But even more importantly, it is important that language doesn't bend to the flavour of the week. Otherwise, we make choices that look silly or antiquated a few years later (personhole covers instead of manhole covers, etc.)

Yet it doesn't really matter what I say -- the market place of ideas will determine whether "wimmen", "wommen", or "womyn" will survive, or thrive. People endorse their linguistic choices in everyday life, in speech, letters, email etc.

I have a feeling that "womyn" etc. gets its greatest use in the halls of academia, and good on them.

[ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: Mulford ]

It is precisely the ability of our language to be adaptable that has allowed the flow and influx of ideas through communication of various means.

As for the "mistake" being pointed out to the original poster, what if it had been a mistake?

What if there were someone on this board of limited literacy? Are their views less important because perhaps words are not spelled in accordance with your Oxford?

Should we all be held accountable to proper sentence structure and appropriate grammatical terms?

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We are all of the same species.

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However, that said, I have no problem with other women using the alternative spellings. I don't see why we can't have a conversation on babble where the women who like "wimmin" use that spelling, and the women who prefer the traditional can use the traditional. There have been threads in the past where - I think it was Trasie again - used the alternative spelling, most of the rest of us used the traditional spelling, and none of us bugged each other about it. I say we use what we're comfortable with and don't criticize others who choose differently. This is hardly a big moral issue.

[ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: Michelle ]

Political misspelling trends have emerged as part of rising awareness of political importance of language. There were no such things like sexual harassment, 'glass ceiling', pay inequity, sexism, and racism until some people coined the terms and persuaded a sufficient number of other people that those existed. And all those profession nouns that do not allow feminine gender in many languages. Not to mention philosophical journeys of concepts of 'feminine' and 'female'... And why do you think African American slaves would renounce their slave names upon liberation? For not having a more urgent political issue on the plate?

Spelling playfulness, though, can also be related to things mentioned by Nonesuch, expression of one's belonging to a community, religious or other. With Mary Daly, for instance, it is both - her Intergalactic Wickedary of English Language is both feminist and religious to boot. Many of her interventions on language are ingenious - I often use her spelling 'dicktionary' myself, and take it that it is widely known by now that men have been and still are masters of language that we have to use to tell our own stories.

[ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: Trespasser ]

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Believing that we should leave language unproblematized in feminist struggles and focus on 'real life' that is supposedly outside and unaffected by language is what is scandalous

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[ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: Rebecca West ]

Anyway, even something so seemingly inconsequential as a big or small letter on a pronoun has philosophical and psychological implications - if not political ones.)

That said, I would rather see us working on the pithy or the punchy or the fall-on-your-knees beautiful if we're gonna play games with words, and wimmin etc strike me as tepid because still only correct. Correct may be necessary; but it is not sufficient. Back to the drawing-board, grils.

[ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: skdadl ]

Regarding "womban", I think that's kind of neat!

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Michelle, the reason I took Trasie to task about "wimmin" is because it is a political issue, or more precisely indicative of a type of feminism I abhor, "gender" or "identity" feminism.

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Can you tell me precisely how it indicates gender or identity feminism and why you abhor it?

And even though you do abhor gender or identity feminism, does that mean that every woman should have to embrace YOUR brand of feminism, whatever that might be? After all, you didn't just tell trasie in the other thread that you don't like "wimmin" instead of "women" - you implored HER not to do it because it makes her sound like "trailer trash".

And before we get technical here, I know you said that "wimmin" sounds trailer trash, not trasie - but I think we can deduce from the fact that she uses "wimmin" regularly that she "sounds trailer trash" as well for using it.

I guess I just don't think that proudly declaring that you're a snob or that you come from a snobby family is a good enough reason for ordering women to embrace your brand of feminism and putting theirs down.

[ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: Michelle ]

ps - I don't mean where or to whom and in what context it was specifically used, but that the phrase exists at all.

[ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: nonesuch ]

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As for the rest of it, I suppose irony and self-deprecation are not well received par les Ontarien-ne-s, as Mimichkele would say...

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I love this thing that's been happening lately around here - when someone disagrees with what you say, just put it down to their uncultured, provincial lack of understanding of the finer intellectual things in life.

Actually, we anglos have no problem with irony and self-deprecation - but I just don't like it when they're used as an excuse to put someone else down. Let's face it, you weren't actually putting yourself down when you said you come from a snobby family, or when in another thread you called yourself a "Eurosnob". If you really thought it was a bad thing, then you wouldn't have brought it up. To me, real self-deprecating humour is when someone jokingly admits a flaw that they're NOT proud of, such as when I occasionally make jokes about being overweight. "Admitting" to being a snob is really an appeal for admiration of your worldliness, and it's doubly annoying after labelling something that someone else does as "trailer trash".

As for this:

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I find "identity" feminism offensive because it is anti-materialist and derives from a discourse about the "essence" of womanhood, which to my mind is fundamentally reactionary. It is similar to the "culturalist" discourse in a field I know far better, international migration history.

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Um, yeah, okay, whatever. Using excessive jargon in a non-academic or semi-academic environment seems to me to be either a) a way of getting around the question I'm asking you or b) trying to intimidate people into acquiescing. I'm sure I'm falling right into a trap by asking you to explain whatever it is you're trying to say here in ordinary language that the average person can understand, but I'll ask anyhow. And now you can talk about how provincial and lowbrow I am for not understanding the jargon above.

