I suspect the etymology is much longer and more complex, though, as some of the examples above suggest. In Scotland, eg, "Hen" is a very old term of endearment, especially among country folk, and would likely be applied to a matron.

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Actually, Chick was derived from men calling young virgin girls (So they thought) chicks as opposed to full grown chickens. Untouched and unexperienced. Pretty sick IMO.

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How do you know this? What's your source?

Every other oppressed group has played politics rather successfully this way -- ie, we can call each other chicks, but no one else can.

I far prefer the idea of re-claiming it to having to be offended every time I hear it.

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You can't imagine taking the word back, midge? Re-possessing it?

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Yes, I can imagine taking it back. What actually got me started on this was the book Cunt, which I just finished reading for the second time. If you haven't read it (you should!), she re-claims the word Cunt, generally a negative word.

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Originally posted by midge:

Yes, I can imagine taking it back. What actually got me started on this was the book Cunt, which I just finished reading for the second time. If you haven't read it (you should!), she re-claims the word Cunt, generally a negative word.

.

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The book is all about getting over the stigma attached to the word, so the whole point is to be able to go and ask for it at Chapters--if you absolutely have to buy books there.

I read it on my daily commute last winter (that was my second reading, though), and kind of enjoyed the curious looks I got because of it.

[ 25 August 2003: Message edited by: Lima Bean ]

clerk: Is there a book I may help you find?

mb: CUNT.

sfx: *shBAM!* (mb embedded into opposite wall, preferably face first)

clerk: How dare you, you irredeemable wretch.

edit to add: I just couldn't resist this scenario, eh? Sorry, mb. To atone, I'll pull out the etymology of "chick" later in the OED. I may even add definitions from one of the feminist dictionaries.

[ 25 August 2003: Message edited by: scrabble ]

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/1999/360/360p29.htm

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When I heard someone yell out “Hey chick!”, I calmly turned around prepared to explain to this juvenile male that I don't appreciate being referred to as a fluffy baby chicken. To my shock, I found that it was a feminist woman.

...

If our aims are to build a strong movement for the liberation of women and strengthen feminist consciousness, using the word “chick” is not going to help. The fact that increasing numbers of feminists are not convinced of this illustrates the success of the current backlash against the women's liberation movement.

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Seriously though, he's got a million dictionaries, and he'd actually enjoy researching the origin of the word for you, if it doesn't take all day.

I'll let you know if we find anything Midge.

Personally, I use the word chick all the time when refering to younger women. I use it on myself all the time.

Context and intent are usually all that matter with any word. If some chauvanist were refering to a woman as a "stupid chick", that's offensive. Me saying that I saw this chick uptown reading a neat book, that's not offensive.

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Oh Feminist Forum, wrap me in Thy Shielding Cloak

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(Thanks Magoo. What would we unladylike unladies do without you big strong men to police the feminism forum, eh? )

Back to the origin of chick. The (admittedly clunky) OED notes several etymologies, of which the two relevant entries are:

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3. transf. a. Applied to human offspring . . . esp. in alliteration with child. Sometimes as a term of endearment (see quote 1610).

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So that's 3a. More on point, 3b:

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A girl; a young woman. slang (orig. U.S.).
First usage, 1927: S. Lewis Elmer Gantry vii. 114 He didn't want to marry this brainless little fluffy chick. [niiiiiiiiice.]

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While I'm at it, the other noted usages:
1957: C. MacInnes City of Spades I. v. 31 There stood . . . Muriel's sister. But what a difference from the little chick!

1959: News Chron. 12 Aug. 4/3 Beatniks and their 'chicks' - palefaced girls wearing pony-tail hair-dos and toreador pants.

1971: It. 12-16 June 16/2 Jackie, always a 'with-it chick.'

So, with-it chicks, whaddya think?

For cunt, lemme switch to that old standby: Amazons, Bluestockings and Crones: A feminist dictionary - a woman's companion to words and ideas (Karamarae, Cheris, and Paula A. Treichler. London: Pandora Press, 1985.) Most of youse probably know this but it bears repeating, methinks.

