Is it just me, or are many feminists obsessing with language over substance?
What is it with feminists and the drive to change the English language to suit their own agenda? I'm sure you've seen some of the results: "wimmin" or "womyn" instead of "women" (to get the "men" out), "grrrl" instead of "girl" (number of Rs up to the author), "herstory" instead of "history" (female perspective on past events), "chyx" (not even going there), and any others I'm sure I've missed. What gets me is, who do these people think they're winning over?
I'm a writer. I have a certain respect for the English language; I have to. After all, I use it to communicate with people, and that communication just isn't going to happen unless we're using the same terms. Yes, sometimes the rules get bent and even broken, but even that is usually dialectical in nature. Sure, "k00l d00d" is nonsense in the Real World, but in certain elite circles, it has a recognized meaning. However, I consider it right up there with "womyn" and "grrrrl" as an idiotic construct.
The English language didn't just appear out of the blue. It exists because it has evolved through millions upon millions of people speaking and writing it. Yes, definitions change with time and usage, but very seldom do a few words out of the language change without the rest of the language following along. Consider how different Elizabethan English is from the American or British dialects...then consider how long those changes took to occur. Overnight changes simply don't happen, nor should they. If they did, people would have trouble communicating with each other, which would defeat the entire purpose of the language to begin with.
Furthermore, the language-changers are operating from a false assumption: that the English language was carefully crafted by men to subdue women womyn. (If not, then why does it need to be changed?) As I disclosed last week, women outnumber men; therefore, they are the predominant users of any given language. In other words, if women didn't have a voice in the way the language was made, it's at least partially their own fault for not giving themselves such a voice.
Of course, I suppose I should mention that the particular combinations of letters that these feminists are pouncing on are coincidental, which completely destroys their assumptions that they have sinister patriarchal meanings. For instance, consider "history". "History" is derived from the Latin "historia", meaning "learning" or "the results of inquiry". The Latin third-person male possessive pronoun ("suus"), however, bears no resemblance to its English counterpart ("his"). Therefore, the "his" in "history" is an accident of derivation and not an insertion of the male possessive pronoun. For feminist grrrrrls to assume otherwise simply shows a lack of education on their part.
Of course, this isn't the only way they come across as ignorant. When most of the people I know - male and female - see any of these nouveau feminist spellings, they don't see a brave minority struggling for recognition by taking possession of the language. No, they see stupid people who can't spell trying to figure out how to spell words by using phonics. ("Huked on foniks werkt fer me!") I mean, it says something that you only see the word "wimmin" in two frameworks: feminist dogma and redneck dialect. With the latter, it's obvious that the connotation is of ignorance...and to be blunt, that's where it appeared first. For feminists to try to redeem that spelling by taking it for themselves simply doesn't work; by adopting that spelling, they make themselves look ignorant instead of making the spelling look correct.
So, with all this in mind, what are these dictionary-dogmatists accomplishing? Who are they winning over? Well, to The Establishment, they demonstrate that they're more interested in how words are spelled than in real issues - which means that they can be safely ignored or (as Rush Limbaugh would tell you) made fun of. This is a loss for feminism, as the rabid anti-feminists can point to this behavior to deride the rest of the movement as similarly ridiculous. To non-feminist women, the extremists show that they really are Out There, and that these women should distance themselves from the entire movement. Again, a loss for the feminist side. To moderate feminists, this is just another embarrassment of the majority by the vocal minority. Yet again, a loss. Finally, to egalitarians like myself, this just shows that this radical fringe would rather exhort dogma than pursue maningful change. Yet again - do I really need to say it? - a loss for the feminists. The only people that will see this in a positive light are...the extremists themselves and similarly extreme members of minority advocacy groups who also believe in changing language to suit their own particular whims.
Okay, so there are a few liberals out there who will bend over backwards in the name of political correctness to give this Afflicted Minority the Recognition It Deserves by using Their Terminology. Not only are these people already on their side, but these are the same ignorant twits who call for Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to be banned because it uses "the n-word" (you know the one - "nigger"). Never mind that such usage was perfectly acceptable when the book was written, or that Huck and Jim could teach us more about a race-blind society than all the PC idiots alive today can, it uses offensive language! (You know what I say to that? As far as I'm concerned, those PC assholes can take a fucking hike! Mark Twain did not exist to cater to the sensibilities of the weak-minded, and neither do I. He wrote the truth, and earned a lot of respect for doing so. I only hope I can do as well in my time on this planet.)
In other words, these radical feminists are not winning anybody new over to their side, just giving them a new flag to rally around to demonstrate their support. At the same time, they're alienating people who might have joined their cause if the cause wasn't seen as so ridiculous. Their attempts to change the language aren't making any inroads into the usage of other groups, except so far as those other groups want to appeal to radical feminists as a group. ("Hey, if we pitch this ad to 'grrrrrrls', we can sucker in the feminist market!" "Yeah, and we can manage to sound hip and trendy at the same time! Let's do it!") In the meantime, they're making themselves look like idiots by intentionally misspelling terms to suit their own agenda. Look, the words already have perfectly servicable spellings; there's no need to foster miscommunication by inventing entirely new ones!
I'll tell you what I'm going to do, though. I'm going to try the same tactic, to point out how ignorant the whole concept is. I'm going to become a "maan" because I don't want to be lumped in with the idiotic members of the human race. After that, I'll get married to a "womaan" who shares my views, and together we'll raise a couple of "boise" and "girlse". We can then teach our "chyldrin" how to oppose "radikal" "femmenist bitchma" (a female dog is a bitch, so feminist dogma must be "bitchma") and think for themselves from an egalitarian point of view. Then, after a few years, hopefully "mæn" (plural of "maan") and "womæn" can live together with men and "wimmin" in peace and harmony. Woohoo!
That is, if anyone can figure out what anyone else is talking about....