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Some of these men call other men “males” as well. I used to call both genders by such “technical” terminology because I did not think it was offensive until a woman complained in a forum I frequented like 15 years ago.
TBH I feel annoyed that I can’t use those terms because I know some guys use the term to intentionally dehumanize specifically women and I am not that sort of guy. But also I really tend to embrace neutral/technical/clinical language a lot because of a general disdain for romantic thinking and language.
Things are not more than what they are.
anything you call people will offend some people….
i’m sure some chucklefyck doesn’t want to be called a “people”… actually “you people” is often offensive.
it’s all about context, and being as respectful as is reasonable… for example, “retard” literally means “slow”… you could retard the growth of a plant. mentally retarded was just a term for having severe cognitive disabilities that made you unable to interact normally and made you need care to live… but through a history of people abusing those people, and of course using that as an insult made it offensive and dehumanizing.
with calling people “females”, i think it’s because it’s extremely uncommon except for when people are dehumanizing women… so when someone innocently use the term they can be seen as likely oppressive… due to context.
also, given the transphobia thing, and scientific/anthropology defining female as the biological sex and woman as the associated gender, one might think you’re slipping transphobia into regular conversation…
and of course people like simple heuristics so “guys who call women ‘females’ are likely bad people”, works well enough….It’s worth noting that the words ‘male’ and ‘female’ are adjectives, not nouns, so if you want to be technical then it’s erroneous to use them thusly. That is, it is correct to say “I am male”, but to say “I am a male” is grammatically erroneous.
In common speech, people don’t tend to describe other human beings with these two adjectives, i.e. most people would say “she is a woman” rather than “she is female” (note, not “she is a female” because ‘female’ is not a noun). However, we do commonly describe animals using these adjectives, and colloquially the noun is commonly dropped. E.g., “it’s a female” is seen as a perfectly normal way to describe a horse when it’s understood that the other party knows that you mean “it’s a female horse”. This is why it is considered offensive to refer to a woman as “a female”: it implies that she is an object, less than human and more suitably treated as livestock.
I only have two dictionaries, but both have male and female as both adjectives and nouns. In what dictionary are you seeing them only as adjectives?
Even dictionary.com has “noun: a male person” and “noun: a female person”, which goes directly against both your grammar point and your livestock point.
Hopefully you’re just a linguistic prescriptivist with a preferred dictionary that doesn’t match mine. Edit: removed a rude remark
That said, as a descriptivist, I accept that those words (as nouns or otherwise) are changing to sometimes be derogatory, so I try not to use them to describe people, just to avoid my intentions being misunderstood.
Just a thoughtless prescriptivist, repeating what I’d understood from previous such discussions, without having done my own due diligence. 🤷 I stand corrected.
Glad my suspicion was wrong, sorry for the rude comment!
But humans are an animal.
The main difference is that humans see other animals as purchasable or otherwise controllable and generally only refer to their sex when forcing them to breed. Women don’t like the comparison.
I specifically remember the woman that complained that “female” was dehumanizing so that mostly tracks, but the issue with that perception is that people purchase male animals for breeding and people (men or women) who heard me using the same terminology never complained about the dehumanization of calling them males. I get that the social dynamics here are complicated of course. I suppose men typically are socialized to not care about being dehumanized or even perceive dehumanization as much. The asymmetry irks me.
I’ll repeat that I don’t use the terminology anymore for the sake of politeness but my thoughts remain nuanced on the matter. Where some see dehumanization, I see on the opposite end a coping mechanism in the form of a base level of romanticization. Implying we humans are free of our animal instincts or that we ought to be ashamed of the best aspects (IMO) of our animal nature.
Men who use the term “female” as a means to purposefully dehumanize are of course not only assholes but also annoying to me in the same way just inverted: I dislike debasing things that are neutral/positive for the sense of elitism or superiority. Or making something innocent and ordinary out to be crude and gross. I’ve never really related that well to men telling sex jokes for instance (and I’ve had some male friends who did that constantly and it annoyed me but I mostly just rolled my eyes at it).
