Is female derogatory? I thought it was just a more scientific classification.
Edit: I work at a large engineering and manufacturing company where some of our products need to take into consideration the difference between male and female anatomy. I just hear “male” and “female” systems discussed on a weekly basis so I think I might sometimes refer to men and women as “male” and “female” outside of work without giving it a second thought.
Using scientific terminology in colloquial speech is weird and creepy in most contexts. Calling kids "juveniles" and women "females" carries certain connotations, most of them bad.
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.
It's not inherently derogatory, but it does hold a connotation if you refer to women as females particularly in contexts where you wouldn't/don't refer to men as males.
Yes, using scientific terminology can be derogatory. But in this case, acting like the opposite sex is a species on its own, classifying them as animals and slurring all women as hoes gave it away for me.
I thought it was just a more scientific classification.
Scientifc classification by sex. Referring to others by their biological sex in a social context is weird and creepy. Even if you believe sex and gender are the same thing, it's still weird to call people by their sex. "Hello, male human. Want to ingest some fried pieces of cow flesh tonight?"
The multiple of "trans woman" is "trans women" just like with "cis women", not "trans-woman".
There's also no dash in either "cis women" or "trans women", it's not half-cis half-woman like Spider-Man, it's just a descriptor adjective, like "cis woman" and "trans woman".
"Cis" and "Trans" of course come from the Latin prefixes meaning "this side of" or "other side of" such as in Cislunar Orbit or Translunar Injection (TLI) in astrodynamics, or the Cisalpine/Transalpine Gaul in historical geography or in Cis/Trans isomerism in Chemistry.
"Transmaxxing" is primarily used by incels that believe transition can be a way out of their inceldom, similar to gym-'maxxing' etc., while I've never heard of anyone actually transitioning for such silly reasons as it's a helluva thing to do, I doubt that this would work out in their favour.
Additionally while many cis women do hate trans women, statistically speaking they are less likely to be against trans rights than men, especially on issues like trans women using the women's bathroom or gyms or other issues that upset some cis people like healthcare access for trans children via either hormones or puberty blockers.
Source from surveys carried out on TERF Island in 2020 and 2022:
No no no, It was coined by Cis White women to trash Trans-Women, PERIOD
Stop scapegoating incels for everything & stop being a sex-obsessed creep (who wants to peek at other's sex-life) as well, get some therapy
Well you brought up up the matter, not me, I don't have any interest in sex lives of incels or anyone else really, I don't think it's wrong to discuss such subjects on the internet though, there's really nothing to be ashamed of, I didn't lose my virginity till 20. It's really all okay.
Really? Most of my friends and family are super conservative and even though they disagree with the whole concept of transsexuality none of them hate trans women. Maybe you're protecting your bigotry.
People with vaginas is the right terminology if discussing something that pertains to vaginas. Eg. "People with vaginas should make sure to see a gynecologist regularly." in this case, saying "women" would exclude/misgender many trans and intersex people who have vaginas but are not women, while also including some women who do not have vaginas and would not need to see a gynecologist
The person you replied to said "female" though. As far as I know, "Man"/"Woman" is on the gender side while "Male"/"Female" is on the sex side, based purely on things like reproductive organs, chromosomes and hormones.
Although taking all three into account may just make it hard to determine. But it does imply that "male woman" and "female man" are also valid combinations.
“Male”/“Female” is on the sex side, based purely on things like reproductive organs, chromosomes and hormones.
Not really, I don't think. They're just the adjectives where woman/man are the nouns. If you talk about a male coworker I assume he's a man, not that you checked his birth certificate.
Male and Female are still normative exclusionary categories that describe trends within physiology and not hard rules or limits. Sex is not a golden rule. It is a human created category in the same way gender is.
If you want to talk about specific anatomy there is no reason why you can't talk about the anatomy you're referring to.
I would also point out that referring to trans women as male woman is very derogatory and is functionally the same as calling us heshes or shemales.
Sex is a lot more complicated than male/female. There's a bunch of different sex characteristics that make up "sex" and people can have all sorts of different combinations of them. If you just use a male/female binary, that doesn't tell people what sex characteristic you're referring to. Maybe something affects people based on chromosones, in which case people who are xy but otherwise "female" (like with cais) would go in the "male" category and vice versa. Or maybe something affects people based on hormones, in which case transgender people taking hrt would have to be categorized based on that. If you say "male/female", no one knows if you're talking about hormones, or genitals, or chromosones, or gonads, or whatever else, so it's best to be specific and use language like "people with [body part]"
well sometimes u need to refer to ppl who have a vagina, because having a vagina is somehow relevant to the topic of conversation.
which in my experience comes up very rarely, so i dont have to use it very often.
some people who have vaginas arent women, and so if the topic includes those ppl, then "people with vaginas" is the perfect phrase to use.
and if talking about ppl with vaginas who all identify as women, cis women is more fitting.