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"In ancient writings, the word for 'cunt' was synonymous with 'woman,' though not in the insulting modern sense."
"From the same root came country, kin, and kind . . . Other cognates are 'cunabula,' a cradle, or the earliest abode; 'Cunina,' a Roman Goddess who protected children in the cradle; 'cunctipotent,' all powerful (ie, having cunt-magic); 'cunicle,' a hole or passage; 'cuniculate,' penetrated by a passage; 'cundy,' a covered culvert; also cunning, kenning, and ken: knowledge, learning, insight, remembrance, wisdom." (Barbara G. Walker 1983, 197)

(See CHANA)

Given in Eric Partridge as c*nt [sic], the word dates back at least to Middle English and is from the same root as cuneiform, from cuneus "wedge." Partridge writes that "owing to its powerful sexuality, the term has since the 15th century, been avoided in written and in polite spoken English," and has been held to be obscene since about 1700, making it a legal offence to print it in full. Even playwrights and dictionary-makers courageous where other language was concerned, found ways of avoiding the word. J. S. Farmer and W. E. Henley (1890-1904) provide a brief entry under cunt but place their major entry for the word under the heading monosyllable, where hundreds of synonyms are listed. Partridge notes that even James Murray of the Oxford English Dictionary did not include it, though he included prick: "Why this further injustice to women?" (Eric Partiridge 1961, 198)

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I am happy to report that the 1992 edition of the Compact Oxford includes a lengthy entry on "cunt." But please don't make me type it tonight.

edited for typos.

[ 26 August 2003: Message edited by: scrabble ]

[ 26 August 2003: Message edited by: redshift ]

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What would we unladylike unladies do without you big strong men to police the feminism forum, eh?

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If our aims are to build a strong movement for the liberation of women and strengthen feminist consciousness, using the word “chick” is not going to help. The fact that increasing numbers of feminists are not convinced of this illustrates the success of the current backlash against the women's liberation movement.

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This line of thinking is really frustrating to me. As I conceive of it, feminism is about opening doors and eliminating barriers to women, such that society is more equitable across the gender "divide". I think that making words taboo is just totally counterintuitive, and so I like better to look for ways to re-co-opt the words that have been used against us. And this, I figure, has got to start among feminist women--of course. I think we've got much bigger fish to fry than a couple of little words--and if, in the process of seasoning the fish for the skillet (so to speak), we can throw in a dash of linguistic reclamation, why the hell not?

In a similar vein, Bitch magazine had a big article in an issue that's at least a couple of months old now about the common usage of the word "guys". The author highlighted the fact that generally "guy" is used to talk about a male, but "guys" is used to talk about groups of people who may or may not all be male. She thought that this was a way of erasing or negating the presence of the females in the group. Another way we default to the male as the generic, I guess.

I could sorta see where she was coming from, but I also thought: Is this really the biggest of your concerns?

I'll try to find a link, but in the meantime, what do folks you think?

("folks" can be male and female, right?)

[ 26 August 2003: Message edited by: Lima Bean ]

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:

It was your addition of "preferably face first" that had me thinking you maybe you were over the line. But if you and MB have a private joke going, carry on.

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Magoo, the joke's so private that I don't even know what's going on??!! I think that I'm believed to be upset about being put through a wall face-first (metaphorically) or something.

[ 26 August 2003: Message edited by: mighty brutus ]

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Originally posted by skdadl:
What do we think of the word "cow" applied to any woman ever (she asked, showing her hand as she wrote)?

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Sheds a little light on the "chick" debate as well, I guess.

[ 26 August 2003: Message edited by: Lima Bean ]

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The same guys who use it as a demeaning, diminishing term are still using it the same way. I don't think using it ourselves will change that.

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A girl; a young woman. slang (orig. U.S.).
First usage, 1927: S. Lewis Elmer Gantry vii. 114 He didn't want to marry this brainless little fluffy chick. [niiiiiiiiice.]

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Thank you for the info Scrabble.

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In a similar vein, Bitch magazine had a big article in an issue that's at least a couple of months old now about the common usage of the word "guys". The author highlighted the fact that generally "guy" is used to talk about a male, but "guys" is used to talk about groups of people who may or may not all be male. She thought that this was a way of erasing or negating the presence of the females in the group. Another way we default to the male as the generic, I guess.

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The author highlighted the fact that generally "guy" is used to talk about a male, but "guys" is used to talk about groups of people who may or may not all be male. She thought that this was a way of erasing or negating the presence of the females in the group.

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Mrs. Bong and I don't like when salespeople or other strangers greet us with "How are you guys today?" It isn't that her presence is being ignored, but that "you guys" is overfamiliar. There are alternatives, but saying "you people" sounds as if you're being greeted by a drill instructor.