I don’t like crudeness at the same level as romanticization because that crude attitude also implies a sacredness that they’re purposefully defiling. I don’t like the implication of existing sacredness OR the desire to get under people’s skin about it since that just contributes to the sense of taboo around sexuality and gender.
I’m not at my keyboard so my reply will be more brief than I’d like. Unfortunately, connotations will always have a significant amount of contextual nuance, and human communication is absolutely full of it. I appreciate that you make an effort to not upset people, and understand how certain terms have been ruined by those mis-using phrases. It is absolutely frustrating when something should be neutral. But language itself conveys semantics and tone, it will be impossible to have everyone take even the most innocuous sentences as neutral, because unless you’re lecturing facts, people will try to attach a purpose to your words.
Just replying to show a genuine interest in a more fleshed out response from you when you are at a keyboard again, if you aren’t up for writing more on it though, no worries.
I think it’s as weird and antisocial as the next guy to call women “females” but I also think it’s weird that it’s treated like not receiving approval from women is the worst possible thing that can happen to a man when implying that women need male approval is obviously sexist
idk, some incels will certainly act like not getting approval from women was the worst possible thing that could happen to them, and then go and do something much worse to others
yeah but this post isn’t about incels. posts like these shoot strays at all men
While I agree, it specifically says “those men,” so I think the idea is that men who see women as wombs or genes or whatever should also expect to be viewed with the same lens
It’s not about that. It’s their choice of insult. Saying “people who voted for Trump are retarded” doesn’t make it not ableist just because you specified it’s about Trump voters. Catch my drift?
Ah I see what you’re saying, yeah agreed. I think I too quickly read your comment, cheers
That’s how generalizations and language work. It’s ALWAYS implied that it’s not ALL of a group. Unless someone says “literally all men”, and then whatever that person is saying is wrong because there’s no way it’s literally all.
So good news, is you’re not like that, it’s not about you.
my entire point is that generalizations are harmful lmao
Not all generalisations
That’s your interpretation, and my point is that the way language works, you’re interpreting wrong.
Awesome. So when other racists like yourself talk about “Blacks” or “Mexicans,” that’s fine because we can just assume you don’t mean “ALL Mexicans are rapists,” right?
I don’t follow. How does being bigoted about a group based on race get better when you target less than 100%?
Why excuse the same being done for men? I would have said “a group based on sex”, but the people doing this definitely understand the issue when it’s women.
There’s a good chance you and I won’t ever agree on this, but let me check.
Do you believe that the current system is biased in favor of straight white men?
They’re pretty much the only group I know of that uses female that way on purpose, but I suppose we could just throw in all misogynists and my comment would still apply
I think you’re not really getting what I’m saying. See my other comment:
It’s not about that. It’s their choice of insult. Saying “people who voted for Trump are retarded” doesn’t make it not ableist just because you specified it’s about Trump voters. Catch my drift?
Equating moral corruption to sexual undesirability is just stupid. It implies the inverse too, that sexually undesirable people are morally corrupt, which is actually a pretty huge problem in society. It also implies that men need validation from women which is just false.
Well, I think we can agree on one thing. I guess I don’t really get what you’re saying ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I mean, I’ve been pretty clear… and nobody else is having trouble understanding what I’m trying to say. is it possible that on some level you kind of like, don’t want to understand?
Personally I think that using sexual desirability as a point of ridicule is pretty toxic regardless of who is doing it and it’s not going to help to solve the problem, but “not receiving approval from women” kind of is the worst possible thing that can happen for a lot of them, at least in their minds. The whole “men and females” thing has its roots in incel culture and they’re well known to obsess over the tiniest facets of their interactions with women to the point of nausea, looking for any excuse to condemn women for not being attracted to them. They see not receiving approval from women as the ultimate condemnation of not only women, but also themselves. It’s why people use it as an insult - it’s effective against them.
I really don’t think making this about incels makes sense and I’ll demonstrate why:
Woman calls me unfuckable -> I’m an incel
I call a woman unfuckable -> I’m an incel
There’s little logical consistency around the topic and it’s kind of just become a loophole to cancel morality when it comes to attacking men. I’m really careful with my wording to avoid triggering this response because if I do, people stop processing what I’m saying and they start dogpiling.
