There's been quite a bit of activity on the issue of the filming of Brick Lane, a film based on Monica Ali's novel of the same name. Monica Ali belongs to a certain set of middle-class, Anglicised, secularised Asian novelists of Muslim ancestry and has pretty much the same standing in the community as Hanif Kureishi and one just about higher than Salman Rushdie, who has jumped in with a letter in today's Guardian attacking Germaine Greer, who accused Ms Ali of presenting a stereotype of Brick Lane and then trying to film her stereotyped Brick Lane in the real Brick Lane.
(I think Rushdie has his Latin mixed up by using the expression ad-feminam? The Latin for woman is mulier, as in the Papal encyclical Mulieris Dignitatem (Women's Dignity), surviving in the Portuguese mulher; femina means a suckling woman and only later came to refer to women in general.)
Guardian news coverage of the Rushdie-Greer spat here; Greer's original article here.
Neurocentric has blogged about this also.
And Abdal Hakim Murad has given his thoughts on the matter too.
Femina is just as good latin for "woman", actually. However, the usual combination was "vir" and "mulier" having neutral or positive associations whereas "homo" and "femina" referred either to men or women in general or if applied to an individual had derogatory implications.
"Ad feminam" is a modern invention, i think, so would have been adapted to chime with "ad hominem" without the subtle distinctions of the original latin words.
I read Monica Ali's book, and I thought it was wonderful. Basically sympathetic although understandbly critical of some aspects of Sylheti East London life.
What really offends me is the thought that a group of thugs has stopped the filming project.
I don't know whether the Bangladeshi community in East London quite realises how alien they now appear to us otherwise sympathetic supporters, now the Brick Lane film thugs have stopped a reasonable piece of filming.
Spanish mujer also has the same origin - Spanish j is often equivalent to Portuguese lh (such as viejo/velho).