If you call people with vaginas women, you now cross the line for trans folks.
No matter how you phrase it, there will always be someone you will offend. In the case of the word “female” this is driven purely by some folks finding ways to use it offensively, despite it being just as neutral as “women”
Don’t assume malicious intent every time someone uses the word “female” - most likely, they have never put any negative connotations to it and possibly never even heard of this word being used in a negative context.
I mean, if you’re talking specifically in context about people with vaginas instead of women then using the gendered term does exclude both women without vaginas and men with them who are probably a relevant group in that context. But seriously how often does that come up for you? How often is the most important part of the woman you’re referring to her anatomy?
And while “females” is probably just as accurate in most contexts it’s also been poisoned with incel vibes at this point and it’s gonna be some time before it can be salvaged for general use outside of specific biological contexts without sounding like you’re about to unload a whole lot of baggage into the thread instead of getting therapy.
Do women wanna be called “women” tho? I don’t mean this rhetorically, but as a genuine question.
I for example, would hate to be called a “man”. It just makes me sound old. I would prefer being referred to as “male”, or anything that isn’t the word “man”. This is applicable to a lot of my friends too. Don’t women feel the same way?
Apparently not. The world would be a much better place if we all stopped making such a big deal about specific trigger words and focused on the ideas being communicated. If someone’s intent was to be an asshole then sure, get the pitchforks out, but make it clear it’s the idea that’s bad. Don’t just scapegoat the word. If they weren’t obviously trying to be a dick then calibrate your response accordingly.
To put it another way, if you’re upset about the use of a word that a scientist might use to describe something then you’re probably being overly sensitive.
science is often biased by cultural ideas. biology, medicine, and psychology, have been used to pathologise or naturalise things along social lines. this is also reflected in the language they created.
i think it is important for this language to be reevaluated, as culture and the scientific view on the world changes.
with the distinction between gender and sex becomming more popular, having compleletly destinct words might for example be positive…
No, they are not for you to reevaluate because you hold no knowledge or expertise in these fields. Demanding for outsiders to interfere with the scientific process because of their silly little biases and mental disabilities is a deranged opinion.
You are correct but social media lives and thrives on the idea of making people overreact to things.
Genders, races, politics… It’s all literally designed for people to argue with eachother while the owners profit on their “discussions” (actual discussions are banned because sensitive snowflakes needs protection).
Listen, I’m not against using any words. I’m just for using words, that if used cause no harm, and lead to people feeling better. We are emotional beings and it is unnecessary to try to pretend that we aren’t.
If someone wants me to call them “X”, I would try to do that if it is not too out of my way, right? That’s all.
… honey, there could be another reason you don’t like being called a man. 👀 Just a thought.
It happened to me. Being a boy never bothered me, but as I got older becoming a “man” made me dysphoric.
So I became a woman instead.
Nah, I identify as male. It’s just that the visual of a “man” for me is an older bearded dude with a deep voice… which I’m not…
I’m just speaking from experience here. Never had a problem with other masc identifiers, but something about “man” squicked me out. It always felt like becoming a man was something far off, but I kept getting older and it never happened…
Now I’m on hormones and am a woman and things are fine. Not saying this is your situation, but it was mine.
How have you applied age to the word “man”? Unless you’re not an adult and “man” to you means being an adult?
Not sure where you grew up culturally, but that seems like a very foreign concept to me personally. We use “boys”/“guys” and “girls” to demote young men and women. No one here would get the idea to use “male” and “female”, which to our ears are purely biological words.
Well, English is not the native language where I’m from. So perhaps it must be the cultural context for the word “man”? I mean, we don’t use the words “male-female” much outside biological contexts as well… I’ve just rarely seen anyone use the words “man/woman” for anyone our age (we’re young adults for context).
Here in Australia we use male/female all the time.
I physically cringe when I see Americans say stuff like “woman politician” instead of “female politician”. It sounds so grammatically wrong, that you legit sound like a caveman impression (ex. “Grug go car”).
Having said that, we would also never refer to women as females. There’s some grammar rules that dictate when we use either, but female is certainly the more common term.
I’ve never encountered a man or woman that hated being called whichever was appropriate
It’s all about context. There are options that are context and age appropriate that aren’t condescending or clinically reductive.
Men’s bathroom and Women’s bathroom > male bathroom and female bathroom
“Hey, guys/gents”, “hey, girls/ladies” > “hey, men”, “hey, women”
First woman President > first female President > first girl President
I don’t see what’s wrong with calling men ‘men’. I don’t mind it at all, seeing as it’s a descriptor of what I am using the English language. What’s your problem with the word?
Not a native English speaker, so I guess I’m understanding the word wrong (judging from the other comments).