Agreed… but hear me out. Men usualy are more sex driven and usually (not every man of course but the majority let’s say) will have sex with a random woman. Women on the other hand usually (AS IN NOT EVERY WOMAN) (I’m saying that so crazy people don’t come after me with the “I’m not like that”) need more conection. Women will go home and not have sex if no man was interesting enough to her and she won’t feel bad, man will go home with the woman he thinks it’s the ugliest (again USUALLY) if she is the only one that’s up to it, because for men going home alone is defeat. If you rationalize that looks is not everything for women than a man that is rejected by every woman has a lame personality while woman that are rejected by men are usually based on looks.
So yes, in this (not general but commom) scenario a man that is unfuckable is an asshole and a woman may be an asshole or may just be fat
edit: is late and I don’t have my glasses so sorry for some dumb english
I don’t really think things are actually the way you suppose they are. I think that’s a cultural model that’s been built up by media. It may have been true at one point but from what I can tell based on my experiences in real life, it seems to be more the inverse nowadays. All my male friends seem to be much more choosy with who they sleep with (preferring a real connection) while my female friends seem to be a lot more outgoing and likely to have sex without a connection. I’m talking about a sample size of about 20 people I’ve hung out with in the past year, but I’m also considering people I knew when I was highschool / college age.
really?! that must be cultural. I’m not american but from my experience also from male and female friends since…ever lol… men tend not to care. I’ve seen a friend hit on and take home a homeless toothless smelly woman I would say at least 10 years older than him. And his answer to me was “if you are too picky you starve”
GenZ is overwhelmingly sex negative. I think that the movement for sexual liberation of women works to bring GenZ women back to baseline (or above) while GenZ men remain very sexually repressed. Just a theory, but it seems true in my life. I live in an American city fwiw
Agreed… but hear me out. Men usualy are more sex driven a
The phrase ‘the weaker sex’ isn’t about the strength of the body.
If I feel the need to use the word “female” in that way, I am not looking for approval. I am only looking to evade “girl”/“woman”/“lady” traps [1] and trying to be as less social and as robotic as possible.
“trap” as in snare trap/ bear trap etc. not the other trap. Now this was another trap. You see what I am talking about? ↩︎
I always find it weird when guys refer to girls as “females”. I can’t help but read it in a Ferengi voice.
“Females and finances don’t mix. Rule of Acquisition 94.”
My favorite thing about that is that, in DS9, a female ferenghi goes on to be the most successful leader of their people ever.
Last i checked Rom was a male ferengi tho (I know you mean Ishta)
Ishka*
Ah dang. Been watching too much Stargate lately
Meh, it’s a thing in the military because female military members are segregated and have different uniforms.
A woman in the military isn’t described as that, they’re a “femal soldier/sailor/marine” and all their uniforms, regs, standards, and housing comes with that prefix.
Even tho “female” descriptor comes first it’s to ingrain that above all else they’re a service member.
It’s about what the noun is.
It took a couple years till I stopped slipping, and I understand why a service member would use it. That shit gets so beat intto you that you really don’t even notice it. So when you get let out into the civilian world, it’s hard to break the habit. Those people would appreciate being called out that what they’re doing is weird for civvies tho.
But yeah…
99% of the people using it are just fucking weird.
“Female <job title>” isnt at all as bad as just… “female”, the prior is a clarifying adjective, the latter is using it as a descriptive noun.
Like if I say “Female Officers suffer from above average sexual harassment” that statement isnt a big deal.
If I say “You are a beautiful female” to a woman though, it sounds disgusting.
I mean literally just compare these two basic statements.
“Go hand this package to that Female Officer over there” (This just distinguishes the Female Officer from the Male Officers probably standing near her)
vs
“Go hand this package to that Female over there” (this sounds like you are an alien visiting earth and talking to me)
Ever hear:
Hand me that Philips head
And get pissed off?
Because someone used the adjective when the noun was implied?
Like, I mentioned a specific context where it was used normally and now you’re wanting me to defend every imagined use you can think of.
It’s tiresome
Fundamentally adjectives vs noun do indeed carry substantially different weight.
