MovieChat Forums > X-Men (2000) Discussion > Is a female mutant an X-Man?

Is a female mutant an X-Man?

posted 8 years ago by elliest_5
10 replies | jump to latest

I was reading Wikipedia and it referred to Jean Grey as an "X-Man" and it struck me as odd, if not sexist. "X-Men" makes sense if we take it as a plural-only collective noun, but if the singular X-Man is in use then shouldn't X-Woman also be used? The PC term nowadays would be X-People, but I guess the title was invented in the 60s when there weren't such considerations. (I've only seen 3 of the films, including this one, so I don't know if this issue is addressed in any of them/if there are any jokes about this).

~*~

[–] justanicknamed 8 years ago

I saw a show that was interviewing a bunch of the actresses who starred in James Bond movies. One of them said that while some PC people were saying they should be referred to as Bond "Women", she liked the term Bond "Girls." She felt it was sexier and what woman doesn't like to be thought of as sexy? The other Bond Girl agreed with her.

In other words, some people look at being part of the group as the honor and don't worry about if the title of the group is PC or not.

[–] tmm_8705 8 years ago

This is simple. "X-Man" is gender neutral much like the term "human" is. Nobody is complaining that there's no term like "huwoman" to apply to females.

Your scrutiny would only apply if this were called "X-Boys" and that girls were among the team.

[–] search_for_truth 8 years ago

Exactly! It's gender neutral.

[–] elliest_5 8 years ago

Well, if it's gender neutral like "human", then the plural should be "X-mans" (like humans) not X-men ;)

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[–] search_for_truth 8 years ago

Well that would just sound bad so no. :P

[–] Xaeden 8 years ago

Right and that's why we say womans and not women.

There are a lot of things in the English language that "should" be one way or another but are not. The reason being that English is a hodgepodge of different languages.

In the case of "human," that's a word that is derived from Latin. The Latin version is made up by combing two Latin words and the convention to append the English derivative with an -s is something we can thank Latin for.

Man and woman, on the other hand, have Germanic origins and utilize the –en method of pluralization that you see in words like oxen or vixen. That "man" appears both here and in the Latin word for human is coincidental.

The convention to use the -en form of pluralization for more recently made up words like "postmen" or "firemen" is derived from that.

Further, it's important to note that "man" got its origins as a gender neutral word meaning "the thinker" and "men" meaning "to think." Essentially you would use them similar to how you would use person/people today. Hence why we talk about "the origin of man" and understand that to mean the origin of humanity (it's not, as some people mistakenly think, because we're shortening the word "human").

[–] elliest_5 8 years ago

Thanks for a detailed & fact-checked response to a post that was basically just joking/being silly.

In reality, I think the name issue is trivial, although my original post was somewhat derived from a more legitimate curiosity towards comic books in the 60s (which I know nothing of). My suspicion was that "X-men" were so-called because superheroes are expected to be mostly men. But I don't have the facts and it may well be that this is not the case (characters like Mystique and Rogue play a big part in the movies, so I wonder how it is in the comics).

~*~

[–] Xaeden 8 years ago

The original X-men were a five "man" team made up of four men (Cyclops, Beast, Angel, and Iceman) and one woman (Jean Grey). Jean's nickname, at the time, was "Marvel Girl," which has since largely been dropped for obvious reasons. If you want to see how she was depicted early on go here: http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2016/06/07/remember-to-forget-that-time-professor-x-would-have-made-a-move-on-jean-grey-if-not-for-his-wheelchair/

Basically, she was the token woman of the group and served as an object for everyone (save Iceman) to drool over, including Xavier who was secretly in love with this 16 year old student of his (that was quickly dropped, though). It's all rather cringe worthy.

The initial run of the X-men didn't do overly well. It only became a hit when it was retooled in the 70's to include a more diverse lineup and a focus on deeper issues. That's when you got characters like Storm, and that's when Jean Grey evolved to become the strongest member of the team with significant focus given to her struggle with that power.

All of that said, it most likely never occurred to anyone involved in the original X-men title to use "men" to send any kind of message simply because it was a normative naming convention that didn't receive much push back at the time. I therefore think it's more productive to focus on how male versus female characters were actually treated at the time if you want to get a proper sense of the attitudes held by those writing superhero stories. There are plenty of sources online that, like my above example, point these out, which you can likely easily find by googling something along the lines of "sexism in comics."

[–] AndrewGS 8 years ago

Yeah the title has long been kind of dumb (maybe an influence on Singer changing the style for the sequel to X2 although then he went back to X-Men: Subtitle for the later ones).

The title is pretty much just because it started in the '60s and it was assumed the readers would prefer reading about hero men than hero people. Also in the beginning of the first issue the students/team was all-male except that it had Jean joining both the school and team. But it's been really unfitting since the '70s and especially in the movie where there are initially only three team members and two are female.

[–] Scorpion_Deathlock 7 years ago

Bond "girl" makes sense; since James Bond has a hankering for 16 year old girls.

I know English a lot gooder than you.