Birmimgham MAC and "Womxn"

[MACrage]

The Midlands Art Centre (MAC) in Edgbaston, Birmingham, has sent me an email to advertise their upcoming "Directed by Womxn" season. Showcasing films directed by, er, "womxn". I presume this means "people".

I have emailed to explain why I find the term offensive and why it erodes biological women's hard-won rights. Posting here in case anyone wants to do the same. I don't expect a good response, but I think they need to know what their customers think. I will no longer be a customer if this doesn't change.

How exactly are these males marginalised exactly?

What is womxn actually supposed to mean?
Like 'wimmin' and 'womyn', it was a word coined by early feminists to remove the 'men' out of 'women' and make it clear that women are not a subbset of men.
Naturally, the woke brigade has appropriated it so that it now pretty much means anyone who identifies as a woman.

I too received this reply, and do not find it acceptable. I don’t know if the team at the MAC are unaware that it has been taken over, and can now include biological males?

I have written back to them to explain this, with a discussion of how disadvantaged female film directors are, and included the example of the Wachowski brothers and Philip Bunce as men who are accepting credit for being successful females, despite only transitioning after their male privilege got them to the top.

Although their email says they will now use both Women and Womxn, their website is still only advertising “Directed by Womxn”.

Hi MACrage,
Yes I noticed that they haven't bothered to update their website. Please do let us know if they respond, I haven't had a chance to write back as yet but will do this week.

I would ask them to please make sure that every item was correctly labelled as by a women or by a womxyn.

The wellcome institute was going to run some event that had womxyn in the title and there were a lot of complaints and it was cancelled (not sure if that was the reason).

They can’t just make up words!

I’ve just spotted I have incorrectly spelled womxn! Oh the shame!

They would do well to remember that they are very heavily subsidised through government arts funding and that is tax payers money.

As such they are legally required to uphold the Equality Act as an organisation in receipt of our money.

The EA refers to Sex as a protected characteristic. So they need to collect data specifically to show this (a requirement of all publicly funded bodies, without exception).

A particularly pointed question for any letter writers might be:

“Please explain how you are creating equal opportunities in regard to the protected characteristic of sex? If your opportunities to show and promote women are inclusive of men, how are you measuring your data accurately to demonstrate equal and fair representation in regard to sex?”

They have to answer you. They are required to collect the data in their reporting.

I’ve never understood why removing a vowel and replacing it with an x makes a word more inclusive. It’s not like the male version of a woman is a womin. It doesn’t make sense.