OT: Feminism (Was: OT: reality (wasRe: Atlantean))

Continuing the discussion, I added:

> > > PS Why doesn't there seem to be any feminists on the list? Despite the
> > > disagreements we have on everything from Tagalog grammar to the
existence
> > of
> > > Arhats, one can apparently refer to God with masculine pronouns here
> > without
> > > drawing any flak whatsoever.
> >
> > I'm not particularly feminist, mostly because I disagree with the name.
> > However, I do believe in the equality of the sexes.
>
> I didn't intend this to degenerate into a serious discussion; had I, I
hadn't

Which is, of course, why I immediately posted a serious reply :P

> unqualified used the word 'feminist', which is used with a rather large
range
> of meanings. Some use it to mean merely anyone who thinks that the sexes
> should, unless there are specific very good reasons for an exception, have
the
> same rights and obligations, which I rather dislike, because it suggests
I'm
> one.
That's what I'm told it's supposed to be, and what the dictionary defines it
as. As well, I have been told that the "old generation" of feminists is this
way. That is, they wanted equality. I dislike using the word "feminist" for
that, because of the use of the root "fem" which implies "female". I would
prefer a gender-neutral term, if we're going to talk about equality of the
genders/sexes.

>
> I, however, tend to restrict it to people who believe in various
sociological
> theories who hold that (Western) society is built more or less purposely
to
> repress women, and that sex-based discrimination of any kind is inherently
> bad. (That the same people with well above average frequency are
misandrists,
> if that's a word, is illogical, but not really surprising.)
That's how feminism is usually interpreted in literature, as I understand
it. As well, some of the feminists I've known have been like that.

However, what I get most from most feminists is that /women/ are the
superior sex. That is, they seem to want to change the oppressive dichotomy
from men oppressing women to women oppressing men. I starkly disagree with
this view, and consider it practically hypocritical.

Misandrist? I haven't heard that, and can't parse the root "and". What I've
usually heard is "misanthrope" (person who hates people) and "misogynist"
(person who hates women). You mean person who hates men? As I recall in
Contact, the main character agonized over that word's nonexistence.

ObConlang:
Background: In my multiverse (which is not related actually to my conlang,
Fincaiyan), there are a rather wide variety of languages. Instead of
inventing each language, at times I will include footnotes explaining
nuances of languages that don't exist, to give the illusion of a total
translation (a la Tolkein, except a lot more footnotes). One of the
societies that is discovered is the dimension of Enthrace (I would provide
IPA, but there's one sound I don't know the IPA for, and no idea how to
figure it out). Enthrace is a very matriarchial society (like, extremest
matriarchial).
Anyways: So, since I have various footnotes on language intricies, I've
thought of several interesting ones for the Enthrace language. Such as the
"old language", in the Enthrace language, literally means "language of
elderly women (with honor)". I had others, I just don't remember offhand
what they were. So anyways, what little nuances would you include in a
language of an extremist matriarchial society? Like, idioms, words with two
meanings, other things like that?

-Keith

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