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Cambridge Dictionary takes El American’s Idiocy of the Week Award for joining the woke hysteria and changing the definitions of “man” and “woman.”
In addition to the simple, traditional, and factual definition of “adult female human being,” Cambridge Dictionary now also includes as a definition of woman the convoluted and imaginative meaning that a woman is “an adult who lives and identifies as female though they [sic] may have been said to have a different sex at birth.”
Note how the dictionary uses plural pronouns, but singular nouns. Call me crazy, but one expects correct grammar from a dictionary. Maybe they should also change the definition of “dictionary” -but it’s probably better not to give them ideas.
To further complicate things and to prove that they are the most woke of dictionaries, they could have expanded this new definition a bit more to make it more inclusive.
I propose to say that a woman is “an adult of the human species (although we do not pretend to be speciesist) who lives and identifies herself as a woman (see meaning 1, and return to this second meaning in an infinite self-referential iteration), although at birth (despite the problems of overpopulation that births cause to the environment and to a planet on the verge of disappearing due to climate change induced by capitalism) they have been told (surely by a clearly sexist, homophobic, transphobic and extreme right-wing doctor) that they have a different sex.”
This definition would make things much clearer, however, Cambridge Dictionary opted for the “reduced” version mentioned above, and included some examples of the use of the word so that the reader can understand what they are talking about when using the word “woman” which, as we already know, is one of the most difficult terms to understand nowadays and that, probably, without the help of a dictionary, no one would know how to intuitively define. Something like the word “hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.”
The explanatory examples in the Cambridge Dictionary are not very clear.
Among the explanatory examples included in the dictionary, we find the phrases “She was the first trans woman elected to a national office” or “Mary is a woman who was assigned male at birth.”
These examples seem to me to be too unwoke for Cambridge Dictionary’s intentions. It should be remembered that this modification comes in response to similar changes previously made by the Oxford Dictionary and Merriam-Webster.
If the Cambridge Dictionary intended to prove that it is more woke than its competitors, I fear it has missed a golden opportunity by failing to take the opportunity to use an example such as “she was the first trans, racialized, non-heteronormative-bodied, pansexual, and differently-abled woman to be democratically elected by mail-in ballot to national office representing the Democratic Party.”
Likewise, to use the name Mary, so chaste, traditional, and biblical, seems to me insufficient and almost offensive, and could cause great discomfort and anxiety in someone who turns to the Cambridge Dictionary to find out what the hell a woman is. A dictionary like this should be a safe place, a true woke sanctuary, and not used for its examples such problematic names as Mary because of its obvious religious and retrograde connotations. Names like Hillary, Alexandria, or Ilhan would have been much better suited to illustrate such an important definition.
In its bid for equality, Cambridge Dictionary has also changed the definition of “man,” which now includes “an adult who lives and identifies as male even though he was told at birth that he had a different sex.” However, the examples attached to this definition are different. “Mark is a trans man (=a man who was told he was female at birth).” Mark? really, Cambridge? The name of an evangelist? Have you no empathy for your woke audience?
The other example, however, is not as inspiring as the previous one, in which the trans woman went on to be elected to national office. In this case, they simply say that “Their doctor encouraged them [sic] to live as a man for a while before undergoing surgical transition.”
As we can see, despite how woke they think they are in the Cambridge Dictionary, inequalities are still very much ingrained in their heads, as in their examples the trans woman achieves an important public office, but the trans man only gets a measly sex change operation. How much work still needs to be done!
Ignacio Manuel García Medina, Business Management teacher. Artist and lecturer specialized in Popular Culture for various platforms. Presenter of the program "Pop Libertario" for the Juan de Mariana Institute. Lives in the Canary Islands, Spain // Ignacio M. García Medina es profesor de Gestión de Empresas. Es miembro del Instituto Juan de Mariana y conferenciante especializado en Cultura Popular e ideas de la Libertad.
Social Networks: @ignaciomgm