Sexist Language

My impression of the overall philosophy of my microeconomics class is still up in the air. My opinion of the overall philosophy of my argument-based research class however, is firmly in place.

Mr. English 112 proudly and loudly declared on the first day of class that he didn't believe in grades,  the attendance policy, or Capitalism. We subsequently found out about his lack of belief in power relationships, red ink (naturally too reminiscent of power relationships) or absolute truth.

Well then!

It was definitely a good waker-upper for my sleepy eyed self at 8 AM, I will give him that much. I don't know why I was surprised though, since the Communist Manifesto was listed as required reading in the catalog.

Now this is English 112. Argument-based research. Not supposed to be too philosophical, just your basic level 1 course. Not today however! When everyone's a brainwashed Capitalist, you can't expect Professor Red Ink to waste time teaching basic paper-writing skills. There are more important things going on, such as drugs, man! and sexist language!

Ah sexist language. Second day of class, we walk in. I'm terrified because I haven't read the text (Amazon's fault, not mine. Still waiting on the package!) so I sit down in the front row, expecting to be called on by Professor R.I.  And then I get a 75 minute lecture on the dangers of sexist language.

Now I thought when people spelled women with a 'y', (womyn) they were just trying to be all medieval, like when you say 'thee' instead of 'you'. Kind of annoying of course, but very quaint and adorable.  Unfortunately, I was wrong.  You see, when you replace the 'e' in 'women' with a 'y', you rid yourself of that pesky word 'men'.

So that's what I learned on Tuesday. That any word that references or sounds like it might have any connection to the word 'man' or 'men' is a naughty, naughty word. This coming from the guy who explicitly told us we could say the d-word or H-E- double hockey sticks in class.

More on this tomorrow, I have a quiz and a three page paper due tomorrow and it is already past 11.