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

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It makes me laugh. And no I'm not a conservative.

― shookout (shookout), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:31 (twenty-one years ago)

who does this and to what end?

― Tonight at ten (kenan), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

does anyone actually do this?
xpost

― amateur!!st, Friday, 17 September 2004 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I like it. It's metal.

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

no, that would be "wöman"

― amateur!!st, Friday, 17 September 2004 20:35 (twenty-one years ago)

WYLD STALLIONS!

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:35 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't like it - it's all airy fairy new age earth goddess goddess bless you - and it bugs me.

― luna (luna.c), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:36 (twenty-one years ago)

But maybe if we all pretend that it's metal, it will seem cooler.

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Like using "hir" as a non-gendered posessive pronoun? That makes me crazy with hippie rage.

― Tonight at ten (kenan), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Does Kathleen Hanna spell it "womyn"?

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Right. Oh no! It has the word MAN in it! It defeats everything we womyn have worked for, lo these long years! Heaven forfend!

― luna (luna.c), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Hmm. "y" is kind of phallic, but it's also kind of vaginal. Actually, now that I look at it closer, it's kinda erotic.

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:41 (twenty-one years ago)

It's like that chick in Legally Blonde who was petitioning to have the word 'Semester' alternate with 'Ovestre' because semester either had 'semen' in it or 'men,' I forget which. Seriously, get over yourselves.

― luna (luna.c), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:41 (twenty-one years ago)

this is one of those things that scarcely ever happens but your average reactionary pundit will make a joke about it and say "see?! relativism is DESTROYING OUR WAY OF LIFE!!!"

― amateur!!st, Friday, 17 September 2004 20:42 (twenty-one years ago)

x-post
Like there aren't more important things to worry about.
This is why nothing is ever accomplished with this lot.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:42 (twenty-one years ago)

It's all about Wym and Menwym.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:42 (twenty-one years ago)

TS: "womyn" vs "womon"

― Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Instead of building awful, tall, phallic buildings, people should live and work in damp holes in the ground.

― Tonight at ten (kenan), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:44 (twenty-one years ago)

What about womb-ons? would that make people happy?

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:45 (twenty-one years ago)

"Womyn" and "Wymyn" strike me as frosh-year gender-identity politics run amok. I can't speak for women, but if I were one, I'd think there were greater injustices in life than the fact that the word "woman" has the word "man" in it.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:45 (twenty-one years ago)

That spelling always reminds me of "Ayn Rand Gives Me a Boner"

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:46 (twenty-one years ago)

This thread is scaring me. Consensus! WTF?

― oops (Oops), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I believe it's about removing the "man" from "woman", see also "wimmin" instead of "women". I think it's great. I like weird (wyrd?) quirky spellings a lot, like I love genesis p orridgese as well. "Womyn", written on a page, just looks aesthetically much better than "woman" to me.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:47 (twenty-one years ago)

KENEN HOLY SHIT ROFFLE

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:47 (twenty-one years ago)

(Yeah, that was pretty good.)

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:48 (twenty-one years ago)

It might explain why my mom is so into the idea of Hobbit holes.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:51 (twenty-one years ago)

That and her toe hair fetish.

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:52 (twenty-one years ago)

And her ferocious weed habit.

― Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:53 (twenty-one years ago)

And the fact that she's a 14-year-old boy.

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:54 (twenty-one years ago)

woman
O.E. wimman (pl. wimmen), alteration of wifman (pl. wifmen), a compound of wif "woman" (see wife) + man "human being." The pronunciation of the singular altered by the rounding influence of -w-; the plural retains the original vowel. The formation is peculiar to English. Replaced older O.E. wif, quean as the word for "female human being." Women's liberation is attested from 1966; women's rights is from 1840, with an isolated example in 1632.

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.

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Chicks are like wo.

― luna (luna.c), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:55 (twenty-one years ago)

"manwaz"!

― Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, she's not very tall.
x-post

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Anybody ever see this word?

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.

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:57 (twenty-one years ago)

My fifth grade teacher told us that the word woman/women came the olden days, when bathrooms first burst onto the scene. You had one room with a door that said MEN and another that said Wo, Men.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 17 September 2004 20:58 (twenty-one years ago)

hahahahaha

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Friday, 17 September 2004 21:02 (twenty-one years ago)

I remember back when I was a magazine editor getting some letters saying that using 'woman/women' was perpetuating sexism. My position is that we are better off worrying about all the huge things that actually are oppressing women and perpetuating damaging stereotypes, and this would come about a billionth on my list of priorities. I wouldn't have minded if it had caught on, but it seemed a waste of time.

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."

