Here at Blume, we strive towards creating a more inclusive, transparent, and meaningful community every day, in everything that we do! This applies to our products (and the ones to come, *wink wink*), as well as how we interact with all of you. We’re so energized by the social movements happening around the world, and we try to learn every day.
When Blume first started back in June 2018, our ultimate goal was to reach Gen Z girls with a safe space to access clean products and educational resources. We hoped to empower them, by helping them understand their bodies and what’s going in them. We’ve quickly learned that our bluming community has become so much more, in all the best ways possible. People of all ages (beyond Gen Z) -- of all colors, genders and body parts -- have joined us in this awesome journey. So it didn’t take us long to realize that the language we use matters to our growing community. Here’s why we’ve decided to use“womxn” instead of “woman” or “women,” and here’s why you should too:
The term “womxn” is inclusive to trans womxn, womxn of colour, and basically reclaims the word “woMAN” for us to own and redefine. Strong, independent, diverse: ”womxn” is inclusive. Womxn is empowering. We respectfully acknowledge that not all womxn have periods, and not all people with periods identify as womxn. Using this spelling is a necessary step forward for us at Blume to continue nurturing our community, and having conversations that we believe are important.
Here are some definitions:
From dictionary.com
womxn [ woom-uhn ]
noun, plural wom·xn [wim-in] .
a woman (used, especially in intersectional feminism, as an alternative spelling to avoid the suggestion of sexism perceived in the sequences m-a-n and m-e-n, and to be inclusive of trans and nonbinary women).
From Wikipedia:
The term Womxn is an alternative term for the English language word women which has been regularly in use since 2015 to explicitly include transgender women and women of color.[1] It has been used in a similar manner as womyn and wimmin, as a rejection of the folk etymology of 'woman' allegedly being 'of man'.[2] Due to transgender women and women of colour's perceived exclusion from the usage of these respellings, an "x" is used to "broaden the scope of womanhood," to include them.
Curious to learn more?
Check out this Medium article: Intersectional Feminism 101: What is Womxn?
Although it’s still uncommon to see the spelling of womxn in mainstream media, we hope that we can be trailblazers for other brands to make this shift towards inclusive language. More than anything, we hope this inspires you! Thank you for bluming with us and we look forward to a new decade with all of you strong womxn (and beyond).
Lots of love,
The Blume Team
