Womyn

Womyn is one of several alternative political spellings of the English word women, used by some feminists.[1] There are other spellings, including womban (a reference to the womb or uterus) or womon (singular), and wombyn or wimmin (plural). Some writers who use such alternative spellings, avoiding the suffix "-man" or "-men", see them as an expression of female independence and a repudiation of traditions that define women by reference to a male norm.[2] Recently, the term womxn has been used by intersectional feminists to indicate the same ideas while foregrounding or more explicitly including transgender women, non-binary women, intersex women, queer women, and women of color.[3][4]

Historically, but unrelatedly, "womyn" and other spelling variants were associated with regional dialects (e.g. Scottish English) and eye dialect (e.g. African American Vernacular English).[citation needed]

  1. ^ D. Hatton. "Womyn and the 'L': A Study of the Relationship between Communication Apprehension, Gender, and Bulletin Boards" (abstract), Education Resources Information Center, 1995.
  2. ^ Neeru Tandon (2008). Feminism: A Paradigm Shift
  3. ^ Kerr, Breena (2019-03-14). "What Do Womxn Want?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-06-20.
  4. ^ J. M. J. Marvuso et al, "Overcoming Essentialism in Community Psychology", in Floretta Boonzaier, Taryn van Niekerk (eds.), Decolonial Feminist Community Psychology (2019, Springer, ISBN 9783030200015), page 12