Saying that you find "essential" feminism reactionary is not telling me what you don't like about it - you're just using jargon to restate that you don't like it. What is reactionary about it?

I understand what you mean - I think I might even agree with you somewhat on it. I'm not sure I believe that society is the way it is because of our language - to me it's kind of a chicken and egg argument. I think that it probably doesn't matter which way it goes - that society is a reflection of language or language is a reflection of society - the thing is, I think when we continue to use words like "fireman" or "policeman" or "mailman" when there are perfectly reasonable and mainstream alternatives (firefighter, police officer, mail carrier), it reinforces the gender stereotypes.

However, I see "woman" as different from "fireman". When I hear the word "woman", I see an XX person in my mind, not an XY person. It's not like I see a male standard and then have to imagine boobs and a vagina on it. On the other hand, a word like "fireman" DOES conjure up the image of an XY person dressed in fire gear. It does imply a male standard and then, as an afterthought, the occasional set of boobs and vagina on a few of them. That's why I can be inconsistent and insist on not using the -man words for career descriptions, but still use the -man version of "woman".

As for this, Mulford:

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Otherwise, we make choices that look silly or antiquated a few years later (personhole covers instead of manhole covers, etc.)

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That was funny the first few times I heard that George Carlin stand-up routine, but doesn't reflect what feminists are trying to do with non-masculinized versions of certain words.

[ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: Michelle ]

Lagatta: I - along with many other babblers - appreciate your contributions very much. In the last few days I might have found several points of divergence with you, but I am still very eager to hear your opinion on any issue. I particularly admire the way you defended the rights to cultural self-determination of Quebec in many discussions with oblivious lefty anglophones who ask "Oh why can't we all get along in English? Why can't Quebec be saved in English? Why can't it simply be equal with the rest of the provinces, what's wrong with that? We're all for equality, right?" Those same oblivious anglophones are so good at smelling some sort of cultural essentialism part in the pro-Quebec argument, it seems, and they never miss to point that out.

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I find "identity" feminism offensive because it is anti-materialist and derives from a discourse about the "essence" of womanhood, which to my mind is fundamentally reactionary. It is similar to the "culturalist" discourse in a field I know far better, international migration history.

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I understand what you mean. But I am also sure that you know that everyone does some strategic essentializing from time to time. Thinking is probably unthinkable without it. Politics too. There is a constant violence being committed towards difference and detail whenever we utter a sentence. Feminists, Quebecois, ROC-istes, anti-racists, 'materialists' - they (we) all essentialize occasionally or all the time. Why do we call ourselves feminists and not humanists, for instance? (Mind you, humanism and universalism are other forms of essentializing, I don't need to remind anyone of that.)

I personally like what Toni Morrison had to say on the topic in a recent talk in Toronto: We keep in mind the race, and we transcend it. Or: we keep in mind [the history and the current usage of the word] 'woman' and we transcend it. It's more like a simultaneous thing, than an either/or. We revalue it, and we expand it. We reaffirm it, and re-invent it. We won't have it any other way.

I certainly won't. Some of us emphasize one side, some the other, though, and it depends on what one finds most effective in their specific situation. I am sure you will agree that that is legitimate too.

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...As for the rest of it, I suppose irony and self-deprecation are not well received par les Ontarien-ne-s

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I believe you were being jocular here and playing with essentializing (of les Ontariennes) yourself, non?

[ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: Michelle ]

I didn't mean to pull an anti-intellectual rant here. And I don't think it's pulling a grassroots-resentment-against-the-city-slickers thing to oppose the idea of labelling things as "trailer trash", to oppose the idea that English people just don't understand the finer points of irony or humour, or to ask people to use everyday language rather than jargon that leaves many others out of the conversation.

It adds to the perception that feminism and leftism are based in middle class hippy intellectual snobbery that has no relation to the realities of working class life.

That's fine if all you want to do is hold meetings and prove to your friends how politically correct you are, but not if your goal is to win over converts, build a movement or gain votes.

Many Canadians -- if polled on individual issues -- would express left wing views, but they'll never vote for a leftist party because they have an aversion to leftist individuals. Orwell touched on that in The Road to Wigan Pier, and it still applies today.

[ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: Andy Social ]

I don't disagree with you, but i'm still going to quibble a little bit.
I can't see the gender of a table or house or shovel creating much bias. Even if it did, i don't see how that can be changed.
As for English and biassed words, yes, and we've been dealing it for a few decades now: this is only one instalment of a long story.

I'm all for improving language. But - always with the buts! - you have to be careful not to erase meaning altogether. Like 'history', which has nothing at all to do with sex. Like human: to make a pure woman, you need to lose the 'hu' as well as the 'man', because it comes from 'homo', which is man... also 'earth' and 'same'. It gets messy and confusing.

Right now I'm translating a text from Spanish to French - babble is my "coffee break". "período" is masculine in Spanish and "période" feminine in French. "Dente" (Al dente, which you all know from pasta terminology) is masculine in Italian, la dent is feminine in French. Words tend to be the same gender in Latin languages, but there are a lot of exceptions.