Feminists Are Offending Themselves Over The Word "Womxn"
Feminists Are Offending Themselves Over The Word "Womxn." Various groups have decided that the word is more inclusive and should be adopted yet many people within Feminism feel that 'woman' is sufficient to include all women anyway and its resulting in an untenable backlash. H&M was criticized and a museum apologized over using the word but now people are claiming it isn't offensive so what do you do? If you try to support social justice eventually you'll be criticized for being problematic and "womxn" shows us that no matter what you do there is no appeasing the social justice crowd because there are no rules. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHYVW7KIN8o&t=0s&list=PLxQaod7tWvYLKv6WBA5k9rMpGK0DF0b8v&index=2
Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A couple days ago, a story was published about two student groups in London who have decided to use the word Womixn instead of the word women.
Basically, it's the word woman, but instead of an A, you replace it with an X, so it's W-O-M-X-N.
They say they're doing this because the word Womixn is inclusive of trans women and women of color.
However, Many other women just a few weeks ago said this word was exclusive and it was sexist and racist.
And they actually threatened to boycott H&M for using the word.
If the word is both simultaneously considered offensive and not offensive, when and how do you use it?
The reality is there are no rules.
And I think this is a good example of the left being offended and outraged on purpose for no reason than to target people they don't like when they feel like they should target them.
And there are a few other stories I want to look at today that kind of lend itself to the story, to the idea that people on the left are being offended on purpose.
And this is not to say that people on the right don't get offended on purpose, too.
We just have many more examples, apparently, on the left of situations where no matter what you do, you will infringe on someone's rights for some reason, and you will be a bigot.
But before we get started with those stories, please go to patreon.com forward slash timcast To help support my work.
Patrons are the backbone of the content I create, so if you like these videos, then go to patreon.com forward slash Timcast and become a patron today.
First, from the evening standard, London student groups at Goldsmiths and King's College switch from using women to Wimixin in communications.
King's College London's Wimixin and Physics Society is one organization using the term in its moniker, while Goldsmiths Students' Union has also adopted the new spelling when referring to sports teams.
The latter, in a Facebook post promoting sports at the institution on November 20th, said, Now I'm saying the word Wimixin because there isn't really a way to pronounce this word.
Some people have said it's Waminks, but that doesn't make sense based on how it's spelled, so I'm just going to try and say it phonetically to the best of my ability, which would be Wimixin.
A spokeswoman This word was recently controversial, being called racist and sexist with people threatening to boycott H&M.
However, let's take a look at one organization's explanation of why Wemixin needs to exist.
This is from the University of North Carolina.
Wemixin of Worth.
Defining Wemixin of Color.
Why Wemixin?
Wimixin of Worth spells Wimixin with an X both to acknowledge the history of exclusion in many second-wave feminist organizations and to signal its welcome to an all-woman identified individuals, regardless of assigned sex at birth.
During the 1970s, some women's organizations sought to create a linguistic marker of women's independence from men by changing the spelling to women with a Y.
They insisted, however, upon a biologically essentialist understanding of femininity, and refused to acknowledge trans women as real women.
The X in Wimixin reflects the Women of Worth's recognition that gender identity is non-binary and independent of assigned sex at birth.
But back in October, we saw this story.
Why people are calling women Wimixin, and why the word is causing outrage.
The term used by campaign group Her Stories and museum Welcome Collective has been slammed as ridiculous by feminists and racist by women of color.
But we just read an explanation from Womxn of color saying it was inclusive to women of color.
Why are other women of color saying it's racist?
Perhaps it's because individual people have individual ideas and many of these ideologies aren't monolithic.
They're different.
Thus, as every group tries to claim what they're saying is or isn't offensive, they end up just offending everybody.
What that means for us?
No matter what you do, you'll be offensive.
No matter which word you say, you will be offensive.
But let's look at their exact criticism and what happened.
In an email to supporters and journalists, Her Stories announced its first Wemixin art auction to support London's refugee and migrant Wemixin.
The term was immediately slammed as ridiculous by feminists and racist by women of color, and some shoppers claimed they were boycotting H&M for allowing the bizarre term to be used.
The word has been called racist.
Because it has been defined as including trans women and women of color on various websites, including Urban Dictionary.
Objectors argue trans women and women of color do not need a new word, as women does not only refer to white cis women.
One social media user tweeted to H&M's official account.
Do you really agree with this nonsense?
said another.
They show one woman who tweeted.
On the event page, they link to this definition of the word Wemixin.
Since when has the word women not included women of color?
Are they suggesting that only white women are women?
In an effort to not be racist, they're racist because by trying to create a word that is inclusive of all women, they have essentially said they need a different word to refer to women of color, thus stating that women of color apparently aren't women.
Basically, no matter what you do, you're being racist.
But I think the reality here is There's a couple things. For one, no matter what you do,
you will piss someone off when they're looking to be pissed off.
You can't do anything about it. The best thing you can do is ignore it and refuse to apologize.
Because apologies get you nothing. You give an inch, they take a mile.
But it is really about people just being offended.
They're offended at everything.
We recently learned that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was offensive, that Lord of the Rings is racist, even though both of these stories are trying to actually be inclusive.
These are more examples of trying to be inclusive actually becoming exclusive, because up is down, left is right, and no matter what you do, you cannot please the ideological mob who doesn't play by any rules.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
It's supposed to be a story about how everyone has value.
It's a classic story that taught us the great lesson that even though Rudolph looked different, what he did was extremely valuable.
