I cringe every time I hear another guy refer to women like this
There’s vanishingly few places where the use of the word female is correct. The test is generally if the word male would also be correct and not weird there. If the speaker is talking about men and females then we have a problem.
There’s also a couple exceptions where the misogynist language got assimilated but it’s so normal that you can’t tell just by their use of the word. Like the military talking about female soldiers. For example there is a need to distinguish between male and female body armor. But also they talk about the needs of soldiers and female soldiers without a hint of disparagement. It’s just how they make it clear there needs to be a second latrine ditch and the camp shower needs to have at least canvas walls. The only fix most of us can see for this is persistently referring to men as male soldiers too because women soldiers sounds weird and doesn’t solve the problem of default soldier vs qualifier soldier.
vanishingly few
As it should be. Equality is crucial, and women’s rights generally pave the way for minorities. Uff. I hate that this is usually how it is, but look how far women have come since the turn of the 20th century - hell, even the 21st century
Imagine getting fitted with body armor suited for a different body type and having to just deal with it when rounds are coming at you. Yeah, we need a new language to make sense of non-cis people in the military, but we shouldn’t sacrifice their lives because of it.
I bet you’re in the same boat. In the interim, we use the language necessary to keep us alive and respect everyone in our crew in the process. But yeah, guys calling girls “females” outside of that is weird and definitely a red card for dating. That should be the brunt of our attention.
During the whole Olympic controversy on the Algerian boxer, Imane Khelif, questioning her actual gender, someone was making mental gymnastics that she still has testerone level higher than “vanilla females”.
Lol, vanilla females. That alone says a lot.
Not that we need to open this can of worms here, but it’s a pet peeve of mine that “vanilla” has become a term used to mean plain, boring, sheltered, standard, mediocre, underwhelming, basic, and uninteresting.
Vanilla is an amazing flavor that comes from orchids that must be hand pollinated to cultivate at scale, and has a long and interesting history. It’s the second most valuable spice after saffron.
Just feels wrong to use that as a synonym for bland and blah.
My girlfriend calls women “females”.
Where is your god now, Raychelle?
How I use and it will still catch issues:
Male/Female - Sex
Man/Woman (He/She) - Gender.
Cultural anthropology has recognized gender as being different from sex in textbooks since the 70s from what I remember (so half a century). My minor was in Cultural Anthropology so I remember always seeing it in college (2008-2013)
Science will continue to change as we learn more about the universe, so things are dynamic and ever growing to fuller understanding.
Also language is fluid, and changes over time/ location / culture , really.
One could argue It is inherently sexist to call people using the term female as sexist because you are using the assumption that they believe female is somehow different or lesser… And then agreeing by saying they shouldn’t call you that. Instead of empowing the term female to mean something equal to male, we would be changing the term over time to mean less than male, which it should not.
That would be something I would enjoy hearing experts in linguistics and cultural anthropology discuss.
That said I try not to use woman/man or any other identifier outside of they if I can. Terry went to the park. If I have to I will revert back to saying Terry again being redundant rather than saying she/he went to watch the ducks play in the pond, as we have to assume gender to assign that Terry is a she or he unless we know them personally, and the name could be used for either. (In reality all names are void of sex or gender, they are simply a name). If I call a tree an Walnut tree it has done nothing to tell me that it is male/female, man/woman, it has told me it is an entity that we call Walnut.
A bitonist will tell you a Walnut tree is monoecious, meaning that it can produce everything on its own to complete the reproductive process. Hermaphroditic plants do not, they contain part of what is need for reproduction, like humans… Which we also classify as hermopheodites. So if we see a rose, a cherry tree, a chicken, or a human, we split them into a category we label as sex. Male and female are the term we usually see. (Most vegetables fall into this category, but that’s unrelated)
In a world where we fight for feminism (equality among sexes) we would say all pieces are equal and should have equal rights. Those pieces are male/female in humans.
Our role in society varies and the way others treat, react, interact, whatever you wish to view it as, is what we label as Gender, and gender roles. Humans for the most part have tried to practice monogamy for various reasons. That isn’t something that vegatables have to worry about as much.
So feminism within gender would refer to equality of rights within the construct of those interactions having to do with gender. So we label one part of that group women, and one part men in humans, and there is overlap (in both sex and gender).
Overlap is fine and naturally will exist in both sex and gender. Neither sex nor gender should inherently make one person less than another. That is the full scope of how I view feminism. I feel you cannot choose sex, not even medically at this stage but the future may be different, you CAN choose gender as it is your role in this world and a person should be able to choose how they wish their life to be interacted with. If a male/man wants to be be a mechanic by day and florist by night that is his choice, and nothing should look at them as being any more or less for any of their choices so long as they are not blocking the choice of another person’s ability to choose their path. My view on life is about the freedom of choice.
So to say that men, women… Any other identifier someone chooses and aspires towards should have any lesser rights in society I would say is wrong. It is against their freedom to live their life with their choices.
All that said… I feel someone using a name/identifier incorrectly is just ignorant or willfully trying to be against others life choices. Many are ignorant and that is what education is for. I will learn more every day and learn how wrong I have been all my life. Those who are willfully trying to be against others though… they are the issues we run into. So if Fred says his coworker is a female to his monogamous partner, it doesn’t mean Fred is a problem as much as that Fred may not have understood the terminology he was using was different than the expectations of the listeners. Ignorance. You can overcome ignorance through understanding, and education. Calling them an issue, often creates more of a rift.