"female" is a very vague way of referring to something. some ppl use it to describe gender identity, others use it to talk about ppl with vaginas, others again use it to refer to ppl with estrogen-dominant hormonal systems, etc. etc.
When the genital sexuals came on the scene. You know the ones who want to check everyone's genitals to make sure they are what they say they are. The ones who are only attracted to the genitals, they could care less what is attached to them.
For them genitals is life and they have infiltrated our government to pass laws like bathroom bills. This will allow them to examine everyone's genitals. So far they appear to be winning and everyone's genitals will soon be seen by them.
The Genital Safety Administration (GSA) will need to have a booth in front of our bathrooms there to perform their checks. Another genital sexual licking their lips in anticipation next time you have to drop a deuce.
Casual erasure of post-op trans people is really fascinating to me. Like, how did our culture shift from the first thing people think about trans people being "have you had tHe sURgErY yet???" to "if you have a vagina and are a woman you are cis"?
The Garden of Eden, as we know it today, is more or less canon by the books. Meanwhile, the pop culture view of Lilith is not even close to its source materials.
This ain't about faith, just being pedantic about the fanfic vs the manga.
You know I've said "dude" all my life and I still use it all the time in regards to everyone. If I saw that someone was genuinely offended at being called dude I wouldn't use it again with that person, but now that I really think about it I don't think I've ever heard the term in a derogatory way. Like ever. For me it's always been a happy/inclusive word for addressing friends. My only worry for now is that saying it shows my age.
good for you, some people really don't want to be called that.
part of respecting someone's identity is respecting the terms which they want and don't want to be called by.
getting them wrong doesn't make you an asshole, getting them wrong and not caring does.
People need to get over themselves
in this context this is identical to Conservative "the new generation is too sensitive!!!" drivel.
Uh-huh. Seems you already know your stance is wrong.
Say it, you coward. You’ve already been blowing all the dog-whistles you can find, surely you have the guts to actually say the things you’re thinking.
Are you okay having the tables flipped and someone calling you "sis"?
Using male language as the default may not bother you and you may have no ill intent with it, but it does have a history tied to it. A history where women were seen as less than and didn't have equal rights. Western society still uses male language slang regardless of gender (hey guys, dude, bro, bruh) and it all stems from a history of a patriarchal society. Every time we say, "hey guys" to refer to a mixed-gender group, we perpetuate patriarchy, whether we intended to or not.
Legally and overall culturally, women are still seen as less than and we still don't have equal rights (e.g. divorce and abortion law).
To me this feels like you could say "Guys, ", as a general term to catch the attention of/refer to a mixed genre group as a whole. Anyone getting upset that you're using "Guys" in that context to refer to both men and women is just looking for an excuse
When playing a RPG of some sort, sometimes they give you the ability to reallocate all your talent points in a different way. Such as switching from melee focused to something magic oriented like a wizard or a witch. This is called a Respec, short for Re-specialization.
Respec sounds very similar to Respect. The Original Post is about respecting women.
I appreciate your interest in my comment, hope you have a nice day. Take care.
Yeah, what they're saying doesn't make much sense logically though.
Men here is 们, the plural marker for people. Wo (我) is I or me, wo+men (我们) we or us, ni (你) is you, ni+men (你们) is you (plural), ta (他/她/它) is he/she/it, and ta+men (+们) is they.
Some other variants exists, and there's specifics on the usage. I also missed the tone markers on the pinyin because they're a pain to type.
Anyway I'm not sure what joke or point they were trying to make.
That kind of fella would use something derogatory instead of sapiens for women. That is, assuming they even knew what sapiens stood for in the first place.
Outside of a clinical/scientific setting? It’s comes off a bit creepy. If a guy in a social setting refers to women as “females,” it seems derogatory- as if they were talking about lesser animals.
In online forums like Lemmy or Reddit, if someone calls women “females,” I always picture that person as a Ferengi from Star Trek.
I wouldn't have a problem with someone using males/females in a vacuum, but all too often I read men/females from incels and misogynists on the Internet, so now "females" feels derogatory by default.
I think the reason male and female get equated with biology is because biologists need to describe individuals in terms of characteristics within the species.
Like, "I live with a small, white, female felis catus and a tall, Caucasian, male homo sapiens" is a weird way to tell people that I live with my cat and my husband outside of a scientific context.
