There should be PSAs on the radio:

I’m out for a week. This crowd saddens me. You are troll makers you spend your time a lot of your time on this board carrying on your troll witch-hunt. I’m out this has become so childish and stupid. I thought we could have a debate but I fell victim to reverse-trollisim.

Thanks everyone else for such great responses Sean, others keep it burning.

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reverse-trollisim.

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But, and more importantly, who da women?!?

[ 19 August 2005: Message edited by: MartinArendt ]

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Originally posted by MartinArendt:
No, I beg to differ, Cartman...you da man.

But, and more importantly, who da women?!?

[ 19 August 2005: Message edited by: MartinArendt ]

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I think, Martin, you mean "who da womyn"

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I think, Martin, you mean "who da womyn"

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Originally posted by Cartman:
How sad it is that males, as a group anyways, earn more than women, have had access to the paid labour force far longer than females, had fewer responsibilities around the home on average, engaged in crimes to an astronomically greater extent than women . . .

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Originally posted by Cartman:
How sad it is that males, as a group anyways, earn more than women, have had access to the paid labour force far longer than females, had fewer responsibilities around the home on average, engaged in crimes to an astronomically greater extent than women who, not surprisingly exhibit a tragic level of insecurity in our country simply going to the bus stop/subway etc., and a few insecure males bash women for spelling it differently and seek empowerment? WTF? Is that what constitutes male pride? Yeah, we got it really hard these days what with Homer Simpson screwing things up. Jerks.

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I could also mention the higher success rate of female applicants in getting a job, the unchanged, impressive growth in female wages, female education in greater numbers than men, the generation of women I'm growing up with right now will run this country and that's not in any way a bad thing, what however will be bad is if we ingrain these misandristic stereotypes of males and retain programs of the welfare state designed to erase economic inequity by supporting women, as opposed to the economically disadvantaged. These measures can and will become dangerously anacronistic in the same way that the concessions granted the plebians in the elevation of the Roman government were retained long after they had become equal in all other ways to the patricians.

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what however will be bad is if we ingrain these misandristic stereotypes of males and retain programs of the welfare state designed to erase economic inequity by supporting women, as opposed to the economically disadvantaged

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Originally posted by Sean Tisdall:

I could also mention the higher success rate of female applicants in getting a job, the unchanged, impressive growth in female wages,
When we get within 5% of male wages, let's talk

female education in greater numbers than men
Funny, but I think we need to start talking about sex-segregated classrooms. Not to keep the little virgins clean of impure thoughts, but because there seems to be a growing body of evidence that girls and boys learn in very different ways that are really irreconcileable in a single activity called "classroom learning"

the generation of women I'm growing up with right now will run this country and that's not in any way a bad thing, what however will be bad is if we ingrain these misandristic stereotypes of males and retain programs of the welfare state designed to erase economic inequity by supporting women, as opposed to the economically disadvantaged.

Let's talk when we get close to eradicating the differences in power ownership and wages. At current rates, maybe we'll get close in 150 years.

These measures can and will become dangerously anacronistic in the same way that the concessions granted the plebians in the elevation of the Roman government were retained long after they had become equal in all other ways to the patricians.

Not for a long time, I'm afraid...

But it doesn't really happen, because a neo-liberal state run by an equal gender mix in cabinet, and supported by an equal gender mix at the executive ranks of the private sector, is going to care as much about a single mother working for minimum wage as the current pack of continentalists.

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Originally posted by Digiteyes:

So until that single mother is earning a working wage, I guess we're going to have to wait for that discussion, right, Sean?

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Originally posted by Digiteyes:

So until that single mother is earning a working wage, I guess we're going to have to wait for that discussion, right, Sean?

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Originally posted by Cartman:
How sad it is that males, as a group anyways, earn more than women, have...fewer responsibilities around the home on average...

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Those two things go hand-in-hand. Women will never have equal access in the marketplace until there are as many men staying at home with babies as there are women, no matter what the government and diversity-conscious corporations try to do.

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Of course, the SCUM Manifesto didn't get acknowledged, biiig shocker there.

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Yikes, what a soundtrack. It's amazing what can transpire on your local public-access-Internet channel.

Ah, me, it's been ages since I've linked to the page-of-the-dude-who-thinks-washing-machines-are-the-tool-of-Satan. Sigh.

PS: You're double-responding, Sean, and WTF is a 'hore flop' anyways?

[ 20 August 2005: Message edited by: aRoused ]

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Originally posted by Stargazer:
I have no idea what you just said. And what, exactly, does this mean?

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word! my sentiments exactamundo.

plebian, anacronistic, plebian, roman and patrician ... too many big words all lumped together in one sentence. i have a vague idea what all of them mean, except for that last one "patrician". is that a new kind of doctor?

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Originally posted by Sean Tisdall:

Je repondez, hore flop, you set arbitrary tergets, Joe Clark was criticised during elections, not Maureen McTeer, for having an equal marriage, Mark my words you're fighting for intra generational programs when intergenerational mobility will provide the solution, take it from an Irish Canadian

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I have no idea what you're talking about in half of what you've said here.

