Autocorrect is Some Patriarchal bullshit

Journeyman. Outdoorsman.

Journeywoman. Outdoorswoman.

Do you notice anything here? The red dotted line? It’s like a scarlet effing letter tainting the words themselves. Or a spattering of linear-minded, left brained, a.k.a patriarchal blood spattered neatly underneath. Assaulting the meaning. The essence. The femme of the word. Female-identified folk: We need to take back our language.

It was nearly 20 years or so ago that I remember reading the book (written by a man, actually) called The Alphabet versus the Goddess, where author Dr. Leonard Shlain gives a fascinating exposition, or proposition, arguably for a few based on some critique, regarding the way that pre-literate cultures, rooted in goddess-based spirituality and feminist values, were shaping the brain in more holistic ways. When societies began to be driven by male-dominated, patriarchal ways of behaving, towards left brain thinking, there was a diminution of the feminine and reinforcement of patriarchy. He proposes that the 26 letter Roman alphabet supported that patriarchal shaping. While verbal and written language across cultures have some common pools of words, expressions and idioms, for example, there are literally thousands of dialects, indigenous languages and alphabets swirling the planet that shape our brains while simultaneously reinforcing this…