Which of these statements would you say will piss someone off more:
“You’re a bitch” “You’re being bitchy”
Anyone with common sense knows the former sentence carries way more weight in terms of a statement.
“Female Officer” is just not rude, because its merely a clarifier, to avoid confusion.
“Female” can be used that way to, but usually its not necessary when referring to people, it only makese sense when used to clarify animals as a whole.
“Female mammals have ovaries” for example makes sense, because it clarifies which mammals we are talking about.
But if you say “Female Humans” now you sound like an alien describing people, because you and I are humans, so we don’t need to specify, it sounds “outer”, like something someone other than a human would write.
The only time itd make sense to use that is when literally distinguishing Female Humans from Females of another type.
IE “Unlike Female Bugs, Female Humans don’t lay eggs”
Then it goes back to making sense.
I believe this correlates in a similar way to Earth’s 7th Crack Commandment.
deleted by creator
The male looks in the mirror and realizes he’ll die alone. He tries to distract himself with glass rectangles.
Oh, fuck off.
I’m not using my glass rectangle just to be reminded of that.
Ponder the rectangle…
The rectangle is mysterious and important.
I had no idea that this term has a negative connotation to it. I knew it only as a very neutral, rational term. But when I literally translate it to my native language, then I’ll start to understand it. Used in the given context, it’s objectifying and degrading and I guess it’s the same for English.
Seems like this is one of those things that women think will make men uncomfortable, but really winds up making their day because men are so starved of positive connection that even a neutral commentary on their life is refreshing because that means someone is paying attention to them.
I wouldn’t describe being called “unfuckable” neutral. But yeah they probably would like some level of attention, even the negative kind.
For the right person unfuckable can be an euphemism.
Sounds ok to me (male).
“The male wakes up at 7am, so he can prepare for his office work; he’s tired and being worn down, yet somehow remains resolute. In this way, he channels the spirit of the emperor penguin and endures.”
Remember folks, the gender wars distract from the class wars we should all be engaged in!
Remember folks, the gender wars distract from the class wars we should all be engaged in!
Excuse me but the class war IS a war against the patriarchy
For female it makes it sound like a Ferengi lol:
“HOOMON FEEEMALE?”
Please point out “female” in my post - I’ll wait
Yeah I initially thought it was a response to my post so my original reply made no sense lol, my bad
No worries, life is busy. Thanks for clearing that up.
The OP made a good point.
I can multitask.
Really, at full efficiency? If so, my hat is off to you!
Yes, I can care about and work at many different things in the course of my week, month and year. I think a lot of people can.
I’d say a lot of people think they can, and this I have witnessed all to well (and too often), yet rarely (never in certainly) have I seen those who can.
Sure, my 73 year old mother can’t walk at a brisk pace and have a deep conversation at the same time. But it doesn’t mean that she can’t spend a week educating herself about race inequality and then read up on class conflict the next week after that.
Why should we ignore one issue in favor of another? Of course, if someone doesn’t have the mental energy for more than one thing, they should focus on the one thing that matters most to them.
But I do think that it’s a bit blithe to tell everyone that they shouldn’t spend time on challenging sexism, because we should all instead just focus on class warfare.Okay but that’s literally not what multitasking means. She would have to be reading one course in a book and an entirely different subject on her phone at the same time, with zero loss of retention or speed. There are ways the military trains people to do actual multitasking specifically, but for the vast majority of us we only have single-threaded thought processes that switch between lanes ALMOST but not quite instantly, so you’re just introducing stops and starts. It’s like how talking to someone while you’re driving WILL distract you, and the line on what kind of distracted driving is banned or not is based more on what kinds of things are enforceable (physical presence of a phone at x minute and location or some such).
thank god i don’t rate my value as a human to if someone else considers me fuckable or not.
that is ick and ew no matter which gender
Calling someone a “female” to their face certainly makes you unfuckable tho.
If your native language is English and your intent is to be demeaning, sure
Goes for behind their back as well. Unless there is only straight makes, in that case it’s another reason.
