I am a little tired of this! Just call us human beings!!
I think that is where all words-male, female, neuter come from!
thanks
bertina miller
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sun Mar 19 10:34:49 MST 1995
Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 09:39:24 -0800 (PST)
From: Faith Freewoman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Jayne S Docherty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Womyn/women
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I, too, found the Native Tongue books fascinating. A friend loaned them
to me a couple of years ago. And yet, and I can't remember why, I found
something important missing in them, too ... perhaps I was never able to
define what it was.
I'm not meaning to deny the power of language; in a way I was being flip
to make a point. In my life I've found that my conviction, my belief, my
viewpoint have more to do with what happens in my life, with how other
people treat me, than anything else.
There's tremendous power in my conviction that the word men is derived
from the word women and, while I'll agree that it undoubtedly was NOT
unintentional that the opposite belief became "pc", I choose to let that
aspect of the issue take care of itself in the past.
I'm trying to talk about something essentialy mysterious in practical
terms, and it's difficult, but perhaps you can get a sense of it.
Because of my relatively privileged background, it's easier for me to
gain the conviction that my view of what's so is, actually, reality; but
it's not impossible for anyone else, no matter what their life experience.
As a friend of mine said recently, we make it all up anyway (by that I
mean that our lives are created by our expectations; our expecations
create responses from us and the others around us as which seriously --
and perhaps completely -- affect the quality, tone and direction of our
lives); anyway, we make it all up anyway, so why not make it a good
story?
I am not denying the misery and pain which women and children experience,
here and now; I've experienced my share of it.
But also, here and now, I have chosen to expect my life to be more to my
liking, to expect to be treated with respect and with reverence for the
piece of woman that I am, to expect that the things which I do to bring
those experiences to others will be highly effective, and to expect that
the decades of work, worry, arguing, dreaming and creating which women
have done for each other and for future generations are -- right now
--bearing ripe, beautiful fruit to feed the future. And this is my
experience.
And I believe that my inclination to cheerfully point out that "men" is
derived from "women", just like men are derived from women, will
contribute a great deal to that future, along with Jayne's thoughtful and
incisive revelations, and Joy's flaming defense of her right to be different,
and Kyle (sorry ... did I get your name right?) and amanda's staunch
commitment to rational, non-mystical approaches to reality, along with
the other powerful and tender and intimate things which other women (and
men) have willingly contributed to this discussion.
Yes, language is powerful; however, our beliefs and expectations are so much
more powerful than language that it's like comparing a firecracker with
an atom bomb.
Faith Freewoman