Exactly. The key thing is the differentiation of sex (biology) and gender (social). A bathroom for women can be used by all women, even those who happen to have male bodies. It also clarifies the difference between transsexual and transgender - most transgender people are not transsexual.
This isn't as simple as you are implying as if you want to be a bro to trans people more nuance is generally required. Male and Female are not used strictly scientifically in context. Male and Female are often used as adjective forms of man and woman. Take the example of a male or female firefighter - if a trans man is a firefighter refering to him as a female firefighter using this reasoning comes across as fairly transphobic because it feels like you are either trying to utilize some sort of technical linguistic dodge to find an occasion to misgender them or your purpose is to out them to people unawares of their trans status.
Even when people use male and female as nouns instead of adjectives this transphobic reading applies because a lot of fairly obnoxious people will try and use these words as shorthand to imply that trans identities don't matter and to avoid calling you by terms that align to your identity or to isolate trans identify out of discussions. This is why you hear the phrase "Assigned male/female at birth" used by the trans community (though it actually originates from the intersex community) or "birth sex" to refer to groups that include non-binary people instead of just male or female. That linguistic abstraction is important because it implies removal by way of time. In trans terms one can be treated as female at birth given the assumption of cisness for infants implying that that term could be inaccurate in the present day.
By contrast "Trans Identitied males/females" is a transphobic dog whistle. "Biologic males/females" has the same vibe because from a scientific prospect the term is so bloody vague it is practically meaningless. The speaker is just trying to imply the social category is irrelevant or putting emphasis on an assumed physicality. Like if someone says for example "biological males in women's sports" you know the entire point they are going to be making is total exclusion before they even bother to elaborate further.
The reality is words Male and Female still represent social categories unless you append onto them more specific adjectives in term like Phenotypic, chromasomal or so on. These words are not immune from the cultural moment of negotiation of trans inclusion.
Honestly a lot of them start out as or still contextually imply "males" in the US, but can be used gender neutrally as well now too. Like "how you guys doing" vs "hanging out with the guys."
It's interesting isn't it? "Guys" can include women, and can even be a group of only women, but you can't talk about a single woman as a guy - "I snogged this gorgeous guy last night".
Using "guys" for a group of only women works only in 2nd person. You can say "I love you guys!" to a group of women, but you can't say "I was hanging out with the guys" when talking about the same group.
Which just so happens to be the perfect segue for me to pitch my proposal to make 'cunt' the de facto (gender neutral, naturally) pronoun/collective pronoun.
I'm a big fan of the word cunt in all of its current uses it's my preferred slang term for my own, though it's rare to find someone who's not taken aback by that in the bedroom.
Would it be a grammatically consistent pronoun? "oh, someone left cunt wallet, I hope cunt come get it" or do we need a cunt/cunter situation? So cunt can collect cunter wallet.
What is the difference between "people with vaginas" and "people with vaginas of the feminine species"? And what is the "feminine species"? Is it some (unspecified?) species where every specimen is of the feminine gender?
The way the OP phrases it rules out trans men who have vaginas, trans women who have vaginas, and a bunch of cis women who've had certain pelvic traumas or cancers and therefore don't have vaginas.
What he's trying to say is "if you were born with a vagina and you align with it" which is actually still funny because I was born with my vagina, I like my vagina, I'll be happily keeping it even after all my surgeries....but if this OP saw my face he would put me in the "trans man" bucket because they lack nuance around identity.
Are Beavers really cute? The teeth of these large water rodents are orange because they are full of iron; these teeth never stop growing.
But if you are being serious, women don't really like being reduced to names that refer to their pudendum. It is objectifying.
Source: Canadian woman.
Edit: just realized which sub this is posted in. Oh well, think of the vocab word "Pudendum" as my Xmas gift to you. (Refers to a woman's external genitals, ie. vulva.)
Of course women don't like being reduced to names. But all hetero males do it. It starts with little boys in grammar school and no matter how old you are it never stops. Now this is not something that a normal guy would ever say out loud to a woman but they are thinking it just the same. Human nature has embedded this into the hetero male DNA. It's not a denegration of women. Every male has a mother, sister, or daughter and would never want them disrespected.
As far as male slang terms for vagina, I think it's a long list. Though I don't think women use many slang terms for male anatomy. I'd guess because sex for a woman is mostly emotional. For a guy, while it may be emotional it is foremost a fun physical activity which makes it easier to joke about. Remembering back to my grammar school days, I believe the origin of "beaver" is that back then women had lots of pubic hair. Pubic hair trimming and "landing pads" were not in vogue. And the pubic hair surrounding a vagina sort of had the look of a "beaver".