I meant “to their face” as in when referring to an individual instead of in the context of referring specifically to the persons sex like “female soldier”
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been referred to as a “male” or “man” or “cis gender male” and it doesn’t bother me one single bit. I generally just avoid people who get offended over every little “wrong” word
Amen to this man. People get too tied up in little words and stupid shit. So many bigger fish to fry but you’ll get upset when someone uses the word female in any context.
I doubt any male would find this offensive. Call em males, they are afterall. If anything they will most likely play into the narration and make you say some absurd shit just for the lulz
Women’s lib has a mere 50yrs on it and there’s still work to do. People lose sight of how new it is for women to own their own bank accounts and such.
Maybe because men weren’t seen as second-class citizens and aren’t used to being objectified, belittled or physically and legally forced into a submissive role.
I don’t like leaving serious comments on a place like this, especially since you are right that’s how most men would react, just felt I had to say something since calling women ‘females’ is actually quite seriously wrong (even though they are afterall) and the fact that men don’t experience this behaviour as something scary it makes that clear. I like this meme because it empowers women to do as they please, and I think you do not mean to defend mysogonists who want to dehumanise women, but some people might read into your comment ‘well the reason woman get upset by this is because women are [something negative], while men are [something positive]’.
No most people will give you a very weird look if you refer to a man as a male in the pronoun sense.
“How are you doing, males?” would make you sound like a fuckin alien pretending to be a human lol.
“I doubt any male would find this offensive.”
nobody said they would.
"Call em males, they are afterall. "
go ahead, next time you see ir are talking about a man or men , say “hey, male” or “males like to…” see how they respond to what has become a derogatory, sexualized term for a person in casual conversation.
the demeaning objectification is why insecure men say “female” and men are not addressed as “males”.
Sure? I’d do it all day. It wouldn’t bother me on the giving or receiving end. it’s a word with a definition and as long as it applies to the situation/male I’m speaking with it’ll be business as usual. In fact, I’ll use it to address every single male I encounter for the next 24 hours, in and out of work. That’s how confident I am that nobody, that is male would bat an eye or care.
What about the term ladies…is that ‘socially acceptable’. It’s got sexual connotations like ladies of the night. Which is another way of sayings street whore. Should that be shunned too? Perhaps we should just abolish English or even language altogether for fear that someone gets offended.
I really do not understand these weird feelings people put on things, then expect the world to ensure they follow some rule of feelings. It’s absurd.
“I’d do it all day.”
this is exactly your problem, that you’re okay insulting people. You are bragging about not caring about others.
You care about your own feelings and want everyone to listen to only your feelings.
Insulting people or claiming that you wouldn’t mind being insulted doesn’t matter here, it’s that you’re hurting other people.
“as long as it applies to the situation/male I’m speaking with it’ll be business as usua”
that’s how definitions work, not people, not intention, not culture, and not objectification.
you can choose in your mind to believe that an insult is not insulting, but that doesn’t stop the insult from being insulting.
You are exclusively targeting women here.
You can attack gay people on the weekends and swear that you just like hitting people with bats, it has nothing to do with them being gay, but if you are exclusively targeting homosexuals, then you are attacking gay people, it doesn’t matter what your asserted beliefs are.
You can claim you don’t mean an insult as an insult, but if you use that insult, then you are insulting people.
You are hurting others despite what your feelings are.
“What about the term ladies.”
that is socially acceptable depending on the social group and your intentions.
you can say “punk” as a friendly jibe with a friend or you can call someone a punk in a bar and get yourself ostracized or even get your ass beat.
your problem with using “female” is that it’s used primarily as an objectifying term in casual conversation, so again, you can choose to claim an insult is not insulting, but that doesn’t negate the insult.
Your feelings do not negate the feelings of others.
When you use that term, you are insulting all women using a shorthand to show that you do not respect any woman as an equal person.
“street whore. Should that be shunned too?”
yes, “street whore” is another insulting term that should not be used to refer to half of the human race.
“we should just abolish English…”
that is an impractical and unrealistic solution to your specific bigotry.
There’s no reason to punish everyone for your selfish bigotry.
“I really do not understand these weird feelings…”
This is probably a symptom of focusing internally rather than on the community you are a part of.
