I would like to preface anything I say by first stating that I'm female and that, yes, I live in the US where us women enjoy all sorts of political freedoms. Depending on the area you live in, or rather the people who live in that surrounding area, of course, a woman may have more or less freedoms. There are probably some people who think that women are inferior to men and that they're only good for bearing babies; while I don't personally know anyone like this, I'm guessing that there are people out there (heavy sarcasm) because the ideas of women being independent and entities in and of themselves is a fairly recent one. Women didn't even get the vote until the 20th century, so there you go. While as a woman I don't quite agree with the view that women are inferior to men, and while most women are more or less equal to men in this country some are not (especially in other countries where women are generally looked down upon), I have something to say to you feminists out there.
No, not you feminists protesting abuse of women in other countries or actually working for civil rights movements without being overbearing and without trying to make women superior to men. (The phrase "civil rights" to me implies that these are the rights that all human beings should have, no more and no less. Not a set of rules trying to make arbitrary divisions between women and men or something.) I respect that kind of feminism; those protestors are genuinely trying to get what I consider basic civil rights for women. Since it's part of my own point of view that both women and men are equally stupid and smart, I respect the fact that they're trying to get people to see women as equal to men, at least in the mental sense (physically, obviously, men have the advantage just because of biology. Simple as that. I'm not saying that some women aren't stronger than some men, I'm saying that if you were to take an average man and an average woman off the street, chances are the man would be stronger than the woman because of biology. Not trying to offend any women here.). Women and men, to me, are different-- mentally and physically-- but are and should be treated as equals. Now that I've gotten that all out of the way, I'll proceed with my point, which was probably glaringly obvious from the title.
If you think the word "woman" is sexist to women because it contains the word "man," let me ask you something. Why exactly do you want to change the spelling to "womyn" or whatever your preference is? Let's think of some reasons you want to change it. (I know I'm being patronizing here. It's intentional.) 1. It ties women to men. All right, I can see your point here: women throughout history have been subject to men and generally considered inferior. Why would women want to be linked to men, who have oppressed and abused them? Let's look at the etymology of the word women here. According to m-w.com, and other sources, the word "woman" came from the Old English word wifmann, "wif" meaning "woman" and "mann" meaning someone of either gender [1]. Now, if you want to argue against wife, which also came from that word "wif," I could also see your point, although I'm not really here to argue about etymology. My main point is that you're rebelling against a word that has nothing to do with men oppressing women and inextricably tying them to themselves.
Actually, that's the main and only reason I've heard that women would want to change the spelling of the word. But I'm guessing that there's some subconscious feeling that by changing the spelling of the word, women feel like they're sticking it to the literal MAN: they're rebelling and showing men that they are independent, intelligent entities who don't need men to be successful. I get this feeling because they want to change the spelling so they're not linked to men. So changing the spelling of the word is just another way to show GIRL POWER or something like that.
Now let's look at what changing the spelling of the word accomplishes. Let's list some tortures women still go through just because of the gender they were born with, shall we? 1. Being servants to men and abused by them. 2. As a baby, being abandoned because the family wanted a boy. 3. In some places, not being able to get a good job or earn as much as men because some men have an inherent prejudice against women; some men might think that women aren't as mentally strong as men because they aren't as physically strong (well, I sort of lifted that reason directly from Puritan New England from history class; there are probably other and better reasons, but that's the main basis for any lingering prejudice that I can think of. That, and the Bible, and Eve and original sin and all that nice warm fuzzy stuff. And how God said that women would be inferior to men. Though I'm also not here to bash religion or support it.). Now let's go up to those abused women and tell them "hey, you're free from the evil influence of men forever if you just spell your gender womyn." Let's see how they feel about that-- well, you've certainly changed their lives around forever by spelling the name of a gender differently, haven't you? I mean, yeah, they still get abused by their husband and all, but you're helping them STICK IT TO THE MAN and HAVE CONFIDENCE IN THEMSELVES because they're no longer tied to a word whose etymology you have misconstrued.
In case I haven't made my point yet, there are several parts to it: that 1) you truly shouldn't be offended by the word in the first place, as it literally just means a person who's female, and 2) that if you're going to get offended, at least get off your butt and actually do something about the problems you're rebelling against instead of just protesting on an Internet forum or somesuch. Most feminists (and I'm talking about the, for lack of a better term, people whom others would call Feminazis here) I know personally don't do squat for women's rights other than talk about how ABUSED women are, and what we should do to HELP them, and if they're really daring wear a few buttons promoting Girl Power. (If you want to change the word and also volunteer to help women-- and I don't mean passing out pamphlets at your college campus or something, it's not like anyone reads or cares about those pamphlets anyway-- I have less of a problem with you. I still think it's stupid that you're trying to change the word for the sake of Girl Power, but I have less of a problem with you because you're trying to get to a genuine solution. I respect that. Just please keep the violence to a minimum.)
If you're really that concerned, do something about the problem instead of changing the spelling of a stupid word. What's changing the spelling going to accomplish? Is it going to give women confidence in themselves once they see that they don't have to be linked to men? Well, I can see how that might happen with some of the more abused women, except that a) if the women are lacking in self-confidence for whatever reason such that they feel empowered by the word and are inspired to rise up against their male oppressor/s, that still doesn't mean that the women will act out their desires (an abused wife, for example, might not have the means to support herself financially, which is the only reason she stays with her husband) or that the problem will be solved; b) again, the stupid word doesn't have anything to do with men (I'm really trying to drive this point home here) and c) sometimes the woman is still unable to change the minds of those around her if the prejudice is deep enough. This is not to mention that sometimes in societies, a prejudice runs too deeply-- it might be ingrained in the minds of most of the adult population-- to be completely rid of it.
Let's take an example of a young woman working in a Japanese company here. This woman does work that's at least as good as her male coworkers' and is generally competent at her job, but she still gets paid less than them and watches as her male coworkers get promoted before her. She suddenly gets inspired because she realizes she doesn't have to be subordinate to men and that SHE should be the one getting promoted. In a fit of Girl Power, she makes out a manifesto for her boss and tells him (remember, this is a Japanese company where men get promoted before women, so it's not like the boss is going to be a her) that unless she gets paid higher wages and gets her just share, she's leaving. (Assuming she has the means to support herself and find a good job otherwise.) The boss allows her to leave. Why?! Well, maybe he can hire a male worker in her place, because he believes that men are inherently superior to women. Even though this woman stood up against her boss, it didn't do her any good because of his inborn prejudices. I think you can think of a suitable example where a society's prejudices against women are so ingrained that the women might not question their place in society or that even if some women were to speak up, the society wouldn't be swayed much. (I'm not naming any names of countries here, but I'm thinking of a country whose name starts with the letter C... who has a long history dating back about 4000 years... who went through a Communist revolt about half a century ago... this is not to say that our mystery country is not getting better about its treatment of women, but that the idea that boys were superior to girls was an ingrained one that is most likely still around. Prejudices take a while to stamp out.)
Go on, help at a shelter for abused women. Organize a petition on the Internet if you think it'll help (hint: most of the time, it doesn't and anyway you're still just sitting at your computer and not doing anything). Attempt to convince people that women and men are equal and that neither one is superior than the other: women are just as stupid as men, and vice versa. Get out there and make a genuine impact on the women's civil rights movement (and please, no movements to make women SUPERIOR to men-- if you're so set against the idea of one gender being superior to the other, why do you want to make women superior as many feminists whom I know do? Revenge on men for centuries of abuse of women? Yeesh. I thought feminists were at least a little more civil than that.). Go on. I dare you.
[1] http://tafkac.org/language/etymology/woman_etymology_of.html