It’s important to note that jailbait featured girls who were intentionally posed/looked much younger than bordering 17. I think people might try to justify it/imagine it as older looking teenagers, it was not.
The mods/power users also traded CSAM, and comment sections were used for trading the real thing. There may have been official rules against it, but these communities had codes.
There was also violentacrez little empire. I don’t understand what purpose a community like “picsofdeadkids” has. I think even if you are a free speech absolutist you can question what obligation Reddit had to host such content.
Pointing out how fucked up it was wasn’t very popular at the time - it was all about the “free speech”. This was the era of professional quote makers and dictionary definitions of ephebophilia. Reddit refused to take any action on jailbait until the Anderson Cooper special. Violentacrez was doxxed by Gawker, if you just look at the list of subreddit names it’s enough.
Factor in the plausible idea that Ghislaine Maxwell may have been a Reddit power user…
It's everyone's language, everyone can bully each other over it. The Brits added u to a bunch of words just to fuck with us..and then misspelled tire. Just last week heard an upper class indian with more British roots give a more Americanized indian man shit for spelling it tire rather than tyre, with zero knowledge of the history.
On the whole I think English speakers are relatively polite about misunderstood words in person, even relatively racist asshats. But when you can't read the accent, you default to your own culture and in that culture it's pronounced to rhyme with tamales.
No, it's not, go learn history. Its a mix and match on both sides usually because spelling wasn't standard anyway. Webster picked ones he liked, mostly to feel superior to Brits, Brits picked the opposite to feel superior to americans. We have the legacy accent, uk has the posh accent to sound different. We did simplify some words, Brits complexified others to be more posh.
The british spelling comes from the conquest of the duke of normandy and was already being standardized before your independence.
This is again such a us-centric way of thinking.
"We are so important the british chnged their entire language just to spite us"
I really don't want to be rude when I say this, but I can't find any better qords: please get out of your bubble. This US-centrism really annoys others.
And don't tell people to "go learn history". It's just bloody rude, even if you would have been right.
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?
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.
'Man' refers to human individuals, especially adult male humans. So the word is pretty flexible, and can technically refer to any human regardless of age.
Must be cultural then (as another commentator pointed out). I'm not a native English speaker. Perhaps it must be different meanings associated to words influenced by my native language? Not sure haha
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.
Yeah, to my ESL ears man/woman are nouns, not adjectives, and using them as adjectives comes off as childish.
That said, "female X" can also sound clumsy, if it's implied that a bare X is male, e.g. "politician" and "female politician", vs male and female politician. There was a twitter account calling itself a "male programmer" which took the piss out of that trope.
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.
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.
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).
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.
I love that this dumb dumb made a post on reddit. There are search engines, large language models, and the good ole thesaurus to find words that are synonyms. Figure. It. Out.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Somehow this stuck with me, and while you are correct, in any conversation about menses I'd probably want to include the people who eg. use contraceptive methods that temporarily stop them, and people whose periods are so irregular they simply don't know if the next one is coming or not (my group). Personally I'd also want to include and hear from people who used to menstruate but no longer do, or who are likely to start soon.
In statistics afaik they tend to use "women of fertile age", which makes sense for those purposes, to limit it to one clear-cut group for clarity. In gynecology for individual patients I don't think any term is used, just a list of properties ("G0P0 menarche 12 cycle 28 duration 5 normal flow, last period 1.1.2025") and then you move on to the issue.
And that's for periods, a relatively clear-cut thing. Then you get to "people who had the female/male experience when growing up", or "people who perform the traditionally female/male role in a relationship" or the like.
Let's say yes, since we're in a hypothetical. Breeding fetish, perhaps? Maybe just someone who's specifically looking for a long term relationship leading into children?
Not wanting to be referred to as cis, is just as ridiculous as not wanting to be referred to as straight. It just means "not trans". The women who don't want to be referred to as cis are TERFs, so their opinions are irrelevant.
The problem is female and women aren't grammatically equivalent, so you can't just drop one in place of the other anytime you want. It bugs me when people say woman president. Imagine electing a man president. The correct word in that case is male. You'd be electing a male president. I don't care about anyone's politics. I'm just getting tired of people in suits on tv using poor language and being asked to be taken seriously. And I'm not singling out democrats. Republicans adopted that language too. There are people on tv who wouldn't pass kindergarten telling us what they think will affect GDP.
Does this mean two females are able to produce sexually viable offspring?
Idk what they're called, but IIRC that there are some all-female lizards that can reproduce either by parthenogenesis or lesbianism.
