Reclaiming Lesbian Pride

[Jess]

Originally Posted by citybutch

*sigh*

I am going to post this one more time and then I give up... LOL... Been making the same point for oh so many years and it just gets lost...

Anyhoo:

"Woman
From the Old English "Wyfmon," meaning, "wife.""

http://www.westegg.com/etymology/

I dunno ... the roots of words matter to me... It's why in so many ways I love to reclaim the words like Crone... which they believe comes from early dutch for "old ewe"... To Crone means to "pick out and reject the old ewes from a flock" according to the OED. Subsequently applied in a derogatory sense to old females (and in the patriarchal way.. old women). To ME this is a reclaimable word.... or Hag (oh, Hag is MARVELOUS!), "1....an evil spirit, demon, or infernal being in female form; applied in early use to the Furies, Harpies, etc.... 2.... a witch.." OED. There are so many entries on Hag!

My friend Mary was so into reclaiming these words... and made magic out of them. They came alive with her....

While I totally understand your disdain for the origins of the word "woman", I still can not find the OED current definition of "woman", so I do not understand why it is so offensive today.

Much of the discord in this thread has been about the "traditional" definition of "lesbian". I would assert then, that perhaps we should also toss out female, because it is offensive to me to be just a being that produces eggs.


ETA: I just saw that you had responded to my question. Thank you. I am growing weary of this conversation. It will just continue to go in circles. It is not binary.