Herstory

I subscribe to Oxford Dictionaries' (OD) word of the day and today's word is 'herstory'.

The OD's definition is 'history viewed from a female or specifically feminist perspective'.

The OED's entry for 'herstory' has yet to be updated (it dates back to 1993) but the entry is fascinating. The entry advises that 'herstory' occurs between 0.01 and 0.10 times per million words in typical modern English usage and that the word's etymology is a punning alteration of 'history' (fancifully reinterpreted as 'his story', implying that history has in the past been viewed predominantly from the male perspective), with his- replaced by her. The OED's earliest recorded use of the word is 1970 by R. Morgan in Sisterhood is Powerful.

My library offers all members access to the OED for free.

Parents
  • Sorry to be picky, but "history" with "his" replaced by "her" is "hertory".

    I think we as those who communicate in the English language (I doubt that stuff like this occurs in any other language, at least not with this frequency) should be careful not to put a band-aid on society's problems by making up different words for things. Too often what happens is someone comes up with a more "politically correct" name for something, or a group of people, or whatever, and then eventually that word starts being used in an offensive way, and then the cycle begins again when another new politically correct term is invented.

    All these new words would not be needed if people treated others with respect by default instead of of being forced into it by laws and rules. The problem is that the natural human reaction is to treat people who are perceived as different less favourably than those who are perceived to belong to the same "group". People use the excuse that they are "protecting their own" far too often.

    If people could value differences instead of feeling threatened by them then maybe women in previous centuries would have been given a chance to make history themselves, and that goes for others who are referred to by carefully-chosen politically correct terms as well.

  • I’m not sure it’s natural, as you say, to treat people who are perceived as different less favourably. You don’t see a baby rejecting somebody, say for example, from a different racial background. I think people learn to act like that because they believe they’re different to other people. 

    Who is forced into something by laws and rules? You don’t have to follow laws and rules. I don’t. Not the man made laws anyway. I treat those as guidelines for people who don’t want to think for themselves therefore they don’t apply to me so they have no impact on my life whatsoever. 

Reply
  • I’m not sure it’s natural, as you say, to treat people who are perceived as different less favourably. You don’t see a baby rejecting somebody, say for example, from a different racial background. I think people learn to act like that because they believe they’re different to other people. 

    Who is forced into something by laws and rules? You don’t have to follow laws and rules. I don’t. Not the man made laws anyway. I treat those as guidelines for people who don’t want to think for themselves therefore they don’t apply to me so they have no impact on my life whatsoever. 

Children
  • You're right that a baby isn't racist. Certainly, different types of discrimination are learned in childhood from parents and other adults, and society dictates whether certain behaviours are ok or not, but is discrimination itself learned or natural?

    It used to be the case that racism was a fact of life, and it still is in many parts of the world, but then it became not ok to discriminate discriminate based on race (though don't tell that to an American cop). Then it was sexual orientation, but now that's not ok either, in most parts of the world. Now people have to really scrape the bottom of the barrel to figure out where they themselves belong in society that sets them apart from another group of people, because all the obvious forms of discrimination are off-limits. Right now, (western) society is just becoming intolerant to discrimination based on religion, but it seems to be the case that neurodiverse people are still fair game. No doubt someday (hopefully soon) it will become not only illegal but uncool (which is more important than what the law says) to discriminate against someone for being autistic. I wonder who will be picked on after that. Some group that represents a small part of the total population, but not so small that a victim cannot be found during the course of a given day.

    For a species who doesn't naturally embrace discrimination, we sure do come up with a lot of ways to define dividing lines to set ourselves apart from another group of people, for the apparent sole purpose of treating them like you know what.

    I agree that laws are for people with no particular moral compass of their own, and nobody actually obeys the law anyway, but rather acts almost exclusively on the basis of what is socially acceptable or not, in their particular tiny corner of the universe. Luckily for them, that is also how laws are enforced.

    If discrimination is so unnatural, why don't they just come up with a law that makes it illegal to be mean to somebody else? That way, ALL forms of discrimination and bullying are covered. But no, nobody thinks that it's even possible for humans to exist without being jerks to each other. I tend to agree.