You're thinking of mourning geckos!
Well…
No, they want to be called LA class nuclear powered attack submarine.
We're in shit posting after all.
Happy Xmas, ya filthy animal!
You talking about females or farts?
Is that a US specific term? Do British women get called Astute class nuclear attack subs?
Naw they’re called burds there.
And a happy new year!
That's a huge word
salatsalad just to say "I'm an incel"Found the Ger(wo)man.
Is female derogatory? I thought it was just a more scientific classification.
Edit: I work at a large engineering and manufacturing company where some of our products need to take into consideration the difference between male and female anatomy. I just hear “male” and “female” systems discussed on a weekly basis so I think I might sometimes refer to men and women as “male” and “female” outside of work without giving it a second thought.
Using scientific terminology in colloquial speech is weird and creepy in most contexts. Calling kids "juveniles" and women "females" carries certain connotations, most of them bad.
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.
Ohhhhh Watch out for what ?
Incel bullshit
Sex-obsessed creep
I mean, you are the one that freaks out when someone mentions the word incel, so I'm thinking that applies to you more than me.
It's not inherently derogatory, but it does hold a connotation if you refer to women as females particularly in contexts where you wouldn't/don't refer to men as males.
Yes, using scientific terminology can be derogatory. But in this case, acting like the opposite sex is a species on its own, classifying them as animals and slurring all women as hoes gave it away for me.
Scientifc classification by sex. Referring to others by their biological sex in a social context is weird and creepy. Even if you believe sex and gender are the same thing, it's still weird to call people by their sex. "Hello, male human. Want to ingest some fried pieces of cow flesh tonight?"
If you are calling a woman “a female”, and aren’t a cop discussing a victim or a doctor writing a chart, then yes, it’s fucking derogatory.
We’re not Ferengi.
Yep. A lot of incels seemingly are unfamiliar with scientific classification and try to use it in casual statements.
Like, they sound real stupid trying to redirect it to be about science then saying phrases like "boobs and tits".
It's a classification of sex like biological characteristics, like chromosomes, hormones, and reproductive organs. Are you asking about that?
Gender is a social construct. Just like race. Where you can be a Black person who is British. Or a Filipino American.
Edit: downvoters, you know you can literally open up a scientific book and verify for yourself, right? Downvotes don't make a thing false.
It is not. Americans are insane.
Found the incel!
Found a USian.
A reliable source on TV told me you can't go wrong with
Ladies
As a man who likes fedoras, this stereotype offends me. Sadly, it's an accurate description most of th etime.
Usually it's a cheap Trilby anyway.
You need to get big into two tone ska, then the fedora is socially acceptable again.
And I can hear it spoken with a lisp that you get when talking with a mouth full of prosthetics. Pfemales
I've never noticed that a ferengi head kinda looks like he's wearing a fedora already.
They wore them so long they fused into their heads.
I identify with this unironically as a low conscientiousness male feminist.
Out of Context Comics is leaking!
Could you see to my garden plx
I hate that society attached hoe to women like equal rights men can be slutty
Don't get me wrong I'm still a woman, just not one with a vagina :D
And tru men can be slutty too
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.
You remember how everyone just used to say women 10-20 years ago? I guess that's woke now. So much for conserving.
Woman is transphobic.
Lmao nice try rightoid.
Why yes, famously trans women hate the word women so much they use it on themselves /s
But cis-women do hate trans-woman, they invented the term "Transmaxxing"
The multiple of "trans woman" is "trans women" just like with "cis women", not "trans-woman".
There's also no dash in either "cis women" or "trans women", it's not half-cis half-woman like Spider-Man, it's just a descriptor adjective, like "cis woman" and "trans woman".
"Cis" and "Trans" of course come from the Latin prefixes meaning "this side of" or "other side of" such as in Cislunar Orbit or Translunar Injection (TLI) in astrodynamics, or the Cisalpine/Transalpine Gaul in historical geography or in Cis/Trans isomerism in Chemistry.
"Transmaxxing" is primarily used by incels that believe transition can be a way out of their inceldom, similar to gym-'maxxing' etc., while I've never heard of anyone actually transitioning for such silly reasons as it's a helluva thing to do, I doubt that this would work out in their favour.
Additionally while many cis women do hate trans women, statistically speaking they are less likely to be against trans rights than men, especially on issues like trans women using the women's bathroom or gyms or other issues that upset some cis people like healthcare access for trans children via either hormones or puberty blockers.