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Originally posted by MartinArendt:
I like the term "reverse-trollism". It's kind of like "reverse-sexism" or "reverse-racism", because it doesn't exist!

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Is this yet another official language?

look look look and see
see Dick see Jane
see Dick and Jane.
Look and see Dick and Jane.
See baby Sally.
See Spot
See Puff
Is Puff a hore flop? Is Spot a terget?

Is a terget like a marmot? Or a bait shop? Or a crow?
Is a terget like a cow pie, or a horse bun, do you know?
Terget terget burning bright
in the darkness of the night
what immortal hand or eye
framed thy fearful cow flop pie...

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Originally posted by kellis:

You called it.

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Originally posted by mayakovsky:
'misanristic' I think the word you were looking for was misandristic. 'misanristic' is what happens when your hands snap back because they can't believe what they are being asked to write.

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
In any case, now that we've clearly demonstrated that spelling "women" with a "y" is NOT an expression of hatred for males, CAN THIS PARTICULAR DISCUSSION PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE be allowed a merciful death?

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[ 26 May 2006: Message edited by: CHCMD ]

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Originally posted by Pr0m37h3iu5:

...can someone please explain what difference it makes how a person spells their gender?

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It makes a real difference if you think the BIG SCARY SHE-BEASTS want to find you and hurt you, like Skeezer does.

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Originally posted by CHCMD:
Hi Pr0m,

For me words have power . . . when I call myself a grrl, it represents who I see myself to be - if you are kind I would love you to stroke my soft fur, if you are mean watch out 'cause I scratch!

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Awe, now that is cute.

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It makes a real difference if you think the BIG SCARY SHE-BEASTS want to find you and hurt you, like Skeezer does.

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
I choose a more disrespectful tone in that post because of all the times when I pointed out to Sk**zer that he shouldn't be blaming feminism for men's troubles, and he went on doing it anyway.

Sk**zer isn't here to learn. He's here to rant at women.

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Did you ever stop to think that maybe he had a reason for it? Or consider looking at it from his side? Or talk peacefully and respectfully about it?

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There is nothing that feminists could have done to Sk**zer in his real life that was all THAT terrible. The planet is still run by men. A tiny elite minority of men, but men nonetheless, and men who are kept in power by those other non-elite men who blame feminists, or people of color, or people who were born gay or lesbian rather than the tiny elite minority of men who are their actual oppressors.

It became clear that Sk**zer will NEVER get it.

[ 30 August 2005: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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Originally posted by Scout:

Been there, done that. Did you stop to think that there might be a reason some feminist had for reacting so strongly? Any reason at all we might be sensitive? It’s a two way street.

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It makes a real difference if you think the BIG SCARY SHE-BEASTS want to find you and hurt you, like Skeezer does.

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Originally posted by Pr0m37h3iu5:

There's no need to insult or attack, Ken.

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Originally posted by ephemeral:
prom, read this thread for why womyn is spelt that way. or grrls. i haven't read the entire thread, but there is a somewhat good discussion at the beginning that seriously talks about the spelling.

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Darnit, it's locked. But I DO have a question about something said in that thread. Just a curiosity because it doesn't make sense.

Anne_Cameron said(IF you read this, please respond!)

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The word for the male of the sad species was originally "wer", as in werwolf. A "man" was a woman from the Isle of Man, where no males or wers were allowed. The females on the Isle of Man were experts in all forms of armed and unarmed combat and, at a time when britain had no full time standing army, it was from the Isle of Man that the officers were taken when the region needed to be defended. The females from the Isle of Man were also the ones in charge of training the citizens when they needed to be used as soldiers. When Rome invaded Britain the females from the Isle of Man fought so well, and so fiercely that the Romans spoke of things like "to fight like a Man", "to die like a Man"... and we lost our first word

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That makes a lot of sense. But my question is, if men weren't allowed, how come so many people lived there? WOuldn't they die out after a generation or so?

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
I did make several peaceful and respectful posts to Sk**zer, but he ignored everything I said and always turned it around to blaming feminism rather than, as he logically should have, blaming exploitative capitalism, which was the real source of his troubles

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I to tried to take the high road and confront him with information and fact. In return all I got was insults and more anti-feminist rhetoric. Not once, did he respond to the facts I lay before him....just a brick wall.

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There is nothing that feminists could have done to Sk**zer in his real life that was all THAT terrible.

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He did claim to have been discriminated against by women. He was never willing to explain it though. It seems to be the source of his anti-feminism. Chances are it does not relate to feminism or gender equality but rather something class related or a one-off.

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That makes a lot of sense. But my question is, if men weren't allowed, how come so many people lived there? WOuldn't they die out after a generation or so?

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Actually, it's feminist revisionist history -- never really happened. Celtic women were indeed warriors, but they fought alongside the men. The publication this was taken from is highly, highly suspect in terms of research and facts.

edited to add:

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Still, I guess spelling it womyn can't really hurt anyone.

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It's harmless, but silly (in my opinion). I have been known to spell girls "grils", but only when I'm being funny.

