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Feminist Etymology

Dec 23, 2016 //
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The term ‘womyn’ is occasionally used to signify a feminist exodus from male-dominated language. Woman has the suffix -man in it, after all, and wome(y)n no longer exist only as a derivative of man! Eve, born of a male rib, is no longer in style.

However, an assumption about the historically patriarchal nature of language would reasonably require looking at the history of language. ‘Woman’ originally comes from the word wifman where wif refers to her status as a female, and man refers to her status as a human being. ‘Man’, as we know him today, was initially called werman, with the wer referring to his male-ness, and the man, again, referring to the fact that he is a homo sapien.

It turns out ‘woman’ isn’t historically oppressive at all, and ‘werewolf’ is in fact the more sexist term, as it would etymologically be transcribed as a male-wolf (Same with ‘android’, which literally is something that is like a male; andro + oid. The neutral version would be ‘anthroid’). Somewhat ironically, altering the –man part of ‘woman’ would seem to lessen her humanity, rather than embolden it.

Similarly, ‘female’ is not derived from male, but from femella, whereas ‘male’ comes from masle derived from masculus. In addition, ‘history’ is derived from a long series of words that all essentially mean a chronicle of the past, ultimately leading back to the ‘account of an inquiry’ definition from the Greek word historia. It is not actually the masculine-possessive’s story. As it turns out, the western languages were not conceived with patriarchal maliciousness in mind.

Does this mean that feminists are crazy for wanting to change ‘mailman’ to ‘mail carrier’ if the –man part refers to the human being-ness of this mail carrier rather than their gender? Of course not. Language evolves over time. No gay man has ever taken comfort in the fact that they were etymologically called a bundle of sticks. The evolution of ‘man’ from its gender-neutral origins has been murky, and ‘human’ is still used quite uncontroversially, but today it generally means male. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that werman is going to be making a comeback any time soon.

Changing ‘woman’ to ‘womyn’ is still stupid, however, and here’s why: it is not oppressive to refer to a woman as a female human being. Having -man as a suffix to a career could serve to identify its inclination, but wo- on its own is meaningless today, so the –man does not alter its meaning (its meaning being ‘female’, remember). If anything, the word has already undergone a feminist revolution. Can you imagine if we still used the root of ‘wife’ to define our women?

This etymological history is not entirely benign, however, and the damage that was caused had nothing to do with the term ‘woman’, but with ‘man’. It all happened back in the late 13th century when werman evolved into ‘man’. It made males the default human being. When we discuss gender and focus only on women, perhaps it is because men lost theirs back during the founding of the Ottoman Empire. I doubt the two are related, but who knows.

Post-script: All my etymology info has come from here.

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Categories Gender and Sexuality

Responsible For Violence

Sep 5, 2016 //
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I believe the root of violence to be an expression of power, typically exerted as a response to some kind of challenge to it. The domestic abuser beats his wife because he believes himself to be the dominant partner, and if there is a perception of a question to that authority, then a violent response rectifies the imbalance. School shooters are almost exclusively those who feel that their power has been chipped away by the belittlement of others, and excessive violence is their attempt to regain it. A bar fight is a dick-measuring contest between apes, seeing who is the greater alpha male, or, more simply, who is the more powerful. There are of course exceptions, but most of the journals and articles I’ve read regarding violence explain it as an assertion of dominance and control. It’s not even that difficult to project the intentions behind interpersonal violence onto international conflicts, as countries vie for control over resources, subjects, or territory, seeking only to expand their stately power.

The perpetrators of violence, those who feel the greatest need to exert power, are almost all men. There have been several inquiries into the link between violence and masculinity, and one that is easily accessible, succinct, and informative is the documentary Tough Guise which I am obviously suggesting you watch due to my linking of it here. As easy as it is to dismiss violence as solely within the deficiencies of interpersonal relationships between men forcing conformity onto one another, it is critical to realize that social pressures are universally applied.

