Marge Piercy Pens Poem on Heroines for New Issue
It’s a great story, but I’m bothered by the fact that women …. particularly feminists …….are still using the word “heroines.” The “ine,” the “ess” and other such attachments to a word to make it be “female” are wrong wrong wrong, Those attachments are diminutives, subsets of the word, defining such as heroine as “a female hero.” Aside from in this case Hero being a woman (Leander the man), why are we still being defined as subsets of men? I’m cc-ing Rosalie Maggio on this because she’s written marvelous books on the subject of sexist vocabulary and I’m hoping we can get the word out…. maybe she’d write an article on the subject …. We’ve won lots of battles and lost a few. Language may just be our last uncharted frontier. best wishes and thanks for such an excellent publication.
Posted by: Joan Michel