Empathy is the key. If someone tells you how they would like to be treated, treat them that way.
If they tell you they would not like you to insult them, then don’t insult them.
You can choose to insult them if you want, but that doesn’t make you a revolutionary, just an asshole.
“hey follow some rule of feelings. It’s absurd.”
This is correct because it’s what you are insisting.
You are insisting that everyone follow your feelings alone and to ignore the feelings of everyone else.
Which is absurd.
What about the term ladies…is that ‘socially acceptable’.
It is, yes.
“Female” is the term to refer to the sex of an animal, which does include humans but its usually the term you use when describing a… dog or cat or whatever.
People however prefer when you specifically use any of the multitude of human gender terms for us.
So Woman, Lady, Maam, Gals, Girls, Chicks, etc. These all still are what you call a person
Consider the inverse: When you refer to an animal with those terms, its an act of respect, you’ve humanized it. If you walk up to a cow and say “Hello maam” it’s usually inherently signaling “I like/respect this animal to the degree Im using a human pronoun for it”
Or if you have a pet deg and you go “Lookit this distinguished gentleman” or “How are you today sir?”, same diff, you humanized it via the pronoun, which is a way to signal love/affection/respect.
When you do the opposite and call a woman a female or a man a male, it’s inherently disrespectful. You’ve effectively implied you classify them at the same tier as an animal in a laboratory. It dehumanizes.
If you think about all the classic insults for people, a lot of them just boil down to calling them an animal. “Pig” “Bitch” “Cow”, “Sheep” etc, if you call people by these terms its usually considered at minimum sorta offensive, but often very offensive.
“Female” is the same, when you refer to a woman.
When you refer to someone as a human (a specifically human term) is it paradoxically dehumanizing?
The human argues that clinical, generic terms nonspecific to humans dehumanize people.
Perhaps referring to a person by more generic, abstract terms indicates (bizarre) distance & detachment rather than anything inherently dehumanizing?
Those examples you cited signaled closeness or distance to me rather than humanity & respect. As in “I feel close to this animal, so I’ll address it in specific personal terms for addressing a person I may know”.
The insults, however, refer to a human as an animal they are not while drawing unfavorable comparisons. It doesn’t work with every animal, eg, fox, vixen, ox, lion, shark, starfish. Also varies by context & comparisons drawn.
Reading more into generic, abstract terms is an interpretation and some contexts may indicate that. However, claiming an inherently disrespectful or dehumanizing meaning is contentious: without context to support it, it seems more like an effort to seek grievance than to consider honest meaning.
Perhaps referring to a person by more generic, abstract terms indicates (bizarre) distance & detachment rather than anything inherently dehumanizing?
I think these two go hand in hand, when spoken by a human.
Because if I, a person, refer to your humanity in a detached way, it still is implying you are “distanced” from me (the person), contextually.
And typically this is assumed to be in a superiority form of way as a default, because we associate it with the way we all collectively tend to talk about objects.
That’s why it only comes across as offensive when spoken by another human, because they shouldnt be speaking about a fellow specific human in a detached way… on account of them being a human too.
However, claiming an inherently disrespectful or dehumanizing meaning is contentious
Sure. The context when it isn’t is if the person is so socially naive that they genuinely don’t understand this and it’s a honest mistake.
And, yes, I have met people like this. Usually either younger folks, or ELL.
If, however, you become informed of how this comes across and choose to keep doing it anyways now it is intentionally abrasive and will be taken offensively.
Any person who goes “yes I know this pisses people off, and I’m going to do it anyways, even though it’s trivially easy to not to do the thing” is self centered and demonstrating anti social behaviors.
Aka, an asshole.
And typically this is assumed to be in a superiority form of way as a default, because we associate it with the way we all collectively tend to talk about objects.
That assumption seems loaded: relative value is unstated.
The infected must maintain a safe distance or remain quarantined to prevent further infection.
is highly impersonal & could refer to any organism. However, it doesn’t inherently disrespect or dehumanize. It’s a factual & neutral statement (or implied instruction) that focuses on a specific quality.