Even if you want to separate sex and gender and define sex using sexual characteristics (not actually a good idea, see works by Judith Butler and Julia Serano among others, although I wont fight that point here), almost no sexual characteristics are immutable. The only ones that I can think of are chromosomes and gametes, but chromosomes aren’t even binary (or observable without a microscope) and gametes arent a good basis either – should being infertile affect your sex?
It’s fine if it’s consistent imo.
Men and women - 👍
Males and females - 👍
Boys and girls - 👍
Guys and gals - 👍
Men and females - 👎
Men and girls - 👎
Men and chicks - 👎
males and females is still psychotic if you’re not specifically talking science like biology, statistics, etc. adjectives as nouns are rarely a good sign in general; it’s almost always derogative.
also boys and girls would be fine except most people who use (or claim to use) boys do it in familiar sense only. they’d never call a 40 year old jacked man they don’t know a boy, but they’d easily call a grown ass woman they don’t know a girl. exceptions are some phrases like “big boy” or “my boy” in endearing sense but that’s not how “girl” is generally used, which is a substitute for “woman”.
A lot of prior military folks will use males and females just because that’s how it’s been drilled into them. Male and female latrines, not men and women’s bathrooms. Male and female barracks, not men and women’s dorms. Male and female standards, etc etc.
dehumanization is part of military. that’s not really an argument for it.
adjectives as nouns are rarely a good sign in general
I don’t think that’s true unless you mean within the context of referring to people or something, e.g. the blacks, the poors. But then stuff like “the rich” and “the unemployed” I don’t really take issue with.
yeah, you’re right but they’re two different cases. notice how when it’s right you don’t pluralize it with an -s because some adjectives have a form of a plural noun, so they don’t have a singular form: “a poor” or “a black” is just yikes. you can find words like “rich” as plural nouns apart from the adjective forms in the dictionary. you might find “female” and “black” as a noun for people too, but they should be marked offensive either directly or in usage notes.
so that’s the distinction. “black” or “female” don’t exist as plural nouns like “the rich” or “the blessed”.
interestingly enough there are exceptions. there is no plural noun “the gay” but “gays” usually isn’t offensive as a noun, but also “a gay” is weird and offensive. language is complicated.
The ONLY time it’s fine is if it’s in a medical report or scientific paper. Written by actual doctors or scientists. And it is done to dehumanize the subject to make it easier for, say, a medical examiner to write a report without breaking down.
Using male and female for people is inheritantly dehumanizing, and that’s only ok in very specific circumstances.
Dudes and dudes
I agree with the post. It’s coded derogatory speech while being technically correct. Personally, I would go as far to say it’s a dog-whistle and is absolutely a flag, especially if it renders any speech clunky and labored, or side-steps a person’s gender transition status.
Also, here’s something I’ve observed that may be relevant.
IMO, most of the time people use gender when telling a story, it’s not relevant information in the first place. In light of recent events, public awareness, and politics, non-gendered speech (in English at least) is automatically the most inclusive way to go and it’s a good habit to develop. The exceptions here are where it’s information that supports the story, disambiguates complicated situations (e.g. talking about a drag persona), or where it’s gender affirming in some way (e.g. respecting pronoun preferences).
I see this happen a lot, especially where woman/female is used as extra information when expressing anger, frustration, and disgust. For example, I hear “this woman cut me off in traffic” far more than “this man cut me off in traffic”, with “this person” or “a BMW driver” as a maybe-neutral-but-also-likely-male coded qualifier. To me, it suggests a kind of negative bias for gender, which may or may not be unconscious (depends on the person). It may seem like a small thing, but it’s freaking everywhere and it’s gotta stop.
For the rare occasion where sex or gender supports the story, “my teacher, who is a woman, …” or “my teacher, (s)he…” does the job. Yeah, it’s is a bit tougher on the tongue, but you should only need to say it once for the whole telling.
My incel cousin refers to women as “chicks and babes”. Then if he sees an unattractive woman, refuses to call them anything.
It’s really frustrating dealing with him because he constantly whines about his loneliness and isn’t aware how his small mindedness is causing people to bail on him.
Same goes for race. The number of times a story starts with “this black guy…” and the story has nothing to do with race is way too high. Especially from white people who just say “this guy” if the person was white. It just shows your implicit (or explicit) bias and that you think of someone differently because of the colour of their skin and you’re attempting to encode that feeling within your language.
with “this person” or “a BMW driver” as a maybe-neutral-but-also-likely-male coded qualifier.
If this is “likely male coded” how exactly do you suggest referring to other drivers in a neutral way?
I agree with most of what you said, but I think using male and female as adjectives is far better than the clunk. Additionally it can help break the whole people thinking of a trans woman as a “male woman” bs. (I have a whole rant about how the “sex and gender are different” thing is often used to ignore the biological realities of the effects of medical transition).
But for the most part it’s smoother to say and can make the fact that you need to mention that you’re speaking about a woman less of a big deal. For example “My cousin, who is a woman, has been having a particularly difficult time finding a girlfriend in her rural town.” Compared to “My employee, a female engineer, is particularly diligent about making sure our products are comfortable for people of a variety of body sizes”
