From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!floyd!vax135!ariel!and
Newsgroups: net.women
Title: On the use of prefixes
Article-I.D.: ariel.324
Posted: Fri Apr 29 20:41:56 1983
Received: Sat Apr 30 08:37:00 1983


Consider the use of prefixes as related to the women's
movement.  Prefixes are used to denote a sub-class.
Neither pre-fixes nor suf-fixes can be as important as fixes.
A sub-set is looked down on by all the REAL sets.

Is this applied (perhaps unconsciously) to wo-men, fe-male?

How can this be corrected?  Not! by using "women" and "female".
Perhaps we could replace the "m" in man by "w" or "f".
Unfortunately that gives us "wan", "wen", and "fale (fail)",
all terms with pejorative meanings.
(I don't think men were smart enough to have forseen all this.)

Perhaps the best solution would be terms such as "lady" and, of course,
"gentlemen", ignoring some of the present connotations of these words.
It would get away from the problem of prefixes, at least for ladies.