Womxn

'Women' is considered an exclusionary term, particularly in relation to histories of slavery and the struggle of black women to resist objectification and the combined impacts of racism and sexism.[6] bell hooks' 1981 book 'Ain't I a Woman?: Black women and feminism argues that stereotypes fixed during slavery continue to affect black women, effectively categorising them as separate and different from white women. “In America, white racist ideology has always allowed white women to assume that the word woman is synonymous with white woman, for women of other races are always perceived as Others, as de-humanized beings who do not fall under the heading woman.”[7] hooks resists American feminist claims at solidarity between white and black women in the US and charts the way in which the word 'women' came to symbolically exclude black women.

Kimberle Crenshaw also emphasises this exclusion in her article "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics"[8]. Crenshaw references Sojourner Truth's 1851 speech 'Ain't I a Woman?' stating 'When feminist theory and politics that claim to reflect women's experience and women's aspirations do not include or speak to Black women, Black women must ask: "Ain't We Women?"'.[8]

Womxn's March on Seattle, January 2017

The term Womxn originated at the University of California, Davis. A Womxn's Resources and Research Center aims to achieve gender equity, defined as “a world in which people of all genders, specifically womxn, transgender, and people with marginalised genders - have the opportunity to reach their full potential.”[9] The history of the term's use at UC Davis is explored on their website[10] where their use of the 'x' is explained. Heather C. Lou, a former director of the U.C. Davis Womxn's Resources and Research Centre, writes about the work to address and dismantle cisgenderism in womxn's centres in 'University and College Women's and Gender Equity Centers: The Changing Landscape' (2018).[11] U.C. Davis now use the term across their site, and the term has been picked up by societies across the campus and across disciplines.[12] The university also celebrates an International Womxn's Day.[13] Other universities across the US have adopted the spelling including The University of Iowa, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Texas State University.[14]

In 2017 the Womxn's March on Seattle used womxn in place of women "to promote intersectionality in the movement".[15]

In South Africa some students in the organised higher education protest movements #RhodesMustFall, and the subsequent #FeesMustFall student movements which aimed to decolonise the institution and increase access to university education for all, used the term 'womxn' define an intersectional approach to the movement.[16] Many of the organisers of the movement were womxn and took inspiration from Kimberlé Crenshaw's work on intersectionality.[17][18]

Their manifesto states "an intersectional approach to our blackness takes into account that we are not only defined by our blackness, but that some of us are also defined by our gender, our sexuality, our able-bodiedness, our mental health, and our class, among other things. We all have certain oppressions and certain privileges and this must inform our organising so that we do not silence groups among us, and so that no one should have to choose between their struggles."[16]

South African poet Koleka Putuma uses the term widely in her 2017 poetry anthology Collective Amnesia and named the first poem in the collection “Growing up Black and a Womxn”.[19]

Queer Womxn Pride at Nepal's International Women's Day rally from Bhrikutimandap, or ‘Bwojyaa Khyo‘ in the Newa language, March 2019

Some MOGAI women in Nepal are using the 'x' spelling to demand a more inclusive Women's Movement. MOGAI is an acronym for 'Marginalized Orientation (sexual/romantic), Gender alignments (identity/ expressions) and Intersex bodily variations'[20].

The use of the term 'Womxn' has caused huge debate in the UK, particularly in relation to the Gender Recognition Act reforms, debated in late 2018[21]. Intersectional feminist use of the term 'womxn' over other alternative spellings has arisen in response to associations of terms such as 'womyn' and 'wimmin' with trans-exclusionary radical feminists. A programme of events at the Wellcome Collection in October 2018 'Daylighting'[22] used the term 'womxn' in promotional tweets, triggering an article in the Guardian, a few hundred tweets and a statement from the Labour MP Jess Philips.[23] Criticism of the term included responses from MPs such as Jess Phillips who said she had never met a trans woman who was offended by the word woman being used,[24] alongside Gender Critical Feminist perspectives that claimed the use of the term is an erasure and exclusion of cisgender women[25] that takes away their identities.[26] Further comments acknowledged that the term prompts new thinking, conversation and a challenge to binary ideas about gender.[27] The Wellcome Collection apologised for its use of the term.[28]

Concurrently with the Wellcome Collection programme, Nottingham Contemporary also used 'Womxn' in relation to their 'Still I Rise: Feminisms, Gender, Resistance, Act 1' exhibition, October 2018 – January 2019.[29] Despite receiving similar negative attention to the Wellcome Collection, Nottingham Contemporary defended their use of the term, arguing its importance in relation to the use of language "to resist patriarchal norms"[30]