[ 31 August 2005: Message edited by: Zoot ]

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Two basic words in the language are man and woman. Naturally, we would expect these to have Old English roots and this is indeed the case. All the Germanic languages use the word man (in some form or another) to mean both a human being and a male person. English is no exception, although in Old English there was a distinction in common usage.

The Old English words wer and wif meant male and female humans respectively. Wer is gone from the language, except in the word werewolf, which literally means man-wolf. Wer has its roots in the Indo-European *wiros, which also gives us, via the Latin, virility and virtue. In contrast, Anglo Saxons would use man as a synonym for wer and to mean humans in general.

The female counterpart wif survives today as wife, but to the Anglo-Saxons the word meant any woman, not just a spouse. You can see this usage in the word alewife, a woman who brewed and sold beer, and in midwife. In addition, Old English also had wæpman, literally meaning a human with a weapon and used to refer to a male human (weapon was an Old English euphemism for the penis), and wifman. Wifman survives today as woman.

While Anglo-Saxons could use man to mean a male of the species, they commonly used it to mean a human being of either sex. Over time, however, use of wer faded in favor of man, and wif specialized to mean a married woman. This left us with the words man and woman.

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[ 31 August 2005: Message edited by: chubbybear ]

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Originally posted by Pr0m37h3iu5:

That makes a lot of sense. But my question is, if men weren't allowed, how come so many people lived there? WOuldn't they die out after a generation or so?

Still, I guess spelling it womyn can't really hurt anyone. I spell some words differently.

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I assume that was satirical.

"Wer" is indeed one of many words for a male in Old English with various shades of meaning (just as there are varied terms for women), but like almost all of them, it implies "warrior" as much as it does "male" and is thus tied to a social role more than it is to a gender. The major Old English words for men, such as "secg", "mago" and "guma" generally have that dual implication.

So as I was saying in the other thread, Old English does not really have a term for "male" as an abstract gender category like the modern "male". Any and all terms specifying sex are tied to social roles or (frequently in addition) to specification of age categories (as is the case with "mago", which implies youth).

"Man", however, is an exception, as it is generally treated as gender neutral and its use in compounds which describe a woman or in places where gender is not a factor evidences this. The contrast between the gender-neutral generality of "man" and the social and sexual specificity of "secg" or "guma" is quite emphatic.

Evidence of the gender neutrality of 'man' is provided by its use as an gender neutral indefinite pronoun in Old English (similar to French 'on'). That is to say, when the subject and its gender is not specified or known, "man" is acceptable in Old English as a way to get around declaring gender.

The other point that I think is crucial is that "wifman" from which "woman" derives does not mean "wife of man" or "wife of a man" or any such thing. "Wif" specifies a female past the age of puberty and implies nothing regarding marital status (although it is of course overwhelmingly probable that any adult female Anglo-Saxon will be a 'wife' in the marital sense as well). Compounds with "man" as the word-final element are rife in Old English, and "wifman" is just one of many wherein the 'man' element indicates personhood. The reasonable intepretation of the compound, understanding that "man" is gender neutral and that "wife" specifies nothing about marital status and merely describes female gender past a certain age is "female human being past the age of puberty".

Etymologically, taking offense at "woman" is ridiculous, but no one here, happily, is suggesting taking offence at it, and that's where anti-feminist demagogues get themselves confused. One can favour a particular usage without despising those who use another. One can even feel a given usage is appropriate for use by a given group while not by another. As we were finding in another thread elsewhere, many LGBT folks favour the term "queer" as a catch-all for sexual minorities. But this doesn't mean all straight persons must use the term from here on in. Quite the contrary. "Queer" could circumstantially be perceived as demeaning. It's very much about context and the speaker. And similarly with 'womyn'. Some women may favour the spelling. But that doesn't mean it's the only acceptable one.

[ 31 August 2005: Message edited by: Yst ]

Womyn/Wimmin/Wymyn who chose to spell their name as such (or any other way) do so because they feel that woman suggests the wife of a man (or the property of a man). They do this because at one point in time it did. OR, at the very least, man was used to describe all persons, but that was done because of the connotation of society (womyn were NOT PEOPLE...anyone walk up to the Hill recently?).

Words are abstract, people think that because at one point man meant both sexes that it was neutral. The reality was that they did this because of societal views of each gender.

If the root "man" once meant both sexes, neutrally (truly neutrally), that's fine. Wif at one point just meant woman, then the term was coopted when males decided that females were only wives, thus eventually creating woman/women. They also coopted the term man. It’s not that people came up with man just for males then tagged females on. It’s that at one point the term may or may not have been neutral, then it was decided that females were not people are therefore did not need a distinction (ergo the latest, everyone is called a man). It is this connotation that many people fight against, the cooptation of words to fit societal norms.

Changing either aspect of the word “woman” or “women” renders the term nonsense (connotationally, okay that’s not a word), just like apple or orange. It takes out the connotation of it all and turns it into a new word, thus removing any relation to old/current connotations.

there was no problem with woman--human with a womb

BUT

Some men really objected to We man some Woman dragged the Weee out when they pronounced it--complete with depreciating gestures--crotch high

[ 22 September 2005: Message edited by: Rumrumrumrum ]