular 16c.-17c. in sense "hussy." Sense of "effeminate homosexual" is recorded from 1935, esp. in Australian slang.

Tangentially: I do think using 'man' to mean humanity in general is a much worse thing; but a step up from that is just assuming a group of people is all male when there is no reason to suppose that, and in fact it's not the case - I heard a football commentator in the last few days say something like "All their fans will be going home happy and having nice dinners with their wives tonight."

Ayn Rand was anti-feminist, though

RIOT GRRRRRRL 4EVA

the fact that the masculine is used to represent all of humanity is hardly an accident. men would never feel included if people spoke of "womankind" or said "woman does not live by bread alone" & i don't think the contribution semantics makes toward oppression of one group over another can really be easily overlooked.

besides, it's just as easy to train yourself to replace 'man' with "people" or "humans".

besides, it's just as easy to train yourself to replace 'man' with "people" or "humans".

Since the jury is still out on how semantic content gets processed and linked to words in the first place, who's to say that consciously avoiding a particular usage/spelling isn't as likely to do harm to the cause of equality as good? Plus it makes you sound like a twit. We might as well eliminate all references to ageism (eg. kid).

then I went on to meet them in university and it was sort of true.

I love the idea of an ungendered language. That would be so utopian, so kind. There's nothing wrong with replacing 'man' with 'people' and so on, because it's a kind gesture. The only thing you might complain about is aesthetics - you can't revise poetry in retrospect, for instance, because it would muddle up the sounds. But I don't think anybody wants to. That's not to say that you can't struggle towards an ungendered, aesthetically satisfying future language.

How is that different from what I said?

"well, the very premise of this thread is that "ungendered" and "aesthetically satisfying" are at odds with one another, and I think it's a valid argument."

There's tons of radical, grammatically revisionary and semantically revisionary aesthetically satisfying poetry. I can't really be bothered to list every example but you know, many of the major nineteenth century novels and poems were politically and gramatically revisionary (in other words, they threw over tradition either at the level of ideas or syntax) and then that went further in the twentieth century. Cherneshevsky, Mallarme, bla bla bla you know what I'm talking about.

Similarly using "he" as a generic third-person pronoun seems pretty archaic compared to the admittedly awkward "he or she". At least in academic writing, the latter seems commonplace. That might just be because I've only been to Commie universities, mind you.

I don't know about "womyn" (that's "I don't know" not "I'm against it") but I can't believe anyone still gets upset about little changes like these. It should seem perfectly clear why when a particular attitude gets implanted into everyday linguistic usage that everyone uses this creates an uncomfortable discursive climate for people who 'aren't included'.

I'm not against language changing, but I believbe that language changes on its own, slowly, in ways we don't usually notice. You can't force an agenda on language. It's too big for that.

xpost: You don't even think it could make people feel more comfortable at the least?

(xpost again)

it depends on the context i guess. but i think when you're using the generic "he"--as in, describing a theoretically person operating a machine--i don't think anyone would presume that you're just talking about a male unless you made that explicit. i think the neutral meaning of "he" in most contexts is presumed.

i mean, sure, people should go ahead and use what they want to use and see if it works. when i write, i find "she or he" inelegant. and "she" is often just distracting since its very difference from the norm calls attention to itself.

"actually yeah" to what?

That's not the case, though -- in fact, that's almost never the case. In fact, that's again what this thread is about. No (significant) group, majority or minority, ever sits around and complains about how they're not included in the language. Blacks don't sit around and worry that no one's picking up on their popular lingo. If anything, they worry that too many people are. Hispanics never worry that not enough people are speaking Spanish, unless it's a matter of their kids not being properly educated.

That's not the same issue. If you're talking about specific minorities being slighted as a result of the English language -- well, I don't know how it works in the rest of the world, but in America, that's pretty absurd. Women in America do sometimes make noise about such small and silly things, but you bet your bottom dollar they're all white.

(xpost: Actually yeah I know people who are uncomfortable with "he". Using "she" rather than "he" just seems silly.)

Quebec language politics to thread! Or Indian or . . .

(xpost)

i used to think about this a lot when i was a kid because my hebrew school once introduced gender-neutral torahs and they were the worst things to read ever.

i don't know what you're on about, exactly, kenan.

xpost

you're making untenable generalizations about "feminism" i think

xpost

sundar i mostly read old books so for me "he" is still standard. that's not a defense of my continued usage of it--just an explanation

um... well, I agree this is maybe off topic. But it's hard to argue that feminism as we know it was ever intended for anyone byt white women.

And saying that this is less of an issue than, say, female genital mutilation doesn't mean that there's no validity to the issue.

(quadruple xpost)

Still... womyn = not only dud, but ridiculously small-minded (and I would almost argue a bit racist).

Would those who are saying that language doesn't affect our thinking extend this to the use of 'black' to mean 'bad' or 'evil'? Accident balck spot, blackballing, black hearted, black sheep of the family, all that? I know that is something that preceded awareness of black people, but don't you think it reinforces some bad tendencies? In the same way that suggesting men are the default does? (Another anti-favourite phrase of mine that you still hear sometime: 'the world and his wife'.)

But THAT'S THE ISSUE; "he" is NOT a neutral word.

What if we just got rid of the word "woman" altogether? Everyone's a man! With one fell swoop we could get rid of gender politics AND queer politics and really put everyone on an equal footing. (Or, even better, get rid of the word "man"! Everyone's a woman, only some of them have testicles.)

that's not what i wrote, for what it's worth.

this is a total oversimplification of the issue, anyone who has been interested in the last twenty years of feminist theory knows the lengths feminists have gone to to make feminism more inclusive than it initially was. the fact that womens studies students today study gayatri spivak, bell hooks, chandra mohanty, trinh t. minh-ha and many others, alongside butler, haraway and co surely shows an effort to rectify the mistakes of the past??

w/r/t to "feminism"--i don't think there is a "feminism." there are numerous people who have made different arguments regarding gender equality, some under the banner of "feminism" and some not. many of these arguments are contradictory. are there some feminists who interest themselves primarily in the problems facing white, middle-class women in the west? naturally. are there others who work exclusively with poor women, indian women, african women, chinese women, etc. etc.? of course. when i said kenan was making "untenable generalizations," i meant he was making untenable generalizations.

I grew up in a household where there was a shelf of men's books and a shelf of "womyn's books". My mom is a lesbian and she wasn't like this but her insane womynfriend was. I HATED IT.

She was having trouble with her vowel movements.

but you're taking it in isolation. its like i said before, its PART of the struggle, and of course if we use a gender-neutral term instead, little will change (eg the gender-neutral term may develop a masculine connotation). if we change the language, that doesn't necessarily change politics, culture, ideology etc - they ALL have to change. it goes back to what i said about feminists and multitasking. its why we fight for change in ALL of the above.

great post, kevin!!