I cringe every time I hear another guy refer to women like this
counterpoint:
man and men, just like woman and women sound the same when speaking
male and males, female and females is clearer
counterpoints:
This would only hold up if the person is using male/female and not man/female
And assuming this still holds up, why not go with male/woman? The type of people to use this shouldn’t be bothered, i mean thry throw the term “alpha male” all the time
Oh wait, i think the solution is to just use man/woman unless you’re in a very biological discussion
how do you pronounce man/men/woman/women? man and men might be confusable but woman and women are very different pronunciations
It probably depends on slight differences in regional dialect. Where I am from I would say woman and women are often pronounced pretty similarly, while man and men are easier to tell apart.
In my region, woman is often pronounced with an ‘uh’ sound, like womuhn. It’s pretty easy to confuse with women. I have noticed that people in my area will sometimes vary up the ‘wo’ part of women and woman depending on which one they are using. So women becomes ‘wimen’, and woman becomes ‘wumuhn’.
I’m sorry, but I did the thing where I write a comment and then delete it because I assume no one cares about my opinion
since you replied though, I should make it clear what I said to give context
I said that man and men, as well as woman and women, sound the same when speaking. male and males, female and females, make a clearer distinction
You pronounce the words man and men the same way? And this is also the case for woman and women?
Am I understanding you correctly?
Well depends on context i guess. Like saying “my women teacher” just doesn’t sound as good as “my female teacher”
Female as the adjectival form of woman is normal and ok. As a noun for a human it tells me you’re on one of a few varieties of bullshit
My teacher is female.
My teacher is a female.
The former is adjectival, the latter is an icky noun. That “a” is doing a lot of work lol.
As a noun: “Females are often uncomfortable being called females.” As opposed to “Women are often uncomfortable being called females.”
As an adjective: “The reported rate of sexual violence among female soldiers indicates a serious problem that is being insufficiently dealt with.”
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.
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.
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.
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”
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?
If you want to only specify gender then that is the correct word to use. If someone wants to be derogative towards a certain group, the said person can twist the context of almost every known word so that it sounds rude and disrespectful. Does not mean everyone else should stop using that word in the correct context. I don’t know what else to say.
Urg, i get second hand embarrassment everytime i hear/read it, i’s disgusting lol