It's much easier for someone to eliminate words such as 'chick' and 'broad' from their vocabulary than it is to stop being sexist. In fact having convenient politically correct rules to follow helps someone cover up their prejudices. As the main character in Ghost World says “people still hate each other, they just know how to hide it better”

In English the trend is to making words more neuter: actor, fisher, etc. As I understand it, this eliminates usage of the feminine term, seen as pejorative, or, at least, as bringing sex into an irrelevant area.

Now "guys", a term that used to refer only to males, has become inclusive when used in the plural - all of a sudden, the same phenomenon that is being strived for in the examples above, becomes an example of "erasing or negating the presence of the females in the group".

This is, in fact, the approach adopted by French (auteure, Mme la Ministre, etc.).

So, as a man (before you check my profile to expose this fact to the world), it all seems a bit silly to me. It looks like whatever is the status quo is automatically accused of supporting patriarchy, whether it objectively does so or not.

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Originally posted by al-Qa'bong:
Mrs. Bong and I don't like when salespeople or other strangers greet us with "How are you guys today?" It isn't that her presence is being ignored, but that "you guys" is overfamiliar. There are alternatives, but saying "you people" sounds as if you're being greeted by a drill instructor.

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quote:

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Originally posted by al-Qa'bong:

Mrs. Bong and I don't like when salespeople or other strangers greet us with "How are you guys today?" It isn't that her presence is being ignored, but that "you guys" is overfamiliar.

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[ 27 August 2003: Message edited by: clersal ]

In groups (mixed or homo*), I tend to call us all "girrrrlllls." In doing so, one must channel Hedwig and really roll the tongue: RRRRRRRRrrrrlllllLLLL.

As other folks have said above, context is important - I'm guessing I couldn't do that with a group of unvariegated un- or semi-enlightened folks, or people who'd just think I were an idiot. (Which I can be. But I have beguiling redeeming qualities. I hope.)

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I like to say 'folks' or 'dudes n' ladies' or sometimes 'dudes n' dudettes' or if it's all women in a group, I try to say 'ladies' or sometimes 'dudettes' or 'fantastic femmes' or 'divine dames' etc.

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I have a real dislike for being referred to as anything ending in "-ette". See, that suffix means you are making smaller, not quite a full whatever-it-is... Like "tartlet" is a tart, only smaller, not quite a fully-fledged tart. Or a "drummette" is a mini-drumstick. And it's cutesy. I hate being made to sound cutesy.

I also don't like "-ess".

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an English version of "les gars"

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Unless you're talking about a general feeling that you personally don't mind it?

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I also don't like "-ess"

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But I speak French more often than English. Calling a woman an "actor" gives me an impression of someone in drag - nothing wrong with that, but a bit limitative.

In French and other modern Romance languages, the trend is to use both the male and female nouns (travailleur / travailleuse) or use collective nouns that are more inclusive and can be either male or female in gender.

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What do you do in languages that have all-pervasive grammatical gender and no neutral position, like French and Arabic?

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Zoot, unlike "ette", -ess is not a diminutive. It comes from a Latin feminine noun ending and is no more diminutive than -or for male nouns.

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Yes, I know. I still don't like it. If I'm directing, I'm a director, not a directress. My sex makes no difference to the job I'm doing. I feel the same way with actor vs actress.

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Zoot, if you were a director in Québec you'd insist on being a réalisatrice and would be mightily pissed off at being called a réalisateur. Calling a woman a comédien would simply be a nonsensical barbarism.

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Zoot, if you were a director in Québec you'd insist on being a réalisatrice and would be mightily pissed off at being called a réalisateur. Calling a woman a comédien would simply be a nonsensical barbarism.

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Perhaps, if I spoke French fluently, that might be the case. Frankly, I can't imagine arguing for the feminine form in particular. I don't think I'd care all that much -- it isn't my home turf, and likely won't ever be.

However, in the English language, which does not use gender in the same way as French, I find that the "-ess" focuses the issue on the shape of my genitalia instead of what I'm doing or how well I'm doing it. I find this troublesome, often irritating. There are perfectly good words, why go the clumsy distance of feminizing it when you don't need to?

[ 27 August 2003: Message edited by: Zoot Capri ]

(Some will begin to notice that I am getting my material from Mark Twain: see his very funny essay "The Awful German Language.")

