Noted feminist Gloria Steinem spoke to a women’s group on Wednesday with the #MeToo movement clearly on her mind. Claiming the word ‘women’ suggests toxic male dominance, Steinem proposed congressional action to officially desexualize the word.
“Why do we need men in our noun?” she asked a crowd of over 200 people, headlined by U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “Our wages are 82 percent of theirs, we do all the cooking and cleaning, and we wear bras so our men can brag about our racks to their drinking buddies,” she explained. “Enough is enough! It’s time to take the power back, and the way we do that is deleting ‘men’ from the word ‘women’.
“We won’t be women anymore,” Steinem cried, raising her fist over her head. “WE’LL BE WO!”
Petition to have the “men” taken out of women and let’s all just go by “wo” instead.
— ass goblin Ⓥ (@boatdockmarina) October 3, 2019
Women misleads
Steinem claimed the very construction of the word proves men believe they are integral to female self-identification. “Think about it,” she said, pausing for emphasis. “The word ‘men’ is right there, front and center, in us all day, every day.” She shook her head. “It’s so typical of men to control us like that, to want to be in us all the time.” She wagged her finger and said with a wink, “Well, we wo can manage just fine all by ourselves, can’t we, ladies?”
At that point, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stood up and began a chant that quickly reverberated throughout the room. “Wo rule, men drool! Wo rule, men drool!”
Legislation
After the chanting subsided, Steinem indicated that she would pressure congressional representatives to introduce legislation officially changing the word ‘women’ to ‘wo’. “It makes so much sense every way you look at it,” she said. “Not only does it desexualize the noun, but it’s so much faster to text. Plus, it sounds so modern and cool, which is what matters to the Millennials.” She hesitated momentarily, conjuring up an example. “Since we know hipsters like pho, you can bet they’re going to love wo.”
The claw-back provision will require everything with the word ‘women’ in it to be re-branded. “As an example, Little Women will convert to Little Wo,” she offered. “Multiply that by a million and that’s how this movement will spread rapidly throughout our great nation.” Reacting to the word ‘movement’, Ocasio-Cortez stood up again and shouted, “How about we change that word to ‘movepersont’?”
Twitter reacts
Once word got out about the proposed legislation, Twitter had plenty to say on the subject.
❌ UN Women
✔️ UN Wo- please act normal and start fighting real crises, instead of whingeing over problems regarding WORDS!!!— Nikola Edelsztejn (@NikolaEdelszte1) February 5, 2020
It is called 'wo' instead of 'women'#IfTheWorldHadNoMen
— Make the best 🌍f 2☀️2☀️! (@_Stefan_de) January 5, 2020
Can't be a "woman" without the "man" otherwise you would just be a Wo!
Although Wo probably suits you better and thinking about it, it would be great if feminists referred to themselves as Wo instead of women that way men know who to ignore/ run away from right away!— D.W. (@ddubya909) August 15, 2019
Told about the positive reactions on social media, Steinem gave a thumbs-up sign. “We’re just getting started,” she proclaimed. “After this law passes, we’ll propose other long-overdue ones, like changing the word ‘menstruation’ to ‘peoplestruation’, ‘hymen’ to ‘hyvaginapart’ and ‘mentality’ to ‘nonbinarytality’.” She paused, smiling, and then shrieked, “Let’s hear it for a completely gender-neutral world!”
With that, as Steinem left the stage, Ocasio-Cortez reprised a final chant in her wake: “Wo rule, men drool! Wo rule, men drool!”
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