How do you spell woman? Wimmin? Womxn? Join me for a special bonus episode!
This week’s special bonus episode is an investigation of language. How do we spell the word “woman”? A simple question that has led to a long history of letters, re-definitions, hostility, love, and even more questions. We want to hear your voice so please feel free to email us and let us know your thoughts!
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This podcast was created and hosted by ChelseaDee
This podcast was executive produced by ChelseaDee and Neruda Williams.
This episode features the vocal performances by ChelseaDee and Neruda Williams
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Host 0:28
Greetings beautiful people, welcome to a bonus episode of Vanguard of the Viragoes. I'm your hostess with the mostess ChelseaDee, and I'm coming at you with a special episode. And this episode is really special because it gets at the heart of why I made this podcast, what I'm responding to in the world around me that inspired this, and thoughts that I generally have about myself and how I how I move through the world and seeing how to create spaces where folks like myself can feel safe to commune you know, feel safe to come together in community and, and dream on how we want to move forward. And so, the question at at core for this special episode is, how do we spell woman, spelling woman with an "x"? Question mark? You know, this is an exploration of the case for new language, a more expansive spelling, a more expansive definition of womanhood and femininity. So, I want to I want to start you off by taking you through a journey of the word woman, right? It can be spelled many ways, WOMAN, WOMYN, WOMBMAN, WIMMIN, WOMXN. These are all the ways that women has been spelled over the last few decades. And when I first released this podcast, I was spelling woman with an "x". And I'll let you let you in on my thinking behind that. So what was exciting to me with with this podcast and with entering into conversation publicly about femininity and womanhood, I wanted a spelling of the word woman that was going to get at how unique, how specific how nuanced the experience is, of moving through the world, especially a world that celebrates masculinity and manhood and maleness. How do you move through the world with safety? How do you move through the world with a confidence, integrity, dignity? courageousness a sense of rebelliousness? How do you move through world with that sense of expansiveness? If you are also navigating a terrain that is hostile to you, because you are non male? Because you are read as not male? What does that mean? How does that how does that affect us? So I, I call myself a womanist. Right? And so I think to understand where this "x" comes from, you have to you have to know a little bit about me and how I identify. And so I'm a womanist. And this is of the what some would say the Black feminist tradition. I'm an American Black woman. So the lens through which I see the world is through gender, and through race, right? These are the two things these are these are two really critical intersections in my identity, and how I see the world and how the world I believe, sees me. So the use of the "x" is a part of this, this signal of intersection, this signal that there's more to the story here, you know, the "x" makes you do a double take, give give it a second look, is that is that? Is that what I think it says? Is that say woman? I don't really know. And I feel like the modern day experience of womanhood, of femininity, is that it's a double take, like, Am I saying what I think I'm saying? I don't really know. So where is the language for this? anywho back to what I was saying about womanism. I will give you the definition that the writer Alice Walker came up with in the 80s in 1983. Specifically, she gives a definition of womanist. And I think it's really helpful. I think it will be really helpful to frame this conversation. So I'm going to give you it's like it's like got four sections of this definition. So I'm going to give it all to you. Number one,
from womanish opposite of girlish, ie frivolous, irresponsible, and Serious, a black feminist or feminists of color from the black folk expression of mothers to female children, you acting woman ish, ie, like a woman, usually referring to outrageous, audacious, courageous or willful behavior, wanting to know more and in greater depth than is considered, quote unquote good for one interested in grown up doings, acting grown up being grown up interchangeable with another black folk expression, you try to be grown responsible, in charge, serious definition to a woman who loves other women sexually and or non sexually appreciates and prefers women's culture, women's emotional flexibility, values tears as natural counterbalance of laughter and women's strength, sometimes loves individual men sexually and are non sexually committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female, not a separatist, except periodically for health. Traditionally, Universalist. Definition three loves music loves dads loves the moon, who loves the spirit loves love and food and roundness loves struggle, loves the folk capital F loves herself, regardless. definition for womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender. So that is the full, full definition of womanist, of which I identify. So my political and my personal identity, the legacy of such is one of a universal committed to survival, the wholeness of the entire people, the male and the female, the masculine and the feminine. So there's always been in my understanding of femininity and womanhood, this expansiveness of experience, you know that you're coming at things from all kinds of angles, and we're all navigating the threats and the dangers of being non male in a patriarchal society. So, you know, there's more to the story is what that x symbolizes, I also think about it and in when you when you see the X in mathematical equations, signifying mystery potential possibility, you're solving for x, what is this x, there's also the black political tradition of using x, which we saw in the late 50s, into the 60s with I think, predominantly of Malcolm X, and of others, a part of this movement, who were thinking about the x as a the letter X as a signifier of Reclamation, a signifier of self determination, I'm labeling myself, I am not traditionally included in any definition of what it means to be a human being what it means to be, you know, specifically thinking about where this tradition comes from, what it means to be American, you know, I am going to determine this for myself. And, and part of that reclamation is using the letter X. So the x, hence, the X is intended to signal the inclusion of those who are traditionally left out of a definition. So for womanism you know, black folk, people of color were traditionally women of color were traditionally left out of this idea of feminism, this this movement of feminism, the aesthetics of feminism. So womanist was a term coined to get at that breadth of experience. So yes, I'm a womanist proudly love it. This was really great. It gives me gives me a pep in my step. So that was the original reason behind spelling woman with an X. For me. I released these episodes, and and I'm also considering that there is bubbling up to the surface. And this is all very recent, this these are conversations about spelling woman are old. I mean, these are this is not new. But the spelling of woman with an X is is a relatively new term. We kind of see it in the last
decade. I actually don't know I'm making that up. But it's a really, it's a relatively new term. And so there is some contentiousness around the spelling of woman with an x, because there is a history like I mentioned earlier of spelling woman a lot of different ways. So if we look at the 70s, right, there's a wave of feminism that is interested in spelling woman without man, right. And that's another reason why I wanted to spell a woman with an x like How do we, you know, woman is not necessarily derivative of man woman is a is a whole other being it's a whole other vibe, it's a whole other whole other experience, and what spelling what word really gets at this whole other experience? Somebody who, um, I'm learning, though that a part of the contentiousness of using x is that in this history of spelling woman in different ways, there are different reasons behind why different letters were chosen to spell woman. So if you think about WOM, y, in this case, this spelling of woman came about in the 70s. And you're looking at lesbian journalists and writers who were again trying to take man, take take a ma n m e n out of the spelling of woman, so replacing it with a y. And this is also around the same time that WOMBman so woman, right is another type of spelling that's coming about and both of these Spelling's that are that are bubbling up in the 70s
are
beginning to be used, even though it's coming from a place of how do we differentiate ourselves as women from men, right? But it's also coming about at a time where people are trying to figure out what what does it mean to be a woman? Right? What, what are the signifiers? How do we know? Right? So this gender, this this biological, not gender, but this biological essentialism is what starts to show up, right? That you can only be a woman, if you have a womb, you can only be a woman if you're born with certain genitalia. Right? And I want to just make this very clear. Right here right now. If you came here to listen to this podcast to hear some type of support for your belief that trans women are not women, this is not the place for you. Trans women are women, period. When I say women, I mean, I'm including trans women, that is not up for discussion. That's a period on that, right.
