Gender & Sexuality dictionary
womyn
or wimmin or womon [wim-in]
What does聽womyn mean?
Womyn is an alternative way of spelling聽women, used by some feminists to avoid the perceived sexism in the suffix “-men.”
Where does womyn come from?
To some feminists, the word聽women (and woman) improperly defines womanhood in the context of men because of its m-e-n聽spelling. So, they’ve adopted alternative spellings such as wimmin or womyn to reject assumptions of male power in language.
Men talking about womyn trapping them in pregnancies is peak male idiocy
— Ms. Vargas (@HailtotheMe)
Womyn was聽recorded as early as 1975 during second-wave feminism. One notable early instance was the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, which was held annually starting in 1976 until 2015. This was a feminist music festival only open to “womyn-born womyn,” i.e., or cisgender women. The organization was criticized for its exclusion of transgender individuals, which led to another alternative spelling of women, womxn, meant to include trans and nonbinary women in intersectional feminism.
The term聽is also featured in Womyn’s land,聽a radical feminist movement of lesbian separatists who have formed a number of communities, such as Camp Sister Spirit, that exclude men. They’ve also been criticized for excluding transgender women and non-homosexual women.
1977 Wisconsin Womyn's Land Cooperative incorporated, project for "womyn who want a place on the land for womyn and children to be "unhindered, unenslaved, and unbuttoned."
— Michelle Moravec (@ProfessMoravec)
奥辞尘测苍听gained more mainstream attention during the Women’s March on Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world starting in January 2017 to protest the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump during his first term. The marches fought for women’s rights, among other causes.
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Examples of womyn
Who uses womyn?
Users of the term聽飞辞尘测苍听are typically feminists pushing back against patriarchal structures in society, including in language. It’s rendered as a way to emphasize that women have their own identity and authority that’s independent of men.
in 2018 we spelling women like womYn because we don鈥檛 need MEN
— Champagne (@champggne)
Given the trans-exclusionary history of some self-identified 飞辞尘测苍听(sometimes called TERFs, or trans-exclusionary radical feminists), the term has come under some criticism, with intersectional feminists opting for the alternative聽womxn聽to be more inclusive.
Note
This is not meant to be a formal definition of womyn like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of womyn that will help our users expand their word mastery.