Margaret Atwood fans furious as she shares op-ed lamenting gender neutrality

Margaret Atwood angered many of her Twitter followers by reposting an article titled Why can we no longer say “woman”?‘

The opinion piece, written by Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno, joined the debate on the use of gender-neutral terminology and argued that the word “woman” was becoming unacceptable.

“Woman is in danger of becoming a dirty word… taken out of the lexicon of administration, eradicated from medical vocabulary and struck out of conversation,” she wrote, continuing, “This should not leave well-meaning people speechless, lest they be attacked as transphobic or otherwise insensitive to the increasingly complex constructions of the genre.

“There’s more than a whiff of misogyny in there. Why does “woman” be the silent word and not “man”? Why not “people who urinate while standing” or “people who eject semen”?

She added: “Certainly, there are words – these are mostly insults – that are no longer acceptable. “Woman” shouldn’t be one of them. “

Ms Atwood shared the article, sparking a furious discussion about the views expressed in the article.

Erica Ifill wrote: “Hello everyone except Margaret Atwood. These second wave feminists have to find the way out if they can’t be intersectional.

Others said they were disappointed with The Handmaid’s Tale writer, given the long-standing feminist themes of her work.

“Good news, we still can! big fan of your fiction about the dangers of applying extremely rigid bio-essentialist ideas to gender elsewhere, ”wrote a commentator.

Another posted the response: “It’s heartbreaking to see someone with a vast imagination and stellar language skills not using both. Guess it’s easy to dismiss the “small portion” * of affected people when you don’t care about them * 1.4 million trans adults and 1.2 million non-binary people (in the US uniquely) “

Ms Atwood responded to some of the comments by asking them to read the article before disagreeing. “’Read his article. She’s not a TERF, ”she posted.

Meanwhile, other Twitter users backed the article’s opinions and praised Ms Atwood for sharing them, comparing the writer to JK Rowling, whose views on transgender issues sparked much controversy. last year.

Colin Moriarty wrote: “It is perhaps not surprising that two of the world’s most famous living writers ask similar questions about the ‘defeminization’ of language. There are many who will claim that this is not happening, but obviously it is, and I commend you for bringing it up. “