When I was on the editorial board of a journal in my field, we had a huge brouhaha over a line in an article - the word “seminal” was replaced with “foundational” because of the “semin-” root. I guess it ultimately didn’t matter because the words mean essentially the same thing, but that was a pretty heated discussion…
I was joking. And I’m female, FWIW.
I have no problem with “women” and I think “womyn” is ridiculous and unnecessary.
It’s a useful window into an endemic pathology of modern feminism. Passive, dictatorial and trivial.
No, that’s what it used to mean. Now it just means “female human being.”
Or it’s just yet another example of silly extremists run amok.
Eh. I’ve got a few friends who use it, and yes you’d probably describe them as “tree-hugging, moon-howling, Birkenstock-wearing nutballs”. Although in reality they’re none of those things - they’re good people trying to figure out the world and what their place in it is.
So put me down for a helping of “I’d never use it myself, but it doesn’t cause me to view anyone who does as mentally defective”.
I think it’s stupid. Do They use “humyn” as well?
(I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that you’re a woman!)
I think we should call ourselves “weemen” (wee men). Wait…no I don’t. 
(You knew someone was going to do this.) Wait a minute! I’m dating a guy who wears sandals with socks and has a hippie-ish streak. He wouldn’t use such a silly term or see the point of it, and neither would I, and I’m an unabashed feminist. Fortunately, being a feminist has not affected my common sense or love of the English language. I can see where people are coming from, but surely there are more important battles to fight.
Plus it was the title of so many small free sexest publications years ago, that I got feed up with the term. It’s sort of like Peta now. Nobody in the organization is credited as other than an extremist anoying crackpot, because of the extremists.
Entirely silly. How about doing something about something that actually matters?
[sub]Moon-howling?[/sub]
What’s the problem? If they can change ‘women’ to ‘womyn’ then we can change ‘men’ to ‘myn’ and everyone will be happy, right? Hehe.
I’m not seeing the difference here.
This was covered back in 2001 in a 5 page rant in the pit…It was also covered here a little later in 2003.
Brief overview I was the one who started it because of a womyn’s group my mother was in… I just stayed faaaaar away in the end from going to her house on Wednesday nights… But the linked pit rant is pretty funny… I wish the original wasn’t lost in the mass SDMB outage of 01’…
(bolding mine)
ahem I think you mean “herher”.
Best part was that the chicky had huge knockers with “womyn” scrawled across the chest.
Oy! :smack:
Do I bother? Do I bother? …Yes, I bother.
I didn’t say “They wear birkenstocks with socks and are hippies? THEY MUST SAY WYMYN!”
'Twas the other way around. This isn’t a logic test, but just because Some A’s are B’s, not all B’s are necessarily A’s.
And it WAS A JOKE!
I was familiar with both “womyn” and “wimmin” before this thread, but had no idea they were connected! I always thought that “wimmin” was just a phonetic spelling used to evoke a down-home feel (as in “gather the wimminfolk”). I have only ever seen “wimmin” used by men, and it’s almost always tongue-in-cheek (at least, I think/hope it is). I had no idea that it was ever used by the feminist movement.
It’s not just white trash. Behold grillz. You may now weep for the future of our nation.
I agree that “womyn” is pretty absurd, BTW.
Heh, these are the sort of people who inspire comments from my friends and I such as "Awww… she’s a feminist! How cute!