Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ora!ambar
From: WNR0@ns.cc.lehigh.edu (Whitney Noel Rearick)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: A question about "womyn"
Message-ID: <12039120:43:54WNR0@lehigh.bitnet>
Date: 13 Mar 91 11:28:53 GMT
Sender: ambar@ora.com (Jean Marie Diaz)
Organization: O'Reilly and Associates Inc., Cambridge MA
Lines: 11
Approved: ambar@ora.com

The derivation of the word 'woman' is literally 'wife of man'.
Similarly, 'female' is derived from the Latin 'to suckle'.  I, for
one, have not yet found a suitable word to describe myself!  Even
'human' describes me in terms of a man.  The rest of my life is not
defined relative to what a man is or does (or at least I try to act
that way), so why should the terms that describe me be so?

Hope that helped, even if in a strange way--it was rather painful for
me when I first heard it.

WNR0