After this “fun” little catastrophe of a thread concerning the use of the word “female”, looking at the comment section, it’s painfully obvious that the majority of Lemmy’s userbase are men. That’s not a generalization, that’s a literal fact.
“It’s just a word!”, “Maybe English isn’t their first language!”, and “Overact much?” seem to be the most common replies.
So let’s do what should have been done in the first place and ask women their opinion:
What do you think of the word “female” being used? Especially in the context of the linked post in question? When is the use of the word appropriate vs. not appropriate?
EDIT: I think the post linked got taken down. Good.
Women being referred to as ‘females’ makes my skin crawl. I have only encountered this term being used by men who objectify and dehumanise women.
Feeeeeeeemaaaaaaales
Might wanna mention that this is a reference to something and not just someone coming in to be antagonistic.
I see.
Yes I’m referencing the Ferengi from Star Trek. Every time someone says ‘female’ all I can hear is their goblinny little screeches.
You would think that with all the Star Trek memes that get posted on Lemmy somehow this one would be used, right?
It’s fine, guess I was a bit tone deaf. Not everyone watches ST and my intent was probably opaque.
That’s understandable. I guess that was more directed at the men who do share those memes in other places, hoping they can be better allies
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In the context of the OOP I think it’s obnoxious, but people who baldly objectify women tend to be obnoxious, so I can’t say I’m surprised. I wish they’d knock it off.
“Female” is appropriate as an adjective: I need a female hose adaptor or My primary care doctor is female or Female cats don’t spray the way male cats do. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any case in which “female” should be used as a noun - except I guess it’s common in healthcare and law enforcement (though still grammatically incorrect).
It seems like “woman” is a hard word to use for some people. I’m not sure why. This also gets into the “woman” vs “girl” thing, which in my view is much more demeaning than “female.” We’re not children for fuck’s sake!
I should mention that some women aren’t bothered by “female” or “girl,” which is completely their prerogative.
“Female” is appropriate as an adjective: I need a female hose adaptor or My primary care doctor is female or Female cats don’t spray the way male cats do. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any case in which “female” should be used as a noun - except I guess it’s common in healthcare and law enforcement (though still grammatically incorrect).
Absolutely! These examples are absolutely unoffensive in their context. I take no issue with that.
It’s when people defend its usage as a noun where I take issue, and when others use “It’s just a word!” to dismiss concerns about it. Yes, it’s just word! It’s the context that matters!
“Girl” is a entirely different matter, but I guess it comes down to individual preference of the person being referred to. However, I personally don’t love it, and view it as a very outdated word to use with grown adult women. There’s a lot of nuance behind it, definitely.
It seems like “woman” is a hard word to use for some people. I’m not sure why.
It’s funny, because in German, you can’t really do the equivalent to “females”, but some men go to the opposite extreme and call women “Damen” (roughly equal to “ladies”). They tend to present this as being meant to be polite and flattering but it always rubs me the wrong way. Partly because it’s often used by men with questionable opinions about women. And partly because I want to be seen as just a normal woman not some dainty, elegant, always polite picture of perfection.
Though women seem to be divided on whether they mind it or not. I just don’t get what’s so hard about using “women”, especially if you used “men” in the same sentence (or would use it if it was addressed to men). You don’t have to either talk about them like you would about a female animal or like we’re all some unattainable beings.A German friend of mine whom I met through a language class also talked to me about the outdated use of “Fraulein” when talking/referring to women. I was not super familiar with the German language, so it was definitely interesting!
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Can’t imagine why you would be accused of being an incel after belittling issues that women often face.
Well, it was before that, so your timeline is off. I was accused of it because “not everyone seems to agree with your stance.”
For the record, I happen to agree with the person I replied to so I guess we’re both incels.
I get it, to a degree, but coming into a discussion about the issue of dehumanizing language towards women to talk about how you mocked a woman you think is being unreasonable is a bad look.
Was she being unreasonable? I don’t know. Maybe. But we can’t really say, as we weren’t there.
My initial reply was admittedly a bit hostile, and I do apologize for that, but you have to understand that this is not the way to go about discussing this issue.
Calling me an “incel” right back does not help the matter.
All due respect, at least 8 other people in this community also found it humerous. Humor, being subjective, cannot please everyone all the time unfortunately. You may not have found it funny and that’s ok, but it isn’t objectively wrong or some such nonsense.
I apologize for calling you an incel right back as well, but contrary to your claim it looks like it did help, now we’re even lol, you call me unnecessarily, I call you unnecessarily in return, we both apologize, all’s well. Besides, I used “if then” logic, “if I’m an incel, then you are also one because we actually agree” but by the same coin, “if not, we aren’t.”
Congratulations, I think you just proved sexism doesn’t exist. We can finally move on. What a happy day!
Finally, I was so sick of sexism.
Good luck with that.
Thanks!
Woman has its roots in the word/phrase “Wife-man” and had various spellings. Just fyi
Context is important.
At the end of the day, “female” is just a word like any other word. It can certainly be used in a derogatory way (which I think the original Reddit post was) or it can be completely benign.
Generally speaking, when someone precedes “female” with “a” in front of it, I side eye them a little.
I mean, you can say that about any word. That’s kind of the point: context does matter.
Using the world “female” as a noun is often reflective of a person/attitude I do not want to associate with. A lot of it is a symptom of the dehumanization of women, and it makes me nervous to see it.
Had a former friend who start referring to black folks as “the blacks”. Point being: language can be subtle, but very much telling about how people view other humans.
I believe it is dehumanising. Perhaps a few use it without thinking, but referring to someone or a group as “females” is a tactic frequently used by bigots to make it easier to not have empathy for people.
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It’s funny how this is apparently a huge problem, but only for english speakers, specifically living in north america.
In a place where women’s right to healthcare required for many to not die is in jeopardy due to ignoring women as people— yeah.
Anything to bring attention to the dehumanization of women is a good step to take.
In some other languages, you just can’t do a good Ferengi.
…how many other languages actually differentiate between woman and female
In spanish there’s mujer for woman and hembra for female (but only for animals and tools), their opposites are hombre for man and macho for male (this one can be used for humans but it’s despective nowadays).
To ask a persons sex you would use femenino (feminine) or masculino (masculine) where it doesn’t have anything to do with preference or gender roles as it does in english.
hembra not being used for people at all sounds like its somewhat different from ‘female’ to me (as someone who barely speaks spanish)
unless you feel like using ‘female’ to refer to humans in any context is creepy
im confused about what you mean with femenino and masculino not having to do with gender roles or preference, can you elaborate?
When referring to sex feminino and masculino are used, when it comes to gender you use mujer and hombre. You could say mujeres are hembras of the homo sapiens species, but you wouldn’t say it out of a specific academic setting.
Even doctors use “sexo femenino” when talking about women in an anatomical way.
In Serbian “woman” would translate to “žena”, and “female” to “ženka”, but that word is used exclusively for animals. Using “ženka” for a human outside of a very strictly zoological context where humans are just another type of animal is unheard of, and would sound very bizarre.
One contribution to this being a thing in English (some people calling women females) might be the fact that the word is both a noun and an adjective. In the case of Serbian, “ženka” as female and “mužjak” as male can only mean animals that are female or male. For the adjective (as in “female and male anatomy”) we have separate words that mean something like “womanly and manly anatomy”, so you could never mix the two because one is specifically reserved for animals.
The more you know.
I’m about to test drive my new response to Men and Females type posts and comments.
The plan is to go along with the conversation as long as possible, before it becomes apparent that I just assumed we were talking about female spotted hyenas:
“Well I definitely wouldn’t want any females to be mad at me. I just find their laughter and pseudo-penises to be intimidating”.
“I’m talking about female spotted hyenas! What the hell are you talking about?”
“Well you’re the one who failed to specify the species or the age range for that matter!”
I just want people to use the correct adjective/noun forms, that’s what gets me most. Both when used wrong are annoying (imagine referring to a dude as a ‘man doctor’), and using female as a noun just reeks of incel outside of certain contexts like maybe medical etc.
Working in the medical field, I hear it a decent amount in appropriate context and it’s often still a little creepy.
It’s still important to acknowledge that the usage in the medical/health sectors is also dehumanizing. It’s so disempowering and alienating.
I work in the health sector not in the US and I would never refer to a patient that way no matter what language I’m speaking.
not a woman and i dont think its exactly a “bad word”, but insistence on using it is just weird. the guy banned on reddit was banned for being combative, it wasnt a poor baby who doesnt speak english inadvertently using an improper term.
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What was the original post? I’m seeing this after it was taken down.
It was a screenshot of a mod on R×ddit that had taken down a comment where the user had posted the singular comment of “a female’s behind” and deleted all the comments disagreeing with the decision.
The OOP of the post was outraged by the “mod overreach”.
