![]() ![]() Definition ĭ, which added womxn to its dictionary in 2019, defines womxn as "used, especially in intersectional feminism, as an alternative spelling to avoid the suggestion of sexism perceived in the sequences m-a-n and m-e-n, and to be inclusive of trans and nonbinary women." The Oxford English Dictionary added womxn in 2021, and defines it as "adopted by some as a more inclusive alternative to womyn, which is perceived as marginalizing certain groups, especially ethnic minority and transgender women." Such terms have included wimmin (in the 1990s), based upon the original Old English term, and womyn (since at least 1975). Keridwen Luis, a sociologist at Brandeis University, states that feminists have experimented for decades to devise a suitable alternative for the term identifying the female gender. Second wave feminism developed several alternative political spellings of the word woman, such as womyn. This has created the present situation with man bearing a dual meaning-either masculine or nonspecific. Man took on its additional masculine meaning in the Late Middle English period, replacing the now-obsolete word wer. The word woman is derived from the Old English word wīfmann ('woman-person'), which is formed from wīf (the source of wife), then meaning 'woman', and mann (the source of man), then meaning 'person, human', originally without connotations of gender. The use of womxn as a gender-inclusive alternative to woman has also been criticized for having the transphobic implication that trans women are not women but are a separate category ( womxn). Conversely, it has been criticized for being unnecessary or confusing, conflicting with the uncommonness of mxn to describe men. The term "womxn" has been adopted by various organizations, including student university groups in the US and UK, who call it more inclusive of trans and nonbinary people than women and other alternative spellings. Womxn, along with the term womyn, has been found in writing since the 1970s to avoid perceived sexism in the standard spelling, which contains the word man. The term womxn is an alternative spelling of the English word woman. ![]() Alternative term for women, designed to avoid perceived sexism
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