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 17 September 2004 21:45 (twenty-one years ago)

but using "man" to mean humanity in general is just a commonplace, there's no ideological content implied by it at all.

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Friday, 17 September 2004 22:08 (twenty-one years ago)

I think it reinforces the prioritisation of men over women, and I think it helps towards the kind of offensive stupidity I cited. It's a bigger deal, not a big deal, and I don't jump on people for it, and I expect I've done it myself several times.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 17 September 2004 22:10 (twenty-one years ago)

What should we do with phrases such as 'Man does not live by bread alone', then?

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 17 September 2004 22:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Changing all those phrases to "Women yatta yatta yatta etc." Solves NOTHING.
Like all those fantasy RPG guides like Vampire The Gathering or whatever that change all the "he"s to "she"s and whatnot. Like there's REALLY more girls playing these things than guys. It's a bunch of overzealous PC twaddle.

― GIVING TEH CAT EPILEPSY IS TEH WHOLE POINT FOR GRILS (AaronHz), Friday, 17 September 2004 22:45 (twenty-one years ago)

That spelling always reminds me of "Ayn Rand Gives Me a Boner"

Ayn Rand was anti-feminist, though

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Friday, 17 September 2004 22:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Moby uses this spelling, or he used to anyway.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Friday, 17 September 2004 22:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Moby would. He's full of useless posturing and stale platitudes.

― GIVING TEH CAT EPILEPSY IS TEH WHOLE POINT FOR GRILS (AaronHz), Friday, 17 September 2004 22:52 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.smash-jpn.com/mag/tour/trphoto/ikegami/020912moby/020912moby73.jpg

RIOT GRRRRRRL 4EVA

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Friday, 17 September 2004 22:54 (twenty-one years ago)

"but using "man" to mean humanity in general is just a commonplace, there's no ideological content implied by it at all."

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".

― j c (j c), Friday, 17 September 2004 23:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I just say "my bitches"

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Friday, 17 September 2004 23:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Dud!

― Woperson, Friday, 17 September 2004 23:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Read this

― Woperson, Friday, 17 September 2004 23:39 (twenty-one years ago)

d00ds, i have to do chaucer 4 college

― fcussen (Burger), Friday, 17 September 2004 23:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Skipping 27 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

I guess from my perspective, as I said, it already seems like "he or she" is the dominant usage though I could be wrong so I don't see any use value in going back to an old usage which has certain political baggage anyway. If it seemed more like a new battle that was being currently fought then maybe I could be more sympathetic?

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

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Saturday, 18 September 2004 05:31 (twenty-one years ago)

"he or she" makes me think of the SAT or something

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Saturday, 18 September 2004 05:32 (twenty-one years ago)

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.

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

(xpost)

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Saturday, 18 September 2004 05:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I did specify America.

― Tonight at ten (kenan), Saturday, 18 September 2004 05:34 (twenty-one years ago)

i think we can all agree that "s/he" just looks stupid

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.

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Saturday, 18 September 2004 05:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm on about the fact that the only people who would ever bother to make the "women"/"womyn" distinction are doing so at least partially because no other immediate and more important calss issues are plaguing them. The feminist movement lives in shame of its lack of inclusion of anyone but white women, and I think I see a line here in the fact that *this* bullshit is what they make an issue of.

― Tonight at ten (kenan), Saturday, 18 September 2004 05:38 (twenty-one years ago)

calss= class

― Tonight at ten (kenan), Saturday, 18 September 2004 05:38 (twenty-one years ago)

"s/he" is pretty lame yeah maybe unless you're specifically talking about transgendered individuals. Once I got used to "he or she" I stopped finding it awkward and now "he" just seems like an anachronism. I do think that finding a new one-word generic pronoun might be a good idea.

xpost

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Saturday, 18 September 2004 05:38 (twenty-one years ago)

no one actually uses "womyn" except for a few folks up in northhampton, and i'm not even sure about that

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

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Saturday, 18 September 2004 05:41 (twenty-one years ago)

i was responding to kenan before the "xpost," lest sundar think i'm posing some cryptic challenge

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Saturday, 18 September 2004 05:41 (twenty-one years ago)

untenable generalizations about "feminism" i think

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.

― Tonight at ten (kenan), Saturday, 18 September 2004 05:42 (twenty-one years ago)

whatever dude

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Saturday, 18 September 2004 05:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know a lot about the prominent advocates of this particular issue but is that actually true that only white feminists are interested in it? I can name a number of prominent non-white feminists off the top of my head (Sunera Thobani, bell hooks, Vandana Shiva) so I don't agree that the movement excludes anyone but white women but is it actually true that none of these women are interested in linguistic issues?

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)

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Saturday, 18 September 2004 05:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Well... without seeming like a madman... that's more of a fact than an opinion. I think I may have drawn too many linguistic conclusions from that fact, though.

