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UN says ‘husband’ & ‘wife’ are now politically incorrect terms – but why is it allowed to serve as thought police?
from RT:
As millions of married couples around the world are feeling the strain of being holed up together due to the pandemic, the United Nations decided it’s a great time to remove the words “husband” and “wife” from our vernacular.
In case anyone thought that the social justice warriors would take a much-needed hiatus from their crusading against wrong-think, especially at the height of a pandemic, think again. This week, UN bureaucrats found clever new ways to divide and alienate the global population at a time when social-distancing rules have already turned people into strangers.
On Monday afternoon, the agency’s crack social media team tweeted out: “Help create a more equal world by using gender-neutral language if you’re unsure about someone’s gender or are referring to a group.”
What followed was a list of dos and don’ts, many of which are already well-known, like replacing “manpower” with “workforce” and “salesman” with “salesperson.” Fine, we get it. But the agency also snuck in a couple of new additions that raised some eyebrows, if not fists, by demanding that the terms “husband” and “wife,” which have worked fine for centuries, be substituted with the gender-less generic term “spouse.”
“Boyfriend” and “girlfriend,” meanwhile, were not spared from the grammar culling either, with “partner” now being the preferred term.
What you say matters.
Help create a more equal world by using gender-neutral language if you’re unsure about someone’s gender or are referring to a group. https://t.co/QQRFPY4VRn #GenerationEquality via@UN_Women pic.twitter.com/koxoAZZuxq
— United Nations (@UN) May 18, 2020
Some people may be wondering, as this author was – why all the fuss at a time like this? Are liberals simply striving to make themselves worthy of the expressionless grey “Wojak” meme that the alt-right has ascribed to them? Or is there something more to this latest plunge into the deep end of insanity? After all, there is no “man,” no “toxic masculinity” lurking in the term “husband” that should trigger even the more virtuous among us.
The word “husband” derives from the Old Norse husbondi, which translates literally as “house-dweller.” Not the most oppressive-sounding thing in the world. However, even if we go with the less politically correct origins of the word, with “master of the house” as one of them, the word “husband” has been around for so long that any male-dominant connotations have long since vanished.
As for the word “wife,” this is believed to come from the Old English “wif”, which simply means “woman, female, lady.” Again, as with the term “husband,” the etymological roots of “wife” reveal very little that should trigger the virtue-signaling crowd.
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