Source from surveys carried out on TERF Island in 2020 and 2022:
https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/43194-where-does-british-public-stand-transgender-rights-1
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/30906-where-does-british-public-stand-transgender-rights
Let me know if you need further help.
No no no, It was coined by Cis White women to trash Trans-Women, PERIOD Stop scapegoating incels for everything & stop being a sex-obsessed creep (who wants to peek at other's sex-life) as well, get some therapy
Well you brought up up the matter, not me, I don't have any interest in sex lives of incels or anyone else really, I don't think it's wrong to discuss such subjects on the internet though, there's really nothing to be ashamed of, I didn't lose my virginity till 20. It's really all okay.
Really? Most of my friends and family are super conservative and even though they disagree with the whole concept of transsexuality none of them hate trans women. Maybe you're protecting your bigotry.
Nah I know what I have seen on a general basis
"people with vaginas" is one option ig. or if they also identify as women, cis women is another option
I think "vag havers" is the preferred nomenclature.
Vager?
V'Ger? ominous noises in the background
Pascals vager
I prefer "pussy owners", sounds funnier.
When did "people with vaginas" unironically become a way to refer to anyone, especially as an alternative to "female"?
People with vaginas is the right terminology if discussing something that pertains to vaginas. Eg. "People with vaginas should make sure to see a gynecologist regularly." in this case, saying "women" would exclude/misgender many trans and intersex people who have vaginas but are not women, while also including some women who do not have vaginas and would not need to see a gynecologist
The person you replied to said "female" though. As far as I know, "Man"/"Woman" is on the gender side while "Male"/"Female" is on the sex side, based purely on things like reproductive organs, chromosomes and hormones.
Although taking all three into account may just make it hard to determine. But it does imply that "male woman" and "female man" are also valid combinations.
Not really, I don't think. They're just the adjectives where woman/man are the nouns. If you talk about a male coworker I assume he's a man, not that you checked his birth certificate.
Male and Female are still normative exclusionary categories that describe trends within physiology and not hard rules or limits. Sex is not a golden rule. It is a human created category in the same way gender is.
If you want to talk about specific anatomy there is no reason why you can't talk about the anatomy you're referring to.
I would also point out that referring to trans women as male woman is very derogatory and is functionally the same as calling us heshes or shemales.
Sex is a lot more complicated than male/female. There's a bunch of different sex characteristics that make up "sex" and people can have all sorts of different combinations of them. If you just use a male/female binary, that doesn't tell people what sex characteristic you're referring to. Maybe something affects people based on chromosones, in which case people who are xy but otherwise "female" (like with cais) would go in the "male" category and vice versa. Or maybe something affects people based on hormones, in which case transgender people taking hrt would have to be categorized based on that. If you say "male/female", no one knows if you're talking about hormones, or genitals, or chromosones, or gonads, or whatever else, so it's best to be specific and use language like "people with [body part]"
well sometimes u need to refer to ppl who have a vagina, because having a vagina is somehow relevant to the topic of conversation. which in my experience comes up very rarely, so i dont have to use it very often.
some people who have vaginas arent women, and so if the topic includes those ppl, then "people with vaginas" is the perfect phrase to use. and if talking about ppl with vaginas who all identify as women, cis women is more fitting.
"female" is a very vague way of referring to something. some ppl use it to describe gender identity, others use it to talk about ppl with vaginas, others again use it to refer to ppl with estrogen-dominant hormonal systems, etc. etc.
When the genital sexuals came on the scene. You know the ones who want to check everyone's genitals to make sure they are what they say they are. The ones who are only attracted to the genitals, they could care less what is attached to them.
For them genitals is life and they have infiltrated our government to pass laws like bathroom bills. This will allow them to examine everyone's genitals. So far they appear to be winning and everyone's genitals will soon be seen by them.
The Genital Safety Administration (GSA) will need to have a booth in front of our bathrooms there to perform their checks. Another genital sexual licking their lips in anticipation next time you have to drop a deuce.
Casual erasure of post-op trans people is really fascinating to me. Like, how did our culture shift from the first thing people think about trans people being "have you had tHe sURgErY yet???" to "if you have a vagina and are a woman you are cis"?
i know this is an old comment, but i wanted to reply anyway. im sorry for my comment. i hadnt thought about post-op trans ppl at all.
to clarify however, it wasnt the "first thing" i thought abt trans ppl, im trans myself actually.
i guess ive had too much contact with pre-op or never-op trans ppl and too little with post-op ppl to have this on my radar.
i will try to be better in the future!
As a magical talking lion, I always go with, "Daughter of Eve."
A talking lion and a flying squid? That's some Lovecraftian horror combo
Flying Squid is just my mom de plume. I’m really a Jesus metaphor in big cat form.
