Herstory

2011-03-23

I read a book recently (or maybe it was the internet; I don't remember) where the author talked about how history has been male dominated and asked the question, "what happened to herstory?" Well, if you want to play that game...

I used a short regex to find all the words in my computer's dictionary file which started with "his", "man", and "male". I chose a few to systematically replace with "her", "woman", and "female", with slight hand-tuned adjustments for spelling. Here are some particularly funny ones (with commentary).

NOTE: Before you yell at me to say that not all feminists do things as pointless as wordplay, I know. I'm using the word "feminist" (and related terms) below to refer to those who do play these games.

• femalefactor - female criminals; also, the critical element behind every successful man
• femalevolent -  things like the silent treatment; also, witches
• herpanic - what Spanish women would do if they found out about this change
• herred - past tense of the sound female snakes make
• womanager - your female boss
• womanatee - another name for baby tees
• womandrake - a shapely plant
• womaneuver - the special way females handle vehicles
• womangled - what every women's hair is when they wake up
• womanhole - *ahem*
• womania - what Freud and folk psychology called "hysteria" (hersteria?)
• womanifold - laundry; not to be confused with "womanifolds"
• womanipulate - actually, this is the etymology of the word "manipulate"
• womanservant - subject of a lot of male fantasy
• womanslaughter - it seems like the unmodified version fits the feminist movement better

We can, of course, go further. See if you can identify the original word for these:

• abdowomen - the medical name for a pregnant belly
• accompaniwoment - another word for escort
• antidisestablishwomentarianism - the longest word in the English language
• Archeredes - a virtually-unknown female ancient Greek mathematician
• ewomancipation - the process of women obtaining political rights and equality under the law
• hashersh - why feminism feels good
• homomorphersm - another word for lesbianism
• husbgyny - the domestication of women
• hywoman - a membrane around the penis which breaks on first sexual intercourse
• multidiwomensional - the idea that women cannot be rated on a single scale
• portwomanteau - a famous species of wine grape
• rowomantics - the behaviors of the female crew team
• serapher - another word for angel
• whersical - this list
• womenstruate - actually, I have no clue what this means

I'll all for feminism, but really: there are more important things to talk about than sewomantics. Also, study etymology.

PS. Also see the ad fenimam logical fallacy.