So
I just want to be very clear about that. So the biological essentialism of womanhood is what people were starting to get at with it with a particular spelling of women, right? And so, if you're saying you can only be a woman, if you have a womb, what does that mean for people who've had a hysterectomy? You know, what, what does that mean? For people who, for whatever reason or another don't have those particular parts? Can you really make the argument that they're not women? No, you can't? I'm just gonna answer that for you. So there is a legacy of, of the different letters that are used to spell women as a way to exclude trans women. Right? So not cool, don't want to do that don't want to replicate that harm in in this new spelling of woman, right? And then also, at the same time what has become popular in this moment is to use x to represent a non binary understanding of gender and and and womanhood, right. So if you're, what I'm learning is that if you're using the X to signal all women, including trans women, right, or in a sort of women plus way that this actually makes people feel singled out and excluded it spelling woman with an x, if you're meaning to include trans women specifically, is actually not a trans inclusive spelling of it. Right? So this is this is this is where the complexity comes in. Because if you want to ascribe that if you want to spell a woman with an X, and you're describing yourself from what I'm reading, and I'm reading articles written by you know, Cassie Barradas us from girlboss.com, "why women spell with an X isn't exactly the inclusive term you think it is". I'm also looking at another article from insider.com written by Canella Lopez, "stop using the phrase woman spelt with an x to be trans inclusive, it can be offensive to trans women and non binary people". So what I'm understanding is that if you're using if you're spelling woman with an x as a kind of catch-all term for like, women and non binary folk and trans women, you know, you're using this X as a way to signal that it's seen as a exclusionary and quite possibly lazy catch-all term in the way that folks have beef with the the the concept of spelling the acronym B.I.P.O.C. Right, black Indigenous, people of color, or "people of color", some people have issues with that, because it's not specific enough. Latinx, right, when you're trying to have a gender neutral spelling of Latino, Latina, you know, some people don't like it, because it's not specific enough, right? And I get that, because how, how do we get at the specificity of the experience of being non male in a patriarchal society, and honor all the nuances of how that shows up? What is the spelling that is going to most honor all of these experiences, and maybe there isn't a term that gets at everything? You know, I just brought up B.I.P.O.C. And there's actually in the last few days, I've learned that there's another acronym that people are starting to use, because it's a little more, I guess, descriptive or specific. But you know, people are saying B.I.P.O.C. people are saying "people of color", really, I think we're getting at non white. And what does that mean? I mean, there's so many threads, there's so many layers of of an experience, especially if you're living in a predominantly white culture. You know, how are you moving through the world with safety, with dignity, with confidence? It's the same. It's not the same conversation, but it's a conversation that lives in in the same community in the same neighborhood. Right? How do we get at the specificity of experience, and yet the nuance of it. And the reason why I'm so
it's such a, it's such a deep, rich conversation, the spelt, the very spelling of woman, I think is so it's really important to have these conversations right now. Because we need new ways, new words, new language, to articulate all that we are, we need a non traditional spelling for a non traditional era with non traditional folk. And there is real harm I see in the world, their real life consequences in danger of not having really meaningful conversations around how we're defining masculinity and femininity in the last month in the US, and I'm recording this March 30 2021. In the last month, there have been two mass shootings. There have also been a slew of states passing legislation to ban trans student athletes from competing in sports. I think that we have to have a real conversation about masculinity, femininity, womanhood, manhood, because there is a certain toxicity and danger that comes from not having explicit conversations about this, and from not inviting as many voices into the room to make this decision together. Collectively. How What do we call ourselves, what spelling is going to be most respectful is going to reduce harm the most and also get at the expansive, mysterious intersectional terrain that we live in. You know, the X was for me representing the complexity of the experience of being not male. So what what spelling Do you think we should use? Someone recently suggested to me WOMUN. woman in the plural of that would be WOMUIN.
Women?
I mean, weigh in on this weigh in on this? What What language do you on traditional woman untraditional fam, what what language do you need to hear or see, in order to know this place is for you? This unique space is safe for you to commune here. And for now, depending on when you listen to this episode, on the website and in other various places. I'm spelling woman, the traditional way w o m a n. And this is really for the sake of clarity. But I'm really hungry for new language. I'm hungry for new spellings. I'm hungry to redefine what femininity and womanhood looks like and is capable of in 2021 and beyond. So is it woman, w o m u n, wimmin or something else? weigh in on this? This is we were I'd love for us to build this together. You can email me at vanguardoftheviragoes@gmail.com You can join the Facebook group and get in on some, some conversation, some some some community dialogue. You can visit the website, sign up for updates. I think we can define this for ourselves for our experience as non male in this world, because honestly, y'all if there's one thing I've learned from making this podcast, it's that we, you and I make history every day we make it every day. So why not start with what we call ourselves how we spell that? Why not dig into the nuances of untraditional femininity, have a new badass, Just 2021 womanhood, what does that look like? Let's build it. Let's build it. Let's build it. So, this is me signing out and letting you know, we are all on the vanguard of a changing time. So be the difference. lead with love.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai