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That is a sail…
female as an adjective for clarification (like “oh you’re looking for that female doctor over there”) is ok, female as a noun is just weird
There are contexts where it makes sense, mostly medicine or science, but even in those contexts it’s deliberately dehumanizing, which is the point. It is also the only English word for a female human that does not imply age, as woman and girl both do.
The quick sniff test: “Males and females”? Clinical, but probably fine. “Men and females”? Fucking Ferengi freak, avoid that guy
Unless you’re speaking about (non human) animals. Saying a dog is a female is fine.
I knew it! Once I suggested this to someone assuming they’re, like me, not a native speaker, and got downvoted to hell. Turned out I was too woke.
true! connotation is a weird thing.
Not as bad as the ones that call women femoids.
is… Is that a thing?
It’s very prevalent on 4chan and the like if you want to look at it and be depressed for a bit
It’s an incel thing.
Yes, fun idea. No problem with that but… that ‘flag’ is a sail. They’re different things.
Using a sail to fly your colours is a red flag.
Sus. Having any issue with a red flag meme. /s
Immediate red flag in my book
I feel like I’m going to fall into one of the Myst ages looking at that book.
Remember, pirates did fly red flags as well as black ones. The red ones meant you were extra fucked.
If you saw a pirate ship with a rainbow flag though , you’re in for a mean margarita and a good time.
I think they’re still after your booty.
I hope they don’t run me through with their sword
But my booty is a treasure only for me and the crew to enjoy.
I think black was like, “We just want your shit and we’ll let you live if you surrender” while red was like, “We’re gonna kill and then take your shit or take your shit and then kill you, either way you will not survive,” kinda thing.
Sometimes the black one meant they just wanted your hats.
Benjamin Hornigold. No I’m not making that up.
Someone should really tell everyone from the south. I had no idea until it was pointed out to me by someone younger. Changed my behavior of course, but was simply ignorant before.
A lot of people use certain words just out of habit, the last thing you need is some SJW jumping down your throat and calling you names cause they don’t like your regional dialect. Lots of words I grew up with that were normal or not that bad, and now are considered super offensive. It’s not a malicious thing, all you can do is calibrate and learn, but some people get so worked up if you don’t use the words they’re used to
Why did you refer to it as shoving something down your throat?
I don’t get why the saying is “shoving it down your throat” or “jumping down your throat” when it’s more like shoving it down your ear canal. You don’t eat what people are saying 🤔
Maybe YOU don’t… (don’t judge me!:-P)
I had sex with a female yesterday.
Human?
Maybe… The femoid also says she loves when I compile the Linux kernel
Oh, it’s a fembot.
I been wondering people’s opinion of “Female” in some instances. Like is “First Female president/athlete/mayor/lawyer” appropriate? “First woman____” doesn’t sound right and you wouldn’t say “first man athlete to run 2 hour marathon” you would use male.
Most things can be rephrased maybe, but obviously using Females outside these instances is very right wing cringe.
“Female” is fine to use as an adjective.
It’s also fine to use as a noun when describing livestock, which is why it’s a red flag to describe women that way.
What is a good word to use for people who are female of any age including young children that are not old enough to be called women in addition to women?
‘Women and girls’ is pretty clunky when talking about something that is gender specific, but applies to all ages.
boys and men / girls and women sounds right to me
‘Gendered violence against teenage women and girls’ is really clunky. Especially if it needs repeating across paragraphs.
If there isn’t something, that’s fine.
“Gendered violence against females” on the other hand sounds a bit too clinical though… Like you’re removing their personhood
If ‘females’ wasn’t used by online sexists to treat women as objects would it sound that way?
Maybe! I don’t know if “gendered violence against men” also has the same connotations.
Maybe this is indeed is a case of those people poisoning the term.
Just ask yourself if you’d use “males” in that context.
I absolutely would use males in that context. “Toxic masculinity has a detrimental affect on males of all ages” sounds perfectly fine to me because I don’t know of a different label for the group and males doesn’t have the same dehumanizing usage as females.
Women is probably fine to use when the ages can be gleaned from context. You can also make the noun non gendered and use female as a adjective like “female students” or “female patients”
I’m mainly asking when ages span from birth to old age and the goup would basically be “female persons” or “male persons” which is clunky.
Sometimes it can be rephrased, but it often requires multiple words to mean the same thing. Plus “women of all ages” will be read as not including children.
I’m mostly pissed that sexists ruined the only single word term we have for half of the population.
Honestly I don’t think ‘women and girls’ feels clunky, but that’s just me
It is important that when we are addressing issues of sexism, that we try to make sure that the ideas are easily understood by women, men, girls, and boys so that everyone understands how to support equality. If we only focus our effort on men and boys, without recognizing the influence also has on women and girls, then it will not be as successful. For example, the social expectations of women and girls to dress in certain ways is commonly enforced by men, women, girls, and boys even if the influence is only targeted at women and girls. Not to mention the toxic masculinity that is applied to men and boys by men, women, boys, and girls that are commonly reinforced by telling men and boys to ‘man up’ in stressful situations.
You are right, that is smooth as butter.
Woman as an adjective is picking up in my circles and podcasts I listen to. Woman scientist, woman entrepreneur. It may have sounded weird initially, but I’ve gotten over it and I suspect it will develop over time to be completely normal.
I wouldn’t really compare it to the male/man counterpart, because men aren’t demeaned by being called “male” regularly.
Woman used as an adjective like this sounds so wrong to me (probably because it isn’t an adjective). If you wouldn’t say man voter, man driver, men reporters, etc., then why would you say woman voter, women drivers, woman reporter? Just because some people use ‘female’ in a way that you object to shouldn’t make all uses of it objectionable. Do you want a world in which we can say ‘male patients’, but have to say ‘woman and girl patients’ instead of female patients? Why??
I agree it works in most cases it works fine but like “First woman astronaut” feels weird.
I mostly didn’t want to be accidentally participating in something shitty.
Edit: or like “fastest woman athlete”
I think both kinda sound equally weird because we for a lot of words like astronaut, the astronaut is already assumed to be male unless otherwise indicated. So male astronauts or man astronauts both sound clunky and kinda weird, and the weirdness translates over when you start indicating the astronaut is a woman by saying “woman astronaut” or “female astronaut.”
The English language, and historical baggage just kinda fucked us on this one. We used to add ‘ess’ to the ends of words to indicate gender, but that was dropped outside of the use of waitress or actress for the most part. Not sure why that stopped, but I’m sure it’s interesting and I’m going to go look it up later.
Yeah, I remember feeling like it was weird, but both of those sound absolutely fine to me now.
I also would never balk at “female” as an adjective in those cases, nor assume the speaker was being misogynist.
he’d probably call women maidens
Except Nichelle Nichols
It really is just an anti-trans thing.
Naw, they were using that before all the anti trans nonsense. It’s more about there inability to see women as human. They identify them more for their gender than being the same species as them. If they started calling them women that would humanize women too much…
Nah, it was a thing for weird dudes well before trans rights entered the public consciousness.
With an attitude like that, something tells me that pirate won’t be getting any booty
Or they are just non-native english speakers
Yeah, but those people don’t get defensive when you comment on it, while those who are raising the red flag immediately do. It’s pretty easy to tell them apart from that point forward.
What a sweetheart you are. Can’t even let a webcomic get away with not being inclusive.
Pretty sure non natives will be the first ones to use “woman” and not “female”. I know it’s not something we say in French anyway, a woman is a woman.
a woman is a woman
Problematic part
Blague à part, il existe d’autres langue (non-indo-européennes) ou la distinction est moins aisée à faire. Par exemple en Hongrois on dit “nő” pour “femme” et “nőstény” pour “femelle”, mais on peut les interchanger dans certains cas et les traducteurs automatiques s’y emmêlent les pinceaux des fois.
Intéressant à savoir!
Otoh, some women use this while referring to other women, e.g. “us females need to stick together!” - in a totally positive and inclusive manner (or what looks like that, from me on the outside - i.e. not using language in such manner myself, for either men or women).
So maybe instead of a red flag it’s more like an orange one? VERY noteworthy, but not enough on its own to justify cutting off contact with someone, whereas for an actual red flag you would… right?
Ferengi off the port bow.
Thank you! This is always the first thing that pops into my head whenever I read somebody using “females” instead of “women”
How do I formally refer to a girl I do not respect(because she’s a menace) who is late 40’s early 50’s? So the different terms have implications I don’t care for it want to convey.
Someone in their late 40s is not a girl.
bitch, or even better, motherfucking bitch asshole
Karen?
I would get creative with it, just because she’s horrible doesn’t mean you don’t get to have a good time. “The purveyor of lies”, “fount of unreason”, maybe give her a nickname that relates to one of her mistakes. If you can come up with something new every time it can become like a game, even if you’re only saying them in your head.
Good time of what?
Have a good time coming up with insulting names
Ahh yeah. 🤣
I’ve been going with troll lately.
From the point of view of that girl you’re a red flag anyway. But “a menace” works too.
Red flag? I’m not trying to date my dangerous old hag of a downstairs neighbor. I’m actually filling a restraining order against her.
