[net.nlang] fe, wo and English

tugs (05/03/83)

The comment on fe-male and wo-man arises some interesting points about
our language. As anyone will see if they think about it (saumya debray
take note), suggesting that a comment which is clearly concerned with
the *etymology* of these words has nothing whatsoever to do with whether
the first two letters of either constitute a prefix in the English language.
No, felines aren't a subclass of lines. Whoopee! Wombats aren't a subclass
of mbats either. The point is where the word came from.
The Concise OED gives as the root of female the Latin "femella", derived
from "femina" (note that this doesn't imply that Ella is a diminutive of
the name Ina...), and says "male" (from the Latin "masculus") was assimilated
into it. Woman, on the other hand, comes from the Old English wifmon,
literally 'woman-man'.
The two are examples of different ways sexism insinuates itself into English.
In the case of woman, the etymology is clearly one where "woman" started
out as a special case or modification of "man". "Female", on the other hand
began as a perfectly independent word having no relation to "male". However,
the similarity of the two was sufficient for an evolution wherein "female"
took on the *appearance* of a special case of "man". I think the fact that
such an evolution could take place is no less a sign of sexism than the
more direct origin of woman.
It's interesting to note that the implication of the etymology of "woman"
is not only that it is a special case of "man", but that "man" must therefore
be the correct *general* term for persons of either sex, as well as being
an unfortunate choice for the specification of persons with one X and one Y
chromosome. Remember, I'm saying that 
that's the IMPLICATION of the etymology; I am in no way trying to support
or refute any beliefs about the correct meaning of the words involved.
One last thing: it seems possible that if this were carried on, we'd find
that the English language would pretty well have to be scrapped to remove
all implications of sexism. Wouldn't it be easier to work towards a world
which had eliminated sexism, one where no one gave a shit about what word
was derived from what, or how many interpretations one could saddle on
another word, because, when it gets right down to it, it's a lot of
irrelevant squiggles and noises.
	Or, at least, I think it would be...

  steve hull
  decvax!utzoo!utcsrgv!tugs