But we have this story from Huffington Post.
Now this is a comedy story, and they're only being critical In sort of, in jest, right?
The story's titled, Viewers Notice Some Very Disturbing Details in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Now, I wouldn't say this is a direct criticism of Huffington Post, but they do like to do these stories where they grab random offended people and then push them to the forefront.
One example is, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer teaching kids since 1964 that your peers will only accept your differences if you can provide them with some kind of service.
Someone else tweeted, Deviation from the norm will be punished unless it's exploitable.
I get it.
These are mostly jokes.
I don't think we should be outraged at this because people are kind of poking fun at what Rudolph actually is.
But it is kind of funny that people are criticizing it when the intent was to show that even if you were different, you were valuable in some way.
It was meant to be inclusive and has such become exclusive and there's actually an even worse example.
And I've got to talk about it because I didn't talk about it when the story came out, but apparently Lord of the Rings is also being called racist even though the author of Lord of the Rings opposed the Nazis to an extreme degree and was very anti-racist.
From the National Review, Lord of the Rings slammed for perpetuating racism through depiction of orcs.
On a recent episode of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast, sci-fi author Andrew Duncan argued the depiction of orcs in Lord of the Rings is racist and will have dire consequences for society.
It's hard to miss the repeated notion in Tolkien that some races are just worse than others.
Or that some peoples are just worse than others, Duncan said.
And this to me, in the long term, if you embrace this too much, it has dire consequences for yourself and for society.
The article says, I think it's important to point out that orcs are A. not people and B. not real, so starting some sort of social justice movement over their treatment is probably the biggest, most idiotic waste of time that I've ever seen.
And this is coming from an adult woman who spends time playing a game called Pet Shop on her phone.
Second of all, the idea that Lord of the Rings daring to have an army of villains is going to have dire consequences for society is absolutely bananas.
I'm not much of a betting gal, but I bet everything I own that not even a single person that has ever seen or read the Lord of the Rings has become racist as a result.
Nobody is honestly sitting there thinking, man, all those orcs were bad.
I guess that must mean that X race is bad.
I'm a racist now.
I honestly refuse to believe that this would describe even a single person, let alone so many people, that our whole society is going to suffer because of it.
But here's the point about Lord of the Rings.
First of all, let me just say to all the huge fans of Lord of the Rings and Tolkien, I am not an expert.
I do not know everything about the series and the lore, but my general understanding from watching the movies...
Okay, from just watching the movies, is that orcs are actually elves.
They were elves that underwent a transformation and became evil.
And the idea, as my understanding of what the idea was, from Tolkien is that even if you are of the same race, you can still be a bad person.
It was actually a message against racism.
And thus, we can see more instances of people who are trying to present this good message, that you shouldn't judge people based on what they look like, you should base on who they are and what they become.
It in turn becomes something deeply offensive.
I think the reality here is that those who are offended by Lord of the Rings, they're just trying to be offended.
People are trying to be outraged.
They're trying to generate outrage.
One of the reasons, in my opinion, is that, well, outrage is power.
You can assert your moral superiority over someone else and thus try to make some kind of gain.
You can get people deplatformed.
Do people really care about any of these things?
Is Wimmickson really offensive?
Honestly, I really don't think it is.
I think the goal is to assert power and to try and dominate others by claiming moral superiority.
But there are real consequences for this constant outrage.
The idea that everyone's going to be offended by everything ultimately starts oppressing people.
It's an interesting paradox.
That the more we try to protect various groups, we actually start becoming oppressive.
This should be obvious to many people.
We have this story from The Independent.
London Pride anti-trans activists disrupt parade by lying down in the street to protest lesbian erasure.
A big controversy happened when lesbians were being told that if they prefer women, they should prefer trans women
because trans women are women.
And this lends itself back to the Wimmickson debate, and why Wimmickson is offensive.
Because trans women are women to these activists, and they don't need their own word.
And if trans women are women, and lesbians are attracted to women, then lesbians should be attracted to people who are biologically male, and that's just not how it actually works.
What ends up happening is the activists who are actually defending their right to choose who they love are being called transphobic.
They're being called bigots.
Another example of a group that once fought for civil rights, fought for their right to be accepted, now being demonized.
It would seem that no matter what you do, you are offensive, you will offend somebody, and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
And this is why my final advice to anybody would be, if someone comes out and insults you, and says terrible things about you that you're a bigot, that you're hateful, just ignore it.
Never apologize.
Because what happens when H&M and these organizations used Wimxin, They apologized for the word for offending people, and now Wimmickson is being used by student groups and no one cares anymore.
Why is it that when Vice News embeds with white nationalists for several days, they win an award and they are praised by the left and the far left, but NPR interviewed one person on a radio program and they were demonized?
The point is, there are no rules.
People choose to be offended to wield their moral superiority against other people to gain power, and that's it.
Let me know what you think in the comments below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
The idea I'm trying to get across, I suppose, is that there is no winning.
You cannot win.
You cannot apologize.
Nothing you do will be satisfactory because everything is considered wrong.
It just depends on whether or not the tide wants to turn against you.
If the swarm decides they don't like you, they will accuse you of doing everything wrong, because no matter what you do, it can be wrong if they choose.
So again, comment below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
You can follow me on Twitter at TimCast.
Stay tuned.
New videos every day at 4 p.m.
And I'll have more videos up on my second channel, youtube.com slash TimCastNews, starting at 6 p.m.