It’s just that calling someone a “man/woman” makes it seem like I’m calling them old? Like… I don’t think we associate the word “man” with youth, right? Like… Whenever someone refers to me as a man (which is quite uncommon thankfully), I cringe a little inside.
That’s a huge word salat salad just to say “I’m an incel”
Is female derogatory? I thought it was just a more scientific classification.
Using female as a noun (rather than as an adjective, such as in the phrase “female firefighter”, or any phrase of the format “female $noun”) is generally overly clinical and dehumanizing. Some people do it out of habit due to their profession-- usually researchers or soldiers-- but they usually say “males and females”, which while still weird isn’t the worst.
The guys who say “men and females” are the ones you need to watch out for.
In most contexts, you’d just say…”people”.
Or, if you’re actually trying to make a demographic-wide statement, like how women aren’t good at video games, you’d just say:
“IGNORE ME, I AN A SEXIST MORON.”
Basically, the meme isn’t much meant for the word choice, it’s how often incels have statements to make on half the population.
Except “woman” doesn’t mean “female person” anymore, it means “anyone who identifies as a woman” because attaching any common noun at all for people based on sex rather than gender would be accused of transphobia.
It’s kind of like if someone asked what the term for the sexual orientation of someone who is interested in partners they could hypothetically reproduce with is, the answer is there isn’t one and suggesting there should be will get called transphobic.
partners they could hypothetically reproduce with
“fertile women”
“women capable of pregnancy”
Outdated, slight red flag option: “gynephile”
Or you could even try “I find women attractive and would love to have kids with the woman I love one day”
There, language isn’t that hard.
You’re actually demonstrating my point - I said “a common noun” for one and “a term” for the other. The whole point is that any “acceptable” language for those notions (a person of the sort who possesses female genitals and potentially has ova that she could hypothetically carry to term and identifies as a woman and a person attracted to the sort of person they might hypothetically be able to reproduce with) has to have at the very minimum an adjective if not an entire phrase attached to it.
For example, imagine someone tried to re-popularize the old English words to refer to cis folks, using wifmen for cis women in this example. That would immediately be deemed transphobic, specifically because it’s a common noun to refer specifically to cis women and not a shared category you have to use an adjective or phrase to differentiate from.
Same thing applies to orientation - we have a lot of words for sexual orientations. But a word for a person who is attracted to cis people of a given sex relative to one’s own is unacceptable - the very idea that there could be a term for it is transphobic. Despite sexual attraction being one of those rare cases where what genitals you have and whether or not they’re the original equipment is actually relevant.
Also wouldn’t “gynephile” meaning one who has an attraction to women still not be precise enough, since women includes trans women by definition, at least the feminine ones?
I think you’re just chronically online. Just say female if you’re in a conversation and want to exclude trans women. Most trans people won’t care as long if the context isn’t transphobic. I really don’t see why it’s unacceptable to have an adjective if you’re describing a subset of women. Like there’s not a singular noun for “tall men” but if you’re actually not being transphobic then whatever.
Again with sexual orientation, it sounds like you’re saying that because chronically online. There are people who say it’s transphobic to say straight but exlude trans people. Again, context and intent matters. You can just say straight. This one is tricker because not all trans people have surgically transitioned, genital preference matters, and orientation is a spectrum.
And it’s a tough subject within the trans community itself, because it’s frustrating to present as a gender, transition in every way to that gender, be accepted and pass for that gender, only for someone to say they aren’t attracted to you only after they find out you’re trans. What other conclusion would you have other than transphobia? And it doesn’t help that it often is accompanied by blatant transphobia.
So if someone is calling you transphobic, either the context is also transphobic or they’re misunderstanding your intent.
So that hypothetic person is turned off by learning someone is infertile for any reason?
Do you often find yourself in discussions where the trans-inclusivity/exclusivity of the term is important to know?
Because whenever I use “men, guys” or any other such term, whether it includes trans people doesn’t even cross my mind. Like the discussions if we should welcome “guy friends” at our girls’ game and gossip nights, or if I’m being too naive around “men”. Talking about “males” like an alien species would be weird and mildly offensive. (Mildly because the Finnish word “uros” can imply admiration for a man’s masculinity.)
If you wanted a term for potential partners you could possibly reproduce with, none of the “female, woman, male, man” terms by itself would do, because (even personally known) infertility for various reasons exists.
Just say what you mean. Intersex and trans people exist. For example, “menstruator” or “people who menstruate” if you’re talking about periods. Not all women menstruate, not everyone who menstruates is a woman, and hell, there are plenty of people who have uteruses but don’t menstruate. It’s way clearer and inclusive.