Ice T, in his infinite wisdom, imparted this gem, “If women didn’t like criminals, there would be no crime.” While charmingly naive, Ice T may well have gleaned some element of truth surrounding the desires of women impacting the nature of masculinity to a certain degree. Remember Elliot Rodgers? He committed an unforgivable act of violence, not due to excessive bullying from his male peers, but from the ostracization he suffered from the hands of women. To the horror of many feminists, message boards lit up in the aftermath saying that the tragedy could have been averted if Rodgers possessed a greater degree of “game.” Progressive conversations raged against this wash of men who sympathized with Rodgers’s rejection as they believed, correctly, that there is no excuse for targeted violence against women. However, the conversation tacitly ignored the reality to which the message boards allude: conforming to the desires of women is significant enough to male needs to a degree that violence is seen as a semi-understandable response to its lack.

It’s pretty easy to understand the muscular definition of male bodies that is often found attractive is a representation of power, but even height, which so many women demand in a partner, is also a sign of physical dominance. Watch any fight on TV, and the man who can tower over his opponent is almost intrinsically seen as the likely winner. Financial success, most commonly seen in the tradition of men paying for the first (and usually subsequent) dates, is not difficult to see as a marker of economic power in a culture driven by the necessity of wealth. Women who wish to feel “safe” with their man are expecting that he possess enough power to provide that security for her, almost as if she needs him to be able to commit violence on her behalf if a situation calls for it. Even confidence is not so benign, and the characteristic women claim to find the most desirable is really the extension of power over one’s self and one’s surrounding environment.

I do not mean to suggest that any degree of power is going to cause a firestorm of violence if left untempered, and I still maintain my Yin Yang approach to desirable human characteristics. For instance, confidence is an easy attribute to defend, but when considered among all the other desirable traits it does not stray from the general trend. If every stipulation of manhood required by both genders, either for romantic interest or peer conformity, necessitates power, then it is of no wonder that detrimental expressions of that power will be unleashed when a man is unable to meet that requirement. Even though violence is a decisively masculine problem, we are all responsible. We cannot point any fingers. Social pressures are indicative of the norms and traditions of a whole society, infused in us, regardless of gender. If we wish to make changes, we must begin with ourselves.

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Categories Gender and Sexuality

Pornography

Sep 2, 2016 //
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Imagine imagining having basic, vanilla sex. Now imagine seeing that basic, vanilla sex performed in front of you, and what the sight of that sex would create in your brain space. It’s pretty much the same mental image. If I look at a dog, it makes me think of a dog. Visual cues simply lead to thoughts that we might normally have on our own anyway if we had the time or inclination. The visuals merely help to keep focus. Broadly denouncing pornography as immoral or oppressive then essentially brands the thoughts of sex as the same. If one considers the health benefits of masturbation, such as a boosted immune system, stress relief, improved sleep, etc., then condemning pornography as the means to which most men masturbate is not only demonizing their sexuality but also creating barriers to their overall well-being (especially given the shame that can develop when confronted with a society’s hostility). That’s it, blog over, right? Wellllllllll……

Many see pornography as objectifying to women. This is a nonsensical statement, and I’ve already explained why. However, I’m going to look at it again. Why is pornography objectifying women, but sport is not objectifying men? Professional athletes create body images impossible to match through normal means with the help of drugs and hormonal supplements, and engage in impossible lifestyles given the permanent damage their bodies endure in the process. These athletes are only ever considered in relation to their sport, save when scandal strikes, in which case news coverage explodes with how this will affect their team’s season. This wouldn’t be a problem if male physical prowess wasn’t overly saturated in all other depictions of masculinity. Oh wait, it is. However, when people discuss the demerits of sport and its potentially unhealthy impact on the psyche of men, it is the zeitgeist of masculinity within sports that is addressed and not sports themselves. Sport in its purest form is the honing of skill and self using the whetstone of competition to achieve extraordinary feats of physical prowess, either for personal fulfillment or for the amazement of others. I’ve always found the Olympics to be the perfect example, as most athletes maintain unflinching respect for their competitors, knowing first-hand the hardships and sacrifices they’ve made on their own path to Olympic glory.