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

― Tonight at ten (kenan), Saturday, 18 September 2004 05:48 (twenty-one years ago)

i blame roger mcguinn

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Saturday, 18 September 2004 05:50 (twenty-one years ago)

From the Byrds?

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Saturday, 18 September 2004 05:52 (twenty-one years ago)

After all that, I'll admit my own personal position on "womyn" will probably be to continue using "woman" until/unless it starts to seem that a different usage is becoming dominant or at least becoming a prominent challenge, at which point I'll happily switch over (provided the new usage isn't somehow more offensive or something, which "womyn" wouldn't be). As I switched to "he or she" from "he".

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Saturday, 18 September 2004 05:57 (twenty-one years ago)

I think 'they' is gaining ground as a gender-neutral third person pronoun. I think it might win out over 's/he' or 'he or she'. It's what I use. I've known plenty of women who object to the linguistic assumption that a male version of language is all-inclusive, yes, and I think they're right, even though as I said earlier, it's far from a first priority.

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'.)

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 September 2004 09:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Where do hermaphrodites fit into all this?

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Saturday, 18 September 2004 09:52 (twenty-one years ago)

hermaphrodytes

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Saturday, 18 September 2004 09:59 (twenty-one years ago)

i think the neutral meaning of "he" in most contexts is presumed.

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.)

― Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Saturday, 18 September 2004 13:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Cut off all penises!

― Tonight at ten (kenan), Saturday, 18 September 2004 13:52 (twenty-one years ago)

I thought the penis was implied.

― Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Saturday, 18 September 2004 13:53 (twenty-one years ago)

One of my favourite things about Elvis is that he pronounced the Byrds 'The Beards'.

― the bellefox, Saturday, 18 September 2004 15:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Would those who are saying that language doesn't affect our thinking...

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

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Saturday, 18 September 2004 16:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I prefer the spelling "WIMMIN!" as in "Psshh! WIMMIN!" to be said in an exasperated tone with disapproving headshake.

― redfez, Saturday, 18 September 2004 18:09 (twenty-one years ago)

i can't stand the term "womyn", for exactly the reasons luna states. but i am also opposed to humans in general being referred to as "mankind" or "he", for just the reasons j.c. cites. language is how we think, it structures our consciousnesses, so it makes sense to me that the feminist struggle is also at the level of language. and to all those people who complain that feminists would do better fighting against rape/sexism in the workplace because they are more important issues: we ARE. feminists can multitask, y'know.

― The Lady Ms Lurex (lucylurex), Sunday, 19 September 2004 00:32 (twenty-one years ago)

The feminist movement lives in shame of its lack of inclusion of anyone but white women

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??

― The Lady Ms Lurex (lucylurex), Sunday, 19 September 2004 00:49 (twenty-one years ago)

furthermore, people like spivak are QUITE interested in the politics of language. i guess she must really be white, huh, kenan? or perhaps she's suffering from fals consciousness?

― The Lady Ms Lurex (lucylurex), Sunday, 19 September 2004 00:56 (twenty-one years ago)

god i'm like a bull to a red flag. every time i get comfortable lurking, someone has to start a dumb thread about feminism and a dozen idiots get on board showing off that they don't know what the fuck they are talking about.

― The Lady Ms Lurex (lucylurex), Sunday, 19 September 2004 01:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, that's never been a criticism I have entirely understood - feminist thinkers have always been interested in the lot of women in other cultures and countries. Discussions about female circumcision, domestic power in Islam, racism generally etc. have been part of feminist discourse for a long time.
Part of the nature of feminism is that it is about men almost as much as it is about women, and some feminists realise that if women are going to liberate themselves, it will probably have to take place within the context of entire societies, or the whole world (with the exception of the ruling elite), gaining increased liberty. After all, if women become liberated into the lot of an unemployed underclass (which of course some already are) it is hard to see what has been gained.
Maybe the 'feminism is for middles-class white women' idea is a hangover from the civil rights movement - certainly many black radicals were quite critical of feminism for (as they percieved it) complaining about earning less than men when black people were getting killed daily by the police.
I think that's the same issue Ms Lurex was speaking about in relation to 'multitasking' - the aims of a progressive society are not black people advancing or women advancing, but about everyone moving to freedom and equality. It's a type of argument that seems to be used in lots of political discussions - why complain about foxhunting when people don't have homes, or why complain about homelessness in the UK when India has a much greater problem. (The foxhunting case I'm not stating an opinion on - merely that when parliamentary time is to be considered there could be an argument for prioritizing). So of course our language can be a front in our exploration of power structures, all the while the other movements in our society can move forward, not at the expense of each other but (hopefully) to each others mutual benefit. I can't think of a more natural ally for racial equality movements than feminist politics, and maybe the working class movement.
This is long and uninteresting I know, but I'm bored, so sorry.

