WOMEN AS PART OF MAN

 

WOMEN AS PART OF MAN

 

I don’t think of myself as a man or as part of “man,” nor would I refer to another woman as “he” or “him.”

 

“Well,” you might ask, “What brought this on?”

 

The June 2007 issue of the National Geographic magazine, like many of its earlier issues, has a feature called “Family of Man.”  Well, that is non-inclusive language.  Actually, I find that kind of language jarring.  I thought it went out decades ago, and certainly, it has no place in the 21^st century.

 

 

“Family of Man”?!?!  Wouldn’t it be better to say “Our Human Family”?  How about “The World of People”?  Or “Faces of Humanity” or “Humankind”?  Or “Our Extended Family”?

 

Do you remember when it was grammatically correct to say, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion”?  You’d say “his” whenever “everyone” could be either female or male.  That was the standard English I was taught in grade school.  Now we use the gender-neutral “they,” them” and “their,” which are plural pronouns, instead of “he,” “him,” and “his,” when the singular person in question could be either female or male, just because now it seems so awkward to refer to women as men.  Nowadays you don’t skip a beat when you read, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.” 

 

But you probably noticed that I wrote, “female or male” and not the reverse.  Why do we always say “male and female,” “men and women,” “boys and girls,” “brother and sister,” “his and hers,” “husband and wife,” “man and wife,” and “Mr. and Mrs.,” and not the reverse?  Language says a lot about our culture.  But then there are exceptions to this pattern:  “Mom and Dad,” “ladies and gentlemen,” and “bride and groom.”   

 

In the June National Geographic, the “Family of Man” shows two lovely brides dressed in their traditional and very colorful bridal costumes:  Sisina of Kenya, age 24, and Simran of India, age 25.  The subtitle is a titillating “Brides Unveiled.”  The article compares these two brides, their attire, their gifts, wedding customs, etc.  (Apparently, it’s not online.)  The title heading, “Family of Man,” is just so very glaringly incongruous with the photos of the lovely brides.  As far as I know, these brides are not “men” (heh, heh).

 

Women are not men, but are women part of “man”?  Technically, yes.  The dictionary has a definition of the word “man” as “the human race.”  But just because a word is in the dictionary doesn’t mean you have to use that word or use that particular meaning.  I don’t use every word in the dictionary on my Space (hmmm).  I try to not misuse words.  By the way, some words or some meanings of words are archaic and are rarely, if ever used anymore.

 

When I was young, the “Creed” (profession of faith) in our Church read in part, “For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven . . . .”  Every Sunday, millions of women would stand in pews in their churches across the US and recite, “for us men.”  I don’t know if that wording has been modernized yet.  In retrospect, I can’t think of any compelling reason why a woman should call herself a man.  I haven’t taken a survey, but I’m guessing that many, if not all Christian churches today have prayers and creeds that are gender-inclusive; at least those churches that are more progressive.  And of course, there are now translations of the Bible that are gender-inclusive. 

 

Language reflects how we think about ourselves, and the use of archaic and inappropriate language can keep us imprisoned in old ways of thinking; that is, thinking that women are a subset of men, subject to men, or worse, inferior to men.  If the entire human race is “Man,” then what are women?  Just second-class citizens?  Just “seen but not heard”?  Just something other-than?  Just incidentals?  Just immaterial, unimportant, and irrelevant?  Just an afterthought???  Let’s get rid of words that show disrespect for women.  Let’s get rid of words that show disrespect for any category of people.

 

I don’t mind the words “man” or “mankind” as substitutes for “humankind,” when they are used in contexts like:  “man is constantly at war,” or “mankind has polluted the planet;” because in those contexts, the main perpetrators, the leaders of governments, militias, and corporations, are almost exclusively male, and in fact, they often act to exclude women from positions of power.  Here the words “man” and “mankind” do not slight women, but are merely descriptive.

 

And I think the term “history” is fitting.  Because of the way history has typically been recorded over the centuries, it is in actual fact “his| |story” (ha, ha), mainly a litany of kings, popes, presidents, wars, fighting, killing, imperialistic doings, and he-did-this and he-did-that.  History becomes much more interesting to me when it is more than just the story of men, and is rather an analysis of trends, past cultures and customs, changing ideas and social issues, and of course, stories of famous women.

 

Does it bother me that the word “woman” contains the word “man”?  My dictionary shows that “woman” is derived from “wife + man.”  Not great, but I guess we’re stuck with it since there are no satisfactory alternatives.  Does it bother me that “female” contains “male,” and “human” contains “man”?  If I understand correctly, “female” and “male” have different root words, so while the spellings have similarities, the words are not related, so that’s OK; likewise, “human” and “man” have different root words.  If you’re into this sort of thing, here’s a neat dictionary:  Merriam-Webster Online. 

 

But to get back to the National Geographic presenting two brides as the “Family of Man” – that misuse of language goes beyond the ridiculous to the really bizarre, and is an affront to at least half their readers.  The editors should know better.  I rather like my suggestion of changing the feature’s title to “Our Extended Family.”  It doesn’t convey exactly the same idea, but maybe gets across a better idea.

 

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