This leads to the logical conclusion that it is the culture that is infused in modern pornography, and not pornography itself, that is culpable for things like teenage boys seeking sex and nudes before they seek intimacy and kissing. Part of this particular problem stems from a lack of role models displaying proper intimacy in other areas of a youth’s life, and the improper teaching of sexual education, but the type of pornography a young boy is going to consume is also, quite predictably, going to lead him to make unhealthy assumptions regarding sexuality given no other determining factors. This is not new, as the media one consumes in any medium, be it explicit or otherwise, informs the worldview of the person consuming it.

So why not create a worldview espoused through pornography that is beneficial to the sexuality of everyone involved? Feminist porn is a revolutionary idea that would exemplify the women in pornography as collaborators in sexuality rather than its conquest. This practice would incorporate not only healthier social attitudes toward sex, but also toward women in general. While I do not agree with everything the linked article suggests (I disagree that being able to import one’s self into the fantasy is detrimental to that fantasy; sexual fantasy typically is an expression of that individual’s sexuality, not a voyeuristic inquiry into the sexuality of others), whereas some objections, such as violence being committed against women within the realm of dominative sexuality without explicit consent and respect, are obvious to anyone with a sense of decency. Regardless of what I think, dialogues surrounding the damage that pornography most definitely inflicts onto the minds and bodies of both men and women should centre on the distinct changes that would need to occur within porn, rather than simply and ignorantly calling for its abolition.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the end of the blog either, as how one consumes porn is now found to be as destructive as the typically misogynistic content of contemporary porn. A Nielsen study cited in The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerlein describes the way the majority of the population reads on the internet. In short, they don’t. Text is typically scanned with one’s eyes glossing over the page in an F shape, with headlines and keywords being the only information that is consumed. The illiteracy of web users leads to the success of listicles, as anything more difficult or complex is simply passed over. Beyond this, websites are viewed in a flow. People click in and out, back and forward, through their browsing instead of finishing a website in a single sitting. For those reading this, how many times have you clicked back into your Facebook page or some other site since you started reading this blog? A normal attention span is non-existent when browsing the web, and the same pattern carries over into porn.

Gary Wilson delivers a Ted Talk wherein he describes this phenomenon as it relates to porn, and describes how it hinders us even further than the degradation of literacy that online browsing delivers on its own. Wilson describes the biological effect of seeing potentially new genetic partners in several different windows and tabs, clicking in and out and masturbating to a flow of pornography rather than a still image or single film, consuming more beautiful women in an hour than our horny ancestors would see in several lifetimes, all in an unending search for novelty. Unending novelty, of course, creates tolerance levels, leading to a dependency on further expansion and exploration in a binging cycle akin to traditional drug addiction. Addiction never ends well for anyone, and erectile problems related to excessive porn use is becoming more and more common. Interestingly, older men who give up pornography recover their libido more quickly than their younger counterparts, and this is almost certainly due to their relatively new access to high speed internet pornography compared to the young who have grown up with it. Again though, this is not due to the intrinsic nature of pornography, but the method through which one consumes it.

Pornography by itself is not a great evil nor a threat to the moral standing of a society that allows it. It benefits the mental and physical wellness of those who consume it as it relates to masturbation, as well as contains the potential for proliferating healthier attitudes toward sex and women as an addition to the feminist revolution rather than its obstacle. That isn’t to say its current incarnation is benign, as content and practice are crucial issues that need to be addressed. Is body-positivity and consent-based analog pornography the utopian ideal to which all pornography should strive to emulate? Who’s to say. This is a conversation that is just beginning, as too often the dialogues of the past have hinged on the equally ignorant poles of the moral binary between of abolition and lascivious infatuation.

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Categories Gender and Sexuality
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