The Inherently Sexist Word

19:14 æt 14.6.11

mankind [man-kahynd]
–noun
1. the human race; human beings collectively without reference to sex; humankind.

- dictionary.com

Seems pretty straightforward, right? And I'm sure when most people use this word that's exactly what they're meaning as well. Or so I thought until I came across this article here.

Now I'll go right ahead and say it, I use 'man' to refer to people regardless of gender. Because it seems like the least sexist thing to do, to be sincere. To my girlfriend I'll often go 'man, you gotta check this out', and for another word I'm sure we all default to 'hey guys' even when there're girls in the bunch, or it's all females being addressed even. The word 'guy' itself can be both gender neutral as it is there, or gender-specific for males if you point out 'that guy over there'. It depends on the context, and I'm sure this poster doesn't find 'guy' to be sexist, to use it as a comparative.

Of course my views on these words in theory, especially with 'man', aren't shared by everyone, but I'll stick with 'man' having the capacity to be as gender-neutral as 'guy' is. The instances in such being 'mankind' especially, and 'evolution of man' as pointed out in the article, as well as simply 'man' to describe humanity. Because that's how they're used in context.

Luckily the author was keen into the etymological side of things, however, and admitted to the word at one point being universally gender-neutral in this language. And all seemed settled at that point until I delved into the comments and found this little nugget of joy...

"...

This is a great post.

I believe the etymology IS inherently sexist. And I reckon that’s the whole point.

When men were making up the word mankind, they were talking about men. Otherwise they’d use the word humankind. You know, human – the word that means everybody.

There are a whole bunch of things which women were excluded from. Now we are being told that actually, we were included all along, it’s the language that was at fault.

I call bullshit.

They tell us that ‘all men are created equal’ means women too; but if you look at the history and context of the phrase you’d have to be looking through your white male privilege to NOT see that statement as inherently sexist. They used the term ‘man’ rather than ‘human’ for a reason, not because there was no alternative.

The same rules apply in etymology – history and context.

When there is an inclusive option, like human, using a word or phrase that excludes half of humanity, like man, is sexist.

It’s piece of sexism that’s not hard to avoid if you actually want to avoid it – and has been avoidable all along."

AHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAH *snort* Ahahaha. Sorry for being so frank with that but this post really got me itching for some good ol' fashion ignorance banishing. Let's start from the top:

"I believe the etymology IS inherently sexist. And I reckon that’s the whole point. "

So you're saying that etymology, which is the the study of the development and history of words, is inherently against women... and that's the entire point of it with this word? I really shouldn't have to explain how absurd that is, but it makes about as much sense as saying that astromony is sexist because it involves studying planets which were named after male gods.

"When men were making up the word mankind, they were talking about men. Otherwise they’d use the word humankind. You know, human – the word that means everybody.

There are a whole bunch of things which women were excluded from. Now we are being told that actually, we were included all along, it’s the language that was at fault."

When men made up that word, what, did I read that right? I can't help but imagine a roundtable of misogynist masterminds from 1500 years ago planning the perfectly sexist word just to make some women feel excluded hundreds of years in the future... For one, it's not as though just some men thunk up this word and decided to start using it one day. Let me explain.

The word mankind comes from the Old English word mancynn, which is a formation of mann and cynn. Mann is a very old word, originating from Proto-Germanic (and ultimately Proto-Indo-European, which gave us European languages today) which is the root of all Germanic languages today (English, German, Swedish, Icelandic, etc.), and has cognates in all said languages (man, Mann, man, maður - respectively).

And as for the definition of mann? It means human beings, not gender-specific at all, and was used in that way for thousands of years. In fact in all the ancestors of the given languages it's meant exactly that, and especially in Icelandic to this day where this wouldn't be an issue. In Old English to be gender-specific for a male you'd have to go more along the lines of wer, or even wæpned, pretty close to wæpen actually (weapon and/or penis). And don't worry there was wæpnedcynn and wercynn too. (which incidently also translates to 'humankind')

But as for women? Well I can agree this one's a bit dodgy, because a women in particular would be a wifmann, which means wife+man. And get this, it's from this word that the word WOMAN originates from! Talk about the irony, am I right? If anything, I'd say THAT'S the sexist word for implying wifehood with merely being female.

But back to the word at hand, the second part, cynn, coming to be kin in Modern English, means family or a people and kind. Sounds pretty inclusive then, eh? So the origin of mankind can actually be traced back to meaning human beings as one collective family. *wipes single tear* It's beautiful, man.

Oh and do your homework next time too. The word human, which you said that this mysterious unknown group of men should have used instead of mankind, actually comes from Latin, which means it didn't even arrive in the form of any descendant-word to the English masses before the Norman conquest of 1066, coming later into Middle English in the form of humain from Middle French. And the Latin ancestor of 'human' is humanus, meaning 'of man / people', so you could say it's just the same as mann then. Even better that the root of humanus, being homo, came to mean almost exclusively males in nearly all derived languages. (Spanish: hombre French: homme, to name a few)

Meanwhile the Old English epic poem Beowulf, dated somewhere between the 8th and 11th century, used the word mancynn FOUR times in its text, long before human even became an option. You can check that out here.

"I call bullshit."

Sorta speaks for itself, don't it?

"They tell us that ‘all men are created equal’ means women too; but if you look at the history and context of the phrase you’d have to be looking through your white male privilege to NOT see that statement as inherently sexist. They used the term ‘man’ rather than ‘human’ for a reason, not because there was no alternative."

Okay, you're just embarrassing yourself by this point, even moreso than before. I've already explained how 'man' can be seen as just as gender-neutral as guy is, which isn't considered at all to be a sexist word as far as I know. I've also explained how looking through the history and context of it is EXACTLY the reason why it ISN'T sexist, you ignorant goose. And yes, "they" used man because it meant everyone. It didn't develop into that just to exclude women. Human wasn't even an option as I've put. And oh wow, then you bring the colour of my skin and my lack of a second X chromosome into it, as if that plays a role in my capacity to analyze? That's not only sexist and mindlessly male-hating, but now racist too. How can you sink any lower, dude.

"The same rules apply in etymology – history and context.
When there is an inclusive option, like human, using a word or phrase that excludes half of humanity, like man, is sexist."

I... I don't even understand what you're trying to say here in the first bit. Maybe it's that you've lowered my IQ by a few points by now or simply that you don't make any sense in your arguments. How do the 'same rules' apply to the study of the history of words?!? What rules are these? That it's inherently sexist again?!? Is studying history inherently sexist because out of completely unintentional circumstance that history looks like 'HIS story'? Which has no relation anyway since history actually comes from Ancient Greek ἱστορία (historia). And yes, it's context, anyone with half a brain can figure out that sometimes man means 'male' and other times refers to everyone, just the same as context dictates what 'guys' means. So how about you grow up, see words for what they really are instead of what they just look like, and stop staying shit without even knowing shit about what you're saying.

"It’s piece of sexism that’s not hard to avoid if you actually want to avoid it – and has been avoidable all along."

I feel exactly the same way about you, but I'm glad I found this so I can tell you exactly why you're so wrong. So let's set things straight, because according to your logic:

Every time you say 'guy', YOU are a SEXIST for labeling females as males, regardless of context.

Every time that you say 'woman', YOU are a SEXIST for implying wifehood with an "inherently" sexist word.

And for every time you go out of your way NOT to be sexist, and yet being more sexist and idiotic than what you're trying to prevent, I'll say 'mankind' twice as much, the way it was meant to said, all according to context, all without offending virtually anybody except for you.

Seems pretty straightforward I'd say.

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