I was once explaining to someone how a group of my family is part of a “religion” which is really a cult. I was saying how females (being inclusive of the adult women and young girls) in this cult have no body autonomy and how fucked up it is. I was interrupted to be informed that the term female should not be used. They interrupted my explanation of how my fucking family member is being forced to get pregnant over and over, how the girls are being treated like property or pets, because correcting my use of the word female was more important. I will never forget or forgive this moment. I hope this anecdote highlights priorities for everyone that has such a strong opinion about this. Also, I imagine if I wasn’t male, this would have been a nonissue. I don’t know about anyone else, but I actually do want equality. Double standards are outdated.
Context is important. In your case, you’re using female to designate a biological characteristic - aka, a reproductive ability that the cult is specifically exploiting. Some men, especially online, use “female” in a way where normally someone would use the term “woman”, in an attempt to dehumanize women. It’s unfortunate that the person you were talking to couldn’t tell the difference, but as for never forgiving them, maybe a gentle correction could be more warranted?
“Hey, bigots say this and it makes people sound like bigots when they say it”
“I used that word correctly and was told that it made me sound like a bigot. Maybe think about that?”
Cool, maybe get mad at the bigots who ruined the word for people rather than the people saying the word was ruined by bigots.
It’s like when people get mad at the r-slur being a slur now. Like, no, it was always intended as an insult based on medical language. It was always going to become a slur.
Now people are using the word female to both alienate and other women in their language and to “sound smarter” when showing bigotry. Also, you were probably told to not say it because they knew you were better than the assholes who say it in a demeaning way. Maybe… think about that?
Cool, maybe get mad at the bigots who ruined the word for people rather than the people saying the word was ruined by bigots.
A scorpion wants to cross a river but cannot swim, so it asks a frog to carry it across. The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion might sting it, but the scorpion promises not to, pointing out that it would drown if it killed the frog in the middle of the river. The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport the scorpion. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies: “I am sorry, but I couldn’t help myself. It’s my character.”
good luck getting the bigots to change.
Who said anything about getting them to change? Getting mad at people because the word changed instead of getting mad at the people who changed the word is my point. There’s a reason why that word was targeted as a dog whistle, but it is still a dog whistle now and acknowledging that it is isn’t some moral wrong.
Honestly, a handsome specimen of the Ferengi species. I hear he was even the Grand Nagus briefly. And look at those lobes.
Cool it over there. I look like that but I don’t call women females. That was very unwarranted.
Not fair to the military veterans.
They got “That’s not a woman, it’s a female soldier” drilled into them.
“Female” is fine as an adjective. It’s when it’s used as a noun that it becomes a problem. But that’s not a new rule or anything.
Consider when someone says “Black people” vs “the Blacks”.
No stupid questions time: This kind of lurks in the back of my mind and I sometimes find myself hesitating to use the term “female” to refer to female figures in any context. I don’t have to do that, right? Like, would “woman lawyer” be better than “female lawyer” in contexts where specifying gender might be relevant? I would conversely prefer the term “male lawyer” in the same context and “man lawyer” sounds just as odd to me as “woman lawyer”. “Lawyer who is a woman” is a little verbose, too. Am I overthinking this?
Yes you’re over thinking this. A woman lawyer is just a lawyer. Same how a male lawyer is just a lawyer. Unless the gender of the person is important, leave it out of their job title. Use the word actor to describe both men and women who act. Flight attendant for men and women, or receptionist, or any other word. The vast majority of time you can leave their gender out of the description and it’s fine.
Sorry but “woman” is not an adjective and its use that way is grating. You wouldn’t say “man teacher” and it sounds wrong. So does “woman lawyer” or “woman voter.”
The neckbeard/incel thing is using “female” when “woman” would be acceptable and more common, like “look at these females” or something. It doesn’t mean we have to abolish the word “female” entirely from the lexicon.
Yeah, that seems to align nicely with the instincts I outlined in my comment. No need to apologize. Thanks!