I’m not sure I’m of the opinion that the mod was right in the decision for mass deletion, but, judging by all the Lemmy comments outraged by people not liking those who disagreed with the use of the word “female”, this seems to be a much deeper problem.
I’m a man, but I’ve always just pointed out to other dudes how it would feel if someone referred to us as “males”, and how it makes it sound like they are talking about a bunch of chimpanzees on planet blue and not a bunch of humans.
Here is what I will say though, as someone privvy to convos guys have when women aren’t around:
The only guys I’ve seen try and unironically refer to women as “females”, are pretty much entirely younger guys in early 20s, late teens, who are trying very hard to sound smart. They use the word like that to try and sound better, and often are shocked when older/wiser dudes in the group are like “Jesus christ mate dont say that” and we have to explain to them that it’s not okay, contextually, to use the word that way.
Usually they either get belligerent and try to assert all the older guys are wrong and “its just a word”… these folks don’t get very far and the problem runs waaay deeper than just using that word wrong.
But I have also seen plenty of younger guys go “oh geez I didn’t think of it like that, my bad” and those dudes usually turn out just fine later on in life.
I have never yet, in public settings, seen a younger guy not get called out for doing this irl, by fellow mentors/older guys in my reasonable circles. IE at my jobs, at the bar, I work volunteer hours at a local convention, at local card game tournaments, sport events, etc.
So that’s certainly something that I hope gives a bit of solace. It happens commonly but usually is remediated pretty promptly.
I will note though I live in a more progressive larger city, compared to the surrounding area, so that is likely a contributing factor.
I’m in the military and female/male is used very often instead of woman/man at work. I really haven’t thought much about it until recently and I have made it a point to use man/woman instead of male/female at work. I have never used male/female as a noun outside of work. Any other women in the military have an opinion on this?
I don’t think it’s much of a issue when used in conjunction with each other.
I’m not in the military, though. Different “culture” and a whole other beast altogether, so I don’t think I’m qualified to give a very informed opinion on this, fwiw.
I believe the point of the military is the dehumanization of both men and women, that’s exactly why they are doing it, they want cogs to insert into the machine, not people.
It’s obviously wrong, but it’s not a sexism thing either, at least there.
In the miltary everybody is referred to as male/female. At least it’s not man/female.
QUAAAAARK!!!
I’m not a native speaker. Could anyone please explain the difference?
“Female” as an adjective describes gender.
“Female” as a noun is typically used by incel communities to refer to a woman as an object, not a person. In this context, it is either used to identify women as a sex object or to imply that her emotions/needs/feelings don’t matter because she’s not human. Coded language in English is called a dog whistle, meaning it’s a secret way for someone to say how they really feel when an idea isn’t socially acceptable.
“Man” and “Woman” are the stardard terms for their respective genders.
“Male” and “Female” are gender descriptions, like “a male student” or “a female giraffe” — these usages are the correct and are not an issue.
Some people simply refer to women as “females” or “a female”, which can be seen as dehumanizing and boiling down their existence to only their gender. Referring to women as “females” is often used by men who do not value women as equals, or even people. It’s awful and creepy.
It seems to very divided, but I don’t like women being referred to as “females”, specifically for the reasons mentioned above.
Hopefully that helps!
Female and Male are the two sexes for sexually dimorphic plants and animals, primarily differentiated by what gamete they produce for sexual reproduction.
Man and Woman are the gendered terms explicitly used for grown humans.
You typically wouldn’t call a dog a man, except when humanizing the dog… like if perhaps the dog is wearing a very distinguished little bow tie :p
Male/female are clinical terms and primarily only used in a scientific way to refer to animals in general. Like you would say “Females of this species…”
If you refer to a woman as a “female”, you have literally dehumanized her.
The only time really I’d expect you refer to a human female us explicitly when referring to sexually demographic features and you intentionally want to exclude gendered language.
IE “The Female Reproductive System includes the Uterus…” etc etc, as this then is trans inclusive. Female is not gendered, as it removes the human element.
The use case here is extremely niche as it should pretty much only be used when clinically discussing the sexual organs explicitly. So in say, a paper discussing a new safer methodology of performing sexual correction surgery for a trans person, this terminology actually matters because a man can have a uterus, so you don’t want to say “woman” as not all uterus owners are women.
That’s largely the only time the distinction matters though. 99.9999% of the time, “man” and “woman” is the appropriate word to use to avoid dehumanizing language, because it’s gender inclusive and you typically refer to people by their gender, not what sexual organs they were born with.
