The Female Quotient’s Post

What a powerful message. I remember being her age and asking my teacher why the word was “mankind.” She said. “it means you too.” It didn’t sit well with me then because we deserve better than just being implied. If we routinely used words like “womankind” to describe humanity or “woman power” to describe work being done by people, how would men feel? Words like mankind, man made, manpower, among others are exclusionary. It’s way past time they were replaced by humankind, human made, and human power. Even a child knows exclusionary language is wrong. Let’s stop using it when we speak and write. Let’s also insist that textbooks reflect all of us.

I actually love her questions. She has the innocence of childhood before the world has gotten ahold of her and dampened her shine. It’s beautiful.

I'm sorry but I wouldn't sign. We keep changing stuff to fit some "narrative." If my daughters understand the context of "man" as depicted in the Bible as being androgynous meaning man and woman versus man being a male, depending on the context, then no it shouldn't be taken out. Are we just going to change everything that wants to be changed to fit? That's exhausting. As a woman, I thoroughly understand the distinction; the term "man-made" simply came from the Bible. Now, I know someone would argue, isn't it all men, and again none of it bothers me. Furthermore, "people-made" would suggest something a collective group or nation created, which could diffuse the individual responsibility or creativity implied by "man-made." It lacks the succinctness and historical weight of "man-made," which has been widely understood to mean something crafted or constructed by human hands, regardless of gender.

I usually use "human created" or "human made" because we don't know the gender of all the people involved in the making most of the time.

By a linguistic point of view.. English being a simple derived language, makes it hard to pinpoint the root and grammar of the word. I could be wrong, but think man/manushya comes from the amazing ‘ability to think’, ‘mind/manas’, which is gender neutral word in Sanskrit, and English does not have placeholder for detailing such concepts. A compound word should be having semantics on word generation. In Sanskrit, for instance, only base form of words are fused and compounded. The prefixes and suffixes are dropped. ‘woman’ has the prefix ‘wo’ There is a certain harmony with well coined curated words. Languages can be expanded for newer diction, when in need the meaning can be relooked with a wider and deeper angle.. Ofcourse, it has to accommodate the needs of the time and delicately maintain the long term integrity of language comprehension.

Man made means made by man(human) it’s not a gender thing! She’s innocent but I get her point (it’s English) her mum should break it down to her in love before she joins in the narrative of the gender-equality balablu.. or grows to think the world is against the female gender. xoxo

The spontaneity of this video is questionable—the camera appears to have been poised and ready, suggesting it might have been staged to promote a particular narrative. Trying to rewrite history is dangerous ground. History, in all its complexities, has shaped our present. We must learn from both its good and bad aspects to build a better future. The term "man-made" is a product of its time and was not intended to exclude women. Instead of promoting a simplistic revision like "people-made," we should use such moments to teach historical truth and context. This notion that "man-made" is inherently bad is ludicrous. Erasing or altering historical terminology without proper context risks reducing our collective understanding and turning us into a society of single-minded individuals. Moreover, it might have been more effective for this person to use their time to actually teach the historical significance and context of terms like "man-made" rather than “allegedly” staging and filming this moment. Changing textbooks without thorough consideration of historical context is dangerous. By fostering informed discussions, we can preserve the richness of our linguistic and historical heritage while promoting inclusivity and understanding.

It’s interesting to see that, mostly, the defenders of the “ mankind includes women and this is just a linguistic issue” argument are [drumroll 🥁] men. I’m not at all surprised by this. Perhaps some empathy and trying to understand this girl’s (valid) perspective is far more important than being defensive and “proving yourself right,” (which you’re not).