What would Freud say about this one? It's not overly sexual but I like it.
Freud would probably say, “autocorrect, huh?”
I’m not going to fix it now.
It's Lilith actually
I know someone who ain't gettin' into Narnia. Not on Aslan's watch, lady!
Furry Jesus was watching? Ew.
Common but baseless myth
Wow, it's been a while since I've done a Reddit Atheism™, but the same could be said for the garden of Eden.
The Garden of Eden, as we know it today, is more or less canon by the books. Meanwhile, the pop culture view of Lilith is not even close to its source materials.
This ain't about faith, just being pedantic about the fanfic vs the manga.
Next you'll be saying there's no Narnia.
"of the feminine species"
Uh, do you want to explain to this guy what a species is, or do I have to?
Well, he didn't say persuasion, at least...
Lady
M'lady
Tips Fedora
That’s NSFL bro!
At least we know how the floor got cracked.
What happened?
That image is so confusing. Looks like the rack tipped sideways, but how would that cause all those drives to fly out from the back?
Slab Bulkhead!
Cliff Beefpile!
Thí̱ly!
Hey dude, don't make it weird. Take a bad song and make it wetter.
Dude can be gendered
and some people will think you're just looking for an excuse to call men people who aren't, if you say that dude is not gendered to you
we're on the internet after all, and no one knows the real intentions of the people behind the screen
You know I've said "dude" all my life and I still use it all the time in regards to everyone. If I saw that someone was genuinely offended at being called dude I wouldn't use it again with that person, but now that I really think about it I don't think I've ever heard the term in a derogatory way. Like ever. For me it's always been a happy/inclusive word for addressing friends. My only worry for now is that saying it shows my age.
then you're golden, dude 🙂
good for you, some people really don't want to be called that.
part of respecting someone's identity is respecting the terms which they want and don't want to be called by.
getting them wrong doesn't make you an asshole, getting them wrong and not caring does.
in this context this is identical to Conservative "the new generation is too sensitive!!!" drivel.
‘Ultra-woke garbage’ like what, precisely?
Uh-huh. Seems you already know your stance is wrong.
Say it, you coward. You’ve already been blowing all the dog-whistles you can find, surely you have the guts to actually say the things you’re thinking.
My niece calls her mom "bruh"
Same with my niece and nephews. They call everyone bruh.
Do you fuck dudes?
I don't, I'm married
I use "my guy" as a humorous precursor to the rest of my sentence regardless of whom I'm speaking to.
Are you okay having the tables flipped and someone calling you "sis"?
Using male language as the default may not bother you and you may have no ill intent with it, but it does have a history tied to it. A history where women were seen as less than and didn't have equal rights. Western society still uses male language slang regardless of gender (hey guys, dude, bro, bruh) and it all stems from a history of a patriarchal society. Every time we say, "hey guys" to refer to a mixed-gender group, we perpetuate patriarchy, whether we intended to or not.
Legally and overall culturally, women are still seen as less than and we still don't have equal rights (e.g. divorce and abortion law).
Actually women have superior rights during divorce, in the western world anyway. Try to keep the children as a man during divorce.
Found the incel. Please donate my prize money to any organization that supports passing the ERA.
the dude abides.
To me this feels like you could say "Guys, ", as a general term to catch the attention of/refer to a mixed genre group as a whole. Anyone getting upset that you're using "Guys" in that context to refer to both men and women is just looking for an excuse
What
Ladies wasn't used in the Original Post.
When playing a RPG of some sort, sometimes they give you the ability to reallocate all your talent points in a different way. Such as switching from melee focused to something magic oriented like a wizard or a witch. This is called a Respec, short for Re-specialization.
Respec sounds very similar to Respect. The Original Post is about respecting women.
I appreciate your interest in my comment, hope you have a nice day. Take care.
Thank you for your thorough explanation, I now understand the joke and will react accordingly:
"Heh, that's pretty good."
Agreed
Is this why they always ask how to define "woman"?
If someone asks you to a define a women, chances are they never met one in real life.
Yes but he's not looking for a woke word for "females", so "women" doesn't help.
Women implies the existence of nimen and tamen
Mmmmm... ramen
Ooo help me learn today if you don't mind... Where does this prefix grouping come from?
Edit: found it, I think: Chinese?
Yeah, what they're saying doesn't make much sense logically though.
Men here is 们, the plural marker for people. Wo (我) is I or me, wo+men (我们) we or us, ni (你) is you, ni+men (你们) is you (plural), ta (他/她/它) is he/she/it, and ta+men (+们) is they.
