Is anyone else offended/disgusted by the spelling "womyn"?
--Al, journal entry, Sptember 28, 2004
One of the advantages of being relatively new to the site is that my musings will be read by almost no one. I can engage in mental masterbation, which is what most of academia is, I admit, without being troubled by the thought of a lot of people reading it. So for the two of you who may read this here it goes.
I have been thinking about the alternative spelling of woman/women on and off and this is what I've come up with. First, why? Second, does it accomplish anything positive? And third, does it not matter because spelling is arbitrary anyway?
Why? Because woman/women contains the word man/men, right? Well, the argument for the spelling change is a little more nuanced than that. It has to do with the etymological definition of the word, which is "wife + man." Some people object to the idea of one sex being defined solely in relation to the other. The argument being that the very word woman contains the male chauvinist view that women are not people unto themselves; not seperate entities with their own thoughts and feelings, but simply the companions to men. Men are primary, women are secondary. Hence, the spelling change womyn/wymyn (or wimmin).
(As an aside, I must say that herstory is very silly. The word history is derived from the Greek histor/istor which means "knowing" or "learned." His is derived from an unrelated Old English word. And while I agree, history is often told from the prespective of men...herstory is not the way to point that out and at the same time expect to be taken seriously.)
At this point I ask the question, what's the goal of the spelling change? Is it a kind of shorthand way of letting the reader know that you object to male chauvinism? Ok, I guess I can support that. Is it an awareness practice on the part of the writer? A reminder of her own empowerment? I guess I can support that too. Is it intended to change the consciousness of the reader?
In otherwords is the thinking, "If I do away with the spelling that suggests 'wife + man' can I get the reader to do away with that notion? Can I change the way the reader thinks about wymyn?"
I'm not sure that you can, by simply changing the spelling of a word. In the case of a reader like me, the writer isn't going to change my thinking because the writer is preaching to the choir. I'm already right their with her. As for a male chauvinist, the writer isn't going to change his thinking either, because he won't take the writer seriously, "Goddamn, rich, white, college educated, latte drinkin', ball bustin'...[etc., etc.]" There are a lot of people out there who might otherwise agree with our hypothetical writer, they would be on her side, but as soon as they read "womyn" they will immediately dismiss what she has to say. So, on balance, I would say that changing the spelling of woman/women does more harm than good--you don't change the mind of the male chauvinists of the world and you alienate a lot of your potential allies.
Should they be alienated? Is spelling arbitrary? In many ways it is. We can forget the influence the dictionary had on written language. It froze spelling. Consider the word right. Right is spelled that way because its pronounciation used to be a lot closer to "richt." Without the dictionary we probably would have changed the spelling to r-i-t-e a long time ago, to reflect the way we as English speakers actually pronounce the word. Laugh would have been spelled l-a-f-f and so on. With the advent of the dictionary, we all learned correct spelling. Before the dictionary, however, there was no such thing a correct spelling. The goal of spelling was simply to get the reader to say the word right. So, do I pronounce "womyn" the same way I pronounce "women" when I see the word written? Since I'm fully aware of what the writer is up to, yeah, I do. So, does it matter that much to me? Not really.
As already mentioned, however, it does matter to others. Whether we like or not, we live in a post-dictionary world. And most people attach a lot of importance to correct spelling. People who use correct spelling and grammer are automatically seen as more intelligent than people who don't, regardless of their "native intelligence."
To all those wymyn and wimmin out there, if you want to recruit others to your cause, if you want to be taken seriously, spell the word w-o-m-e-n.
(Thankfully, this womyn/wymyn thing does seem to be phase that college-age women pass through. I don't know any women in their 30's that continue to spell the words that way.)
Well, that's my boring, ploding, pedantic journal entry. Did you make it this far? Why?
--Al, journal entry, Sptember 28, 2004
One of the advantages of being relatively new to the site is that my musings will be read by almost no one. I can engage in mental masterbation, which is what most of academia is, I admit, without being troubled by the thought of a lot of people reading it. So for the two of you who may read this here it goes.
I have been thinking about the alternative spelling of woman/women on and off and this is what I've come up with. First, why? Second, does it accomplish anything positive? And third, does it not matter because spelling is arbitrary anyway?
Why? Because woman/women contains the word man/men, right? Well, the argument for the spelling change is a little more nuanced than that. It has to do with the etymological definition of the word, which is "wife + man." Some people object to the idea of one sex being defined solely in relation to the other. The argument being that the very word woman contains the male chauvinist view that women are not people unto themselves; not seperate entities with their own thoughts and feelings, but simply the companions to men. Men are primary, women are secondary. Hence, the spelling change womyn/wymyn (or wimmin).
(As an aside, I must say that herstory is very silly. The word history is derived from the Greek histor/istor which means "knowing" or "learned." His is derived from an unrelated Old English word. And while I agree, history is often told from the prespective of men...herstory is not the way to point that out and at the same time expect to be taken seriously.)
At this point I ask the question, what's the goal of the spelling change? Is it a kind of shorthand way of letting the reader know that you object to male chauvinism? Ok, I guess I can support that. Is it an awareness practice on the part of the writer? A reminder of her own empowerment? I guess I can support that too. Is it intended to change the consciousness of the reader?
In otherwords is the thinking, "If I do away with the spelling that suggests 'wife + man' can I get the reader to do away with that notion? Can I change the way the reader thinks about wymyn?"
I'm not sure that you can, by simply changing the spelling of a word. In the case of a reader like me, the writer isn't going to change my thinking because the writer is preaching to the choir. I'm already right their with her. As for a male chauvinist, the writer isn't going to change his thinking either, because he won't take the writer seriously, "Goddamn, rich, white, college educated, latte drinkin', ball bustin'...[etc., etc.]" There are a lot of people out there who might otherwise agree with our hypothetical writer, they would be on her side, but as soon as they read "womyn" they will immediately dismiss what she has to say. So, on balance, I would say that changing the spelling of woman/women does more harm than good--you don't change the mind of the male chauvinists of the world and you alienate a lot of your potential allies.
Should they be alienated? Is spelling arbitrary? In many ways it is. We can forget the influence the dictionary had on written language. It froze spelling. Consider the word right. Right is spelled that way because its pronounciation used to be a lot closer to "richt." Without the dictionary we probably would have changed the spelling to r-i-t-e a long time ago, to reflect the way we as English speakers actually pronounce the word. Laugh would have been spelled l-a-f-f and so on. With the advent of the dictionary, we all learned correct spelling. Before the dictionary, however, there was no such thing a correct spelling. The goal of spelling was simply to get the reader to say the word right. So, do I pronounce "womyn" the same way I pronounce "women" when I see the word written? Since I'm fully aware of what the writer is up to, yeah, I do. So, does it matter that much to me? Not really.
As already mentioned, however, it does matter to others. Whether we like or not, we live in a post-dictionary world. And most people attach a lot of importance to correct spelling. People who use correct spelling and grammer are automatically seen as more intelligent than people who don't, regardless of their "native intelligence."
To all those wymyn and wimmin out there, if you want to recruit others to your cause, if you want to be taken seriously, spell the word w-o-m-e-n.
(Thankfully, this womyn/wymyn thing does seem to be phase that college-age women pass through. I don't know any women in their 30's that continue to spell the words that way.)
Well, that's my boring, ploding, pedantic journal entry. Did you make it this far? Why?
yes, i agree with that statemant.