Saying it directly to someone would be weird unless they’re announcing it to an entire room (depersonalizing). Still, it’s not suggesting anyone is lesser than human or necessarily disrespecting them. Common notices work the same way.
We don’t need people constantly reminding us we’re human to understand they’re not denying our humanity.
if the person is so socially naive that they genuinely don’t understand this and it’s a honest mistake
Or they disagree with your take. Others share your take, but it’s also a commonly rejected take. It’s not a logically necessary take.
If, however, you become informed of how this comes across
As if the informant has authority on the language for everyone?
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. That includes opinions that oppose unreasonable & unjust opinions.
Unless acting abusively, expressions that merely disagree don’t necessarily make someone an asshole. Deciding it does looks more like going on an expedition for assholes that aren’t there.
This distracts from the question, though, of whether such depersonalized language goes further & necessarily dehumanizes. I think there’s fair disagreement that it does.
As if the informant has authority on the language for everyone?
You are being actively obtuse if someone informs you “lots of people are offended by this” and you just plug your ears and go “you don’t speak for them”
It’s common knowledge. If you refuse to go along with it, you are just bring an asshole abd you will struggle to form meaningful relationships.
People who refuse to just put in the 1% of effort needed to not be offensive are destined to lead a hollow existence, constantly plagued either short term relationships that keep ending early as people get to know who they are and then peace out, or, are also an asshole and they get to “enjoy” each other’s company.
You aren’t arguing in good faith here. If someone tells you something is offensive, it’s nearly zero effort to just go “oh sorry” and just move on.
Only assholes sit and try and debate and argue about how they should be allowed to be an asshole.
You are allowed to be an asshole, it’s not illegal, but it doesn’t stop it from being asshole behavior.
I only use the term ‘females’ in the context of … some kind of discussion of medical or biological studies … or to differentiate between a girlfriend and a platonic female friend…
But I am guilty of the whole open fridge and sigh thing.
However.
If I turned around and David Attenborough was physically present, narrating me… I think I would be overjoyed and just try to get him to watch a nature documentary with me.
Or even better, go outside and just continue to be amused at his narration of me, and see if I can’t get him to a park or something and see if he switches over to narrating the ducks.
I’m not a native speaker, but I think it’s normal to request a “female nurse” but asking for a “woman nurse” sounds weird. But saying “I would like my nurse to be a woman” sounds normal again
Use woman when you need a noun, use female when you need an adjective. It’s that easy
Or, only time, use it as a noun in a clinical/scientific sense when you literally are distinguishing “people who were born with ovaries”, IE “Females have higher estrogen levels” or something like that, when you are literally talking about the physical sex, and not gender.
idk I really don’t think it takes that much thought, we don’t need to be so sensitive to the nuance when it’s so easy to just not use language maliciously
It doesn’t require much thought, these are implicit rules you already should intuitively know if you have been participating in western culture for a few years.
You should be able to intuitively know that
“You are acting like an asshole”
Carries way different weight than
“You are an asshole”
Clarifiers are much “softer” than nouns, as they are subjective instead of objective
You hopefully got some basic lessons on Facts vs Opinions in early grade school, it’s the same concept.
The word “female” should not be a negative. What a weird anti-intellectual direction this world is taking.
Might as well ban the word “cloud” next.
It’s one of those things that didn’t use to be negative but has been hijacked by shitty people and now has negative connotations depending on context.
It’s not the use of the word “female” itself, but the use of the word as a noun to describe a woman, because it is taken to imply that the woman is a mere object. As the other person who replied to you said: context matters.
I use the word “female” (and “male”) every single day when documenting on my patients, e.g. my notes commonly begin with “Patient is xx years old, female, […].” This is normal and no one would take issue with it, because it is using “female” as an adjective and in a context where the information is important.
Is it? Kinda makes you sound like a Ferengi IMO
Spoken like a hu-man
Pish these homo-sapians
You wouldn’t want a narrator trying that on me. You’d be bored to tears.
The opinions of people who think that 4,000,000,000 “Men” constitute a valid stereotype don’t matter a lot to me
This tweet is clearly not about 4,000,000,000 men, but the significantly smaller subset of those men calling women “females”. It might help to read a post before getting angry about it?
