Gotta love how “”””radfems”””” love the term “adult human female” too.
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.
“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.
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?
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.
My personal take is to just use lawyer, when gender is irrelevant. This may get your audience confused when using “she” in the next sentence. But it could help weaken the stereotypes about genders if we did this more often IMHO.
If needed “female lawyer” or “lawyer who is a woman” are good otherwise.
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.
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.
They’re just called lawyers, unless they’re lawyering with their genitals and their sex is somehow relevant.
Maybe from an equity perspective, but not from a lawyer perspective. So you’d probably say “we need more women in law”.
Because the topic is women. If the topic was lawyering, then sex won’t come up.
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.
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.
Stereotypically, women always strive to look as young as possible, so calling one a girl can be seen as a compliment. While men, stereotypically strive to appear mature, hence calling one a boy can be considered an insult.
I don’t disagree with you that society does think that way, but I disagree with the sentiment so much.
I’m 33 and afab. I accepted being called a “girl” until I was about 23 (probably not a coincidence that that was the age at which I graduated college), but it started chafing at like 16, even though I didn’t have a good alternative at the time (because I agree that “female” as a noun feels gross). If someone called me a girl now I would correct them without hesitation in basically every scenario outside of a eulogy or wedding speech.
I really wish there was a better option. I don’t really like “woman,” but it’s better than gal, lady, dudette, chick, or girl imo. I’m perfectly fine with guy or dude, especially in plural, but I’m probably an egg, so that colors my perspective for the singular use a little.
I honestly don’t see this changing any time soon because there are biological incentives behind both stereotypes. And, anecdotally, my gf (40+) will pout if in some context I refer to her as a woman, and be like “noooo, I’m a girl… :(”. Semi-jokingly, of course, but only semi.
Same as the other reply, I don’t disagree. Do I think there’s mal intent? Nah. But I’m sure this has an unconscious effect on how we perceive women. Besides lots of women look young without even trying, I think with the improvement of medicine and public health, people in general are just looking younger nowadays so we should nip this habit in the butt.
Fun use of “boys” has been really popular for quite some time. Me and the boys. Boys will be boys.
Hell, a business or industry run primarily by men in their fifties and older can be referred to as “a boys club.”
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.
