Page:The Future of the Women's Movement.djvu/11



OMEN in the movement often wish that the word humanist had not been appropriated, because it would far more properly connote the women's movement than the word feminist.

It is significant of much that there is in the English language no commonly used substantive corresponding to "homo." There is need, of course, for the words man and woman, but there is also need for a word denoting the species, irrespective of sex, and I have been driven to make use of a locution not common in English, in writing "a human." But the common pronoun is non-existent and I have not used the neuter, lest it should alarm nervous persons. Perhaps when we have got over the panic fear of unsexing ourselves, we may find it safe to speak of a human, just as we do of a baby, as "it."

There may seem to be a disappointing lack of prophesy in a book avowedly dealing with the future; but since I believe the women's movement to be a seeking for knowledge and good, to show vii