My personal rule is female adjective is okay, female noun is not.
From what I googled, it’s especially bad when you pair “man” and “female” together, which makes sense to me.
Just don’t use male or female as nouns to refer to humans. That simple. If you’re talking about animals it doesn’t matter.
They’re just called lawyers, unless they’re lawyering with their genitals and their sex is somehow relevant.
I work in statistics and we never use girl of woman, only female. The line is vastly different in age and meaning depending on culture, religion, law, or heritage. Even in western societ, 13, 16, 18, and 21 are all valid before tipping to 40, 50, 60, 65, 68, and 70 where the term can be prefixed with some form of adjective.
It’s old-fashioned. Just say female and every culture/society understands you without confusion or insult. Save you embarassing/insulting people while travelling too.
What the guys behind closed doors at the Republican Party leadership look like when they take their mask off.
They are all just from the rib of a man or whatever it was anyway, right?
“Men and females.”
Yes that’s the issue, if you use them inconsistently. Males, females. Men, women. Same for boys, girls actually. Saying boys and women or men and girls can seem belittling to the other.
I consistently used males and females in some contexts but I’ve noticed that it often still comes across as weird when talking about humanoids.
“You let them wear clothes?”
Also does anyone find it odd how often society calls grown women girls while they stick to men when referring to men without a second thought? I still do it when I’m not paying attention.
Fun use of “boys” has been really popular for quite some time. Me and the boys. Boys will be boys.
Those are specific phrases but yeah I getcha. And you could argue, like some other replies said, sometimes “boys” is used in casual ways, “girls” is used as an equivalent to “guys”, it can mean “gals” too. Fair points but I do believe people have some kind of aversion to “woman/women” and won’t ever use if in a fun context. it’s just an uptight sounding word for some reason.
As a man, this has legit always bugged me. We use “girls” in contexts that we would NEVER use “boys” in, even when they’re the same age.
I just view it as a quirk of the language. “Guys and girls” or “guys and gals” are paired words. Guy is a casual way to refer to men, so I think people use girl as a casual way to refer to women because it’s sort of the pair to guy. Lady feels too formal.
Anecdotal but most people I hear using ‘female’ are women.
If they have big ears they are either the big bad wolf, or ferengi in disguise
Gotta love how “”””radfems”””” love the term “adult human female” too.
Trans women are adult human females.
True. It’s just a slogan in the same way that “being White is all right” is or “All Lives Matter” is. It’s not supposed to mean what it means. It’s a code.
Like - once, 4chan (/pol/ and /b/ primarily, early mid 2010s) that it would be funny to make drinking milk a racist thing. It was explicitly discussed how this would make people upset about people drinking milk, and how this would be funny. The alt right weirdos in on the joke get the joke, leftists are befuddled and outraged, the stupid conservative weirdos are laughing at the dumb liberals and their cancel culture getting worked up about milk. Same thing with that pinched thumb and index finger “okay” symbol. 14 and 88 have lost their plausible deniability in most spaces at least.
Very similarly, the idea of MAPS was a /pol/ operation that was carried out to delegitimize the LGBT movement. The idea of people identifying with a sexual orientation based on being exclusively attracted to children, to the point of creating a pride flag, was mostly a /pol/ op. This is not to say that there aren’t creeps who did actually identify as such as a consequence of this movement, but it wasn’t a natural movement of creeps.
Language games. The limits of my language are the limits of my world. They mean something entirely different even in just human there.
Obviously the exclusionary group is going to exclude the people they don’t like with their slogans though. Trans exclusionary radical feminists don’t believe trans women are women. The “adult human female” shit across from them “defining woman” or something to that effect.
I know, but I used to really piss off transphobes with that line. At least one immediately quote retweeted me, while calling me out as an “extreme misogynist” (she was defending Matt Walsh of all people, saying he’s just practicing his “right to religion”) just before blocking me.
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