Some other variants exists, and there's specifics on the usage. I also missed the tone markers on the pinyin because they're a pain to type.
Anyway I'm not sure what joke or point they were trying to make.
They say fluency happens when you make your first cross language pun, so riffing on a mediocre meme feels like halfway there.
Correct; wo, ni, ta are the singular forms I, you, he/she/it. Adding the -men suffix turns it into the plural we/you/they.
So literally, ‘we’ are ‘women’.
Hmm. Wōmen... Men of Wō... I don't mean to be racist but their triads freak me out.
Dudettes
Sexism is a helluva drug.
'feminine species' 😭😭😭
TIL that apparently we're an entirely different species. Homo sapiens and lesbo sapiens?
That kind of fella would use something derogatory instead of sapiens for women. That is, assuming they even knew what sapiens stood for in the first place.
Come on, that's just obvious bait
Female humans
Kinda long way to say women
There is nothing wrong with "males/females" though. OOP is making a big deal of nothing.
Outside of a clinical/scientific setting? It’s comes off a bit creepy. If a guy in a social setting refers to women as “females,” it seems derogatory- as if they were talking about lesser animals.
In online forums like Lemmy or Reddit, if someone calls women “females,” I always picture that person as a Ferengi from Star Trek.
I wouldn't have a problem with someone using males/females in a vacuum, but all too often I read men/females from incels and misogynists on the Internet, so now "females" feels derogatory by default.
Male/female toilets sound creepy to you?
"Male/female toilets" is not the same thing as "males/females"
The fact that it apparently doesn't sound creepy to you is creepy. You priapic huuumahn.
You are an idiot.
https://www.thesignshed.co.uk/cdn/shop/products/male-toilets-sign-in-brushed-silver-462413_1080x.jpg?v=1680276125
Nah uh male huuumaaahn. You.
It only really comes off as weird when they're used as nouns. As adjectives they're generally pretty unobjectionable.
As you can see bunch of idiots down voted me to oblivion. USians are fucking weird.
okay but how does object-oriented programming factor into it
Objectifying women is considered bad form. It'd be like saying they're just a sub-class of Person.
Some are sub-class others are dom-class, and then there's the gimps.
Excellent reply
Men/women - gender (social). Male, female - sex (biology). It’s very simple, just use the right one depending on the context.
Men/women - nouns
Male/female - adjectives
I think the reason male and female get equated with biology is because biologists need to describe individuals in terms of characteristics within the species.
Like, "I live with a small, white, female felis catus and a tall, Caucasian, male homo sapiens" is a weird way to tell people that I live with my cat and my husband outside of a scientific context.
Exactly. The key thing is the differentiation of sex (biology) and gender (social). A bathroom for women can be used by all women, even those who happen to have male bodies. It also clarifies the difference between transsexual and transgender - most transgender people are not transsexual.
This isn't as simple as you are implying as if you want to be a bro to trans people more nuance is generally required. Male and Female are not used strictly scientifically in context. Male and Female are often used as adjective forms of man and woman. Take the example of a male or female firefighter - if a trans man is a firefighter refering to him as a female firefighter using this reasoning comes across as fairly transphobic because it feels like you are either trying to utilize some sort of technical linguistic dodge to find an occasion to misgender them or your purpose is to out them to people unawares of their trans status.
Even when people use male and female as nouns instead of adjectives this transphobic reading applies because a lot of fairly obnoxious people will try and use these words as shorthand to imply that trans identities don't matter and to avoid calling you by terms that align to your identity or to isolate trans identify out of discussions. This is why you hear the phrase "Assigned male/female at birth" used by the trans community (though it actually originates from the intersex community) or "birth sex" to refer to groups that include non-binary people instead of just male or female. That linguistic abstraction is important because it implies removal by way of time. In trans terms one can be treated as female at birth given the assumption of cisness for infants implying that that term could be inaccurate in the present day.
By contrast "Trans Identitied males/females" is a transphobic dog whistle. "Biologic males/females" has the same vibe because from a scientific prospect the term is so bloody vague it is practically meaningless. The speaker is just trying to imply the social category is irrelevant or putting emphasis on an assumed physicality. Like if someone says for example "biological males in women's sports" you know the entire point they are going to be making is total exclusion before they even bother to elaborate further.
The reality is words Male and Female still represent social categories unless you append onto them more specific adjectives in term like Phenotypic, chromasomal or so on. These words are not immune from the cultural moment of negotiation of trans inclusion.
Meanwhile: males, dudes, guys, homies, fellas, bois, bros, lads, laddie, mates, geezers