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Sunday, 19 September 2004 01:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Would we all agree on switching to "chiX0r" instead of "woman"? I think I will.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Sunday, 19 September 2004 01:22 (twenty-one years ago)

After reading the Palare thread, and thinking about backslang, maybe 'Nemo's would be good. From nemow, women backwards.

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Sunday, 19 September 2004 01:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Too reminiscent of Finding Nemo. Then, I didn't read that thread.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Sunday, 19 September 2004 01:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Not of Captain Nemo? Or Little Nemo the Dream Master, a NES video game? Or a chip shop near my house?

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Sunday, 19 September 2004 01:31 (twenty-one years ago)

"language structures consciousness"--ok. but what does it mean in practice? how does a particular word choice alter our perceptions of things? and when, in what context? i myself have used "mankind" but i am under no illusion that women have not contributed to civilization or are a part of the human race. i am sure that language has a role to play in political developments, but i remain unconvinced that finding some gender-neutral substitute for "mankind" will have any particular effect in this regard. we are talking about this specific problem, yes?

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.

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Sunday, 19 September 2004 02:09 (twenty-one years ago)

if we want to resolve this quickly: if we take all the people who have written and acted under the banner of "feminism," then kenan is very wrong in supposing that they have ignored the concerns of all but "white women."

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Sunday, 19 September 2004 02:11 (twenty-one years ago)

are you myn or wimmin?

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.

― Maria D. (Maria D.), Sunday, 19 September 2004 02:55 (twenty-one years ago)

"womynfriend". I would have slapped this womyn with trout.

― Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Sunday, 19 September 2004 02:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Men's shelf = Jane's defence; Nemos shelf = Mills and Boone.

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Sunday, 19 September 2004 02:59 (twenty-one years ago)

I haven't read this thread (and I'm drinking) so forgive me please for some incoherence -- feminism is another one of those things of a certain time. There are those who argue that we should just treat each other as equals and forget history. But women still aren't paid as much as men and still aren't respected as much as men. Things are changing rapidly.Give it some more years and feminism will become increasingly irrelevant. There was a time when Aretha Franklin singing R-E-S-P-E-C-T was truly radical, now not so much. Every movement has a place and time. "Womyn" served a purpose at one time - now it's just silly.

― Maria D. (Maria D.), Sunday, 19 September 2004 03:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Bowel movements have a particular place and time.

― Maria D. (Maria D.), Sunday, 19 September 2004 03:06 (twenty-one years ago)

"Any movement that forgets about class is a bowel movement"

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Sunday, 19 September 2004 03:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Did you hear that Vanna White was sick?

She was having trouble with her vowel movements.

― Maria D. (Maria D.), Sunday, 19 September 2004 03:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Remember those old t=shirts - a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle? oh, i need one of them.

― Maria D. (Maria D.), Sunday, 19 September 2004 03:30 (twenty-one years ago)

my mom used to dress me in a t-shirt with a woman symbol with a fist that said "hear me roar"

― Maria D. (Maria D.), Sunday, 19 September 2004 03:31 (twenty-one years ago)

i am sure that language has a role to play in political developments, but i remain unconvinced that finding some gender-neutral substitute for "mankind" will have any particular effect in this regard

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!!

― The Lady Ms Lurex (lucylurex), Sunday, 19 September 2004 06:11 (twenty-one years ago)

so granted, gender neutral language mightn't change anything, by itself... does that mean we should continue using sexist (and feminists have proven time and again that when philosophers etc have talked about mankind they have mostly meant males, where do i start? irigaray, spender, god there are so many more too!) language?

― The Lady Ms Lurex (lucylurex), Sunday, 19 September 2004 06:24 (twenty-one years ago)

for what its worth, the effort of feminisms to be sympathetic to other socially progressive movements is one of the many many things that attracted me to feminism. as someone who grew up in a working-class family, socialist feminisms had a particular impact on me. (not that i'm a socialist feminist)

― The Lady Ms Lurex (lucylurex), Sunday, 19 September 2004 06:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I remember reading Spare Rib, the bif feminist magazine, back in the '70s and they were hugely interested in other cultures then - at times, the majority of their discourse seemed to be tying feminism, racism, poverty and so on together. There's the two opposite pulls there - they're right, as is the point above that anti-racist and feminist campaigners are natural allies, working against almost identical things, but also there is picking a fight you can deal with, and trying to fight everything at once is a huge ask.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 19 September 2004 10:13 (twenty-one years ago)

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