Here’s my two cents. It’s hard for people to keep up with the euphemism treadmill. There was a time when the word “female” didn’t have the negative connotation that it does now mostly thanks to co-opting by incels. It should also be stated that the word “male” doesn’t have the same negative connotations and it’s similar to how there’s slurs for black people but none for white people.
So why do people find “female” offensive? Well for starters it’s dehumanizing. Women is a less academic term and female implies some biological essentialism. I think the crux as to why it’s a big deal now is that women do not refer to themselves as females in the manner that men do. Men do not think of themselves as males, they do not call other men males, men call themselves men. male and female are simply outdated terms.
I suspect one day as society moves towards a more genderqueer position men and women will become unacceptable to say too. Idk. Like I think we need to acknowledge that there is such thing as a euphemism treadmill, that languages change, words become offensive or nonoffensive over time, and like all we can do in order to be a fucking decent human bean is to conform to society’s standards as to what is acceptable as according to the treadmill. Unless it’s some shit like calling the homeless, the unhoused. Then in those specific instances we got to run against the treadmill. But in this specific instance, we need to run with the treadmill on this one. Nothing feels better than conforming with society.
Pro-tip:
Never correct a person who refers to women as “females”
Don’t ever teach misogynists how to refine their language and to develop a more socially-acceptable way of concealing their attitudes.
Let them throw up those red flags immediately so that people can immediately avoid chuds who use this language.
shit like calling the homeless, the unhoused
I have a strong preference for “rough sleepers” because there are people who are in temporary housing, that are couch surfing etc. which don’t strictly fit into the term homeless but who experience precarious (and typically inadequate) housing and because some people consider places home, such as their cars (sometimes by preference), and devaluing what a person calls home because it doesn’t meet my personal definition of a home is kinda shitty whereas acknowledging that their home may be precarious or inadequate without erasing the fact that it’s home to them, I think, is preferable.
/rant
Correcting a misogynist is more likely to provoke a visible reaction than ignoring problematic speech. If it isn’t corrected, it becomes normal.
I mean, that’s kind of the point though.
I think it’s preferable that using the term “female” as a noun is normalised among people who see women as objects and that they continue using that term because it’s like a klaxon identifying people who are misogynists or who have latent misogynistic beliefs.
If we coach misogynists in ways to conceal their misogyny then it becomes much, much harder to identify them especially in social media spaces.
I’d much rather that these people loudly announce themselves to the people who know better than to blend in with people who are progressive and radical.
Teaching people to adjust their language doesn’t change their beliefs.
Misogynists have historically held more institutional power than women. We had a time when women knew how to speak inclusively and misogynists didn’t, it was called the 1960s. It sucked.
I have a strong preference for “rough sleepers”
it’s also what most homeless orgs use here (england)
We’ve moved away from that here to “unhoused” which is likely politically-motivated to narrow the scope of who faces inadequate and unstable housing to exclusively the people who are out on the streets tonight.
So, y’know, if you’ve got a couch to crash on for this week then it’s basically a screw you: you’re totally fine and we’re not going to consider you kinda deal.
There was a time when the word “female” didn’t have the negative connotation that it does now mostly thanks to co-opting by incels.
I feel obligated to point out that Ferengi in 90s Star Trek called women “female” and it was supposed to make you understand that they were misogynistic. So it’s not really something that started with incels over the last few years.
“Women” is fine as a noun, but what should be used as an adjective if not “female”?
I’m going with comrade Feinberg on this, i use woman for the gender identity, feminine for the social role and female for biological characteristics. If you need an adjective relating to woman, it’s womanly, if you need a noun relating to feminine, it’s fem / femme, if you want to use female as a noun you better be talking about a dog and not a human being.
if you want to use female as a noun you better be talking about a dog and not a human being.
But also don’t talk about dogs like that
Honestly, it’s mostly just a concept from some throwaway paragraph from Feinberg’s Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue that i’ve ran with and then spiced up a little.
Yeah that’s how I understand it. Like saying “that’s a female horse” is normal and fine.
The issue is saying “look at that female over there” or “she is a female”. That’s the dehumanizing shit, “look at that woman” or “she is a woman” is far less weird as well.
It’d been something Redditeurs have been doing since way back in the SRS days - weird nerd shit.
Because of the demeaning usage as a noun, some people are starting to get uncomfortable with even using female as an adjective, and you will hear people use “woman” as an adjective like “she became the first woman triathlete” which isn’t really right but it’s not that bad… I dunno, I’m a guy so take my two cents for what they’re worth, but I don’t think we should surrender the entire word “female” to weird online fascist nerds
This is something that trips me up, especially when I’m speaking.
I tend to use some version of “oriented towards women” or “stereotypically 'women’s [such and such]” but using “feminine” (and “masculine”) can often work too.
I try to avoid saying “female” as an adjective because it is biologically-essentist and exclusive of all women. But it does make for clunkier wording often.
sometimes it’s rephrasing entirely like “first woman in space” rather than “first female cosmonaut”.
if it’s relevant to bring up biological norms then female and male are fine as long as you’re not trampling over trans people, but we should certainly avoid constructions like “men and females” which the and incels use without thinking.
I’ve seen the use of ‘fem’ or similar used for the adjective to be more inclusive and less awkward. A ‘fem space’ is inclusive of trans women, where as a ‘female space’ very well might not be in many cases, and it’s harder to know without specifically asking. Just what I’ve been seeing in use lately.