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midge, do you have the Handbook? I bet your local library has a copy. Good basics, including the point Zoot covers above on "-ess." It's a bit, uh, rigidly doctrinaire, you know, but it's a great start.

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[ 10 September 2003: Message edited by: jlzania ]

[ 11 September 2003: Message edited by: ronb ]

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the barnyard etymology of many languages' nicknames for genitals...

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It may not be exactly barnyard etymology, but the Spanish language term "vagina" is related to the word for "sheath", "vaina". I am told that this is also the case with the German words for vagina and sheath; the common root is "scheide". The one which refers to women's bodies came first, I believe.

[ 11 September 2003: Message edited by: jeff house ]

Hetrosexuality is by definition "sexism", it always will be, nothing will change that. But in the quest to destroy sexism, or the other gender, than you could be quite possibly be destroying the female gender as well. Which seems odd to me.

What would one hope to accomplish by deleting all forms of pronouns? Such as woman, lady, girl,chick etc.....

I heard a speech the other day that described the origin of woman. It happens to be an anglo saxon word [womba]-man. Womba being a prefix. That some 1200 years ago they referred to all people of both genders as men or man. Womba-man was eventually shorted obviously but it shows something about it.

I am also confused by the use of "herstory", not that it matters, and it shows a sort of pride I guess. But history is not a male prefix. It comes from an actual name which the french eventually adopted which the english adopted from the french. The french do not have a masculine reference of "his" anywhere in the language. So history does not mean [his]-story.

Although I've never liked the term "broad" feel free to dispatch of that as you please. It's such a harsh sounding term, and it's either years of feminism input into my brain and I'm oversensitized to it or I just don't like it and never have.

Women objectify men, they hunt for guys in likewise manner. Human beings are sexual predators, every single last one of us. If we weren't, well we would end as a species. Thankfully some of us have some sort of morality and don't take the predatorial notion to the extreme. Unfortunately some of us do.

I've also noticed a percentage of men's activists using the term 'myn' to describe themselves.

Womba is an extroadinary word. To bad feminists find it offensive and have fundementally become intollerant to it.

Men, who go hunting for chics, if they want to have a strong lasting relationship with a woman, will eventually have to move past arrested developement. So the objectification of women will have to cease sooner or later.

In advertising much of its research was developed by the communists ironically. The communists in Russia had Pavlov. Pavlov is probably the most underscored researcher of our time. Interestingly enough. The marketting teams around the world know that repetitive and associative ads work the best.

This is why sex is in most advertising. Humans are sexually predatorial and think about sex a number of times a day. Combine that thought with whatever product you are selling and it may just work.

I'm not here to troll. I said I would leave. I guess my point stands, feminists are not really interested in solving the problems, but rather inflating them to garnish some sort of agenda.

Currently I feel that the "sex war" is like a cold war where constant distribution of warmongering propaganda will lead us all to very unhappy positions.

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Originally posted by jlzania:
It's not a huge stretch from chick to heifer to pig to bitch.
I'm a grown woman-not a barnyard animal and I don't answer to animal names.
YMMV

[ 10 September 2003: Message edited by: jlzania ]

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I don't see evidence of trolling, just a common misconception that all feminists want the same things. It doesn't anger me, it just makes me sad.

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Collectives usually do want the same thing. Each woman is an individual but feminism would not be feminism in it's entirety without the collective force.

The dictionary version of feminism is equality for women. But it doesn't mean that the dictionary definition is what is really said product.

Some will argue that feminism has turned into a protectionism racket. Which is what this thread leads me to think. Bitch, whore, slut, are all offensive words. But is it the goal of feminists to delete all offensive words or just offensive words aimed at women?

Chic is a sexual word. It denotes attraction and pregnancy. It's very possible that the word 'chic' could be despised because of its cannotation with pregnancy. And as I've said with feminists being a type of 'soldier' children are not desired obligation to good soldiers.

What are the main issues of feminism? Centred around domestic violence, rape, wage gap, sexism, sexual harrassement etc... All those things are heavily spotted onto society at large with pamplets and other informational tools. And in all cases it is men who are the villians, either by direct accusation or by obvious acknowledgements.

The chinese did similiar things to this and it was called 'warmongering'.

Of course every feminist on this board will rise up and say that is not at all what feminists are doing, they are seeking justice.

My feelings are that in many cases these informational pamplets don't give the full details or these suppress other statistics which might possibly mislead the public at large.