In a story spreading like social media wildfire, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudea interrupted a woman, at a woman’s centered non-denominational church.
While interacting with the audience, a woman asks Trudeau, “‘we came here today, to ask you to look into the policies that religious charitable organizations have in our legislation so it can also be changed because maternal love is the love that’s going to change the future of mankind….’
However the Prime Minister cut her off, stating “uh.. uh.. we like to say peoplekind,” which isn’t even a real word. However, in spite of the ridiculousness of the comment, the like-minded crowd applauded. It’s also kind of funny and sadly ironic that a group of feminist-minded individuals applauded a man for cutting off a woman from speaking, while ‘mansplaining’ something to her.
Now, it’s a relatively harmless comment, and while many will get all worked up over it, it’s not worth more than a dramatic eye roll. If people think the use of the word man to refer to man and woman (think of phrases like ‘man vs beast’) is misogynistic, they probably don’t appreciate brevity. Meaning, to say ‘man and woman,’ as opposed to just ‘man,’ takes up a lot of ink – and certainly doesn’t flow as nicely in the written or spoken english language.
Up until today, it has always been taught that it’s ‘understood’ that phrases like ‘mankind’ refer to everyone, and not just those who belong to a specific gender.
The interaction can be seen in the video, above.