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From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: response to question about "womyn"
Summary: If this is the reason, it does not work.
Message-ID: <18507@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 13 Mar 91 16:33:25 GMT
References: <9103110943.aa18622@orion.oac.uci.edu>
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In article <9103110943.aa18622@orion.oac.uci.edu> schoi@teri.bio.uci.edu (Sam "Lord Byron" Choi) writes:
> ... in literature classes, when you study Gertrude Stein,
> you wouldn't think it unusual if the professor said in introducing
> the lecture on one of her books, "Stein was an important woman
> writer of the modernist movement who..."
>
> The point of this is that you would think it weird if that same 
> professor, in introducing a lecture on William Butler Yeats said,
> "Yeats was an important man poet of the early twentieth century 
> who..."
>
> Do you see the point?  Thus getting back to the word "woman" the
> connotation seems to be that a woman is something different from
> a man.  There's nothing wrong with this except for the fact that
> the statement comes from the perspective of a man who is saying,
> "I, a man, am the norm.  A woman, is that which deviates from the
> norm."

The above analysis is now fairly common, and it accurately points
to the assumptions that lay behind certain language uses.  But
as we shall see, it does little to explain the reason for 'womyn'.  

> The spelling "womyn" eliminates the possible entomological and
> linguistic connection to "man," and thus, so the claim goes, 
> liberates the womyn from the androcentric language structures of 
> our language, placing womyn on an equal level as men linguistically
> as an alternative rather than a derivative, and thus empowers her
> to define herself in her own discourse.

But clearly, this does not work.  Refering to the previous example,
it does not seem odd to read "Stein is a womyn poet".  Where is the
analogous adjective for Yeats?  It still seems odd to read "Yeats
is a man poet".  Whether it is spelled womyn or woman, it is still
a differentiator that indicates something other than the norm.  At
most, the use of 'womyn' instead of 'woman' differentiates twice
from the norm: Stein is female, and she is also the kind of author
of whom we say 'womyn' instead of 'woman'.  There may be some
improvement in pointing out, by the unusual spelling, the tacit
assumption that 'man' is the unspoken "normal" adjective.  But the
language is by no means made gender neutral by the use of 'womyn'.

(It should also be noted that the spelling 'womyn' does NOT
eliminate whatever etymological connections exists.  Fifty years
from now, if 'womyn' is a widely used word, the dictionaries will
show its etymology something like: wyman [fr. E 'woman', fr. OE 
'wifman', fr. 'wif' woman, wife + 'man' human being, man].  Yes,
we need to change the present, but we should be leary of any
attempt to do this by rewriting the past.)

> If you don't buy this form of argument think about the example 
> above Yeats is a poet.  Is Stein a poet?  Poetess?  A woman poet?

Stein is a poet.  What we need to do is make that sound as normal
as Yeats being a poet.  Making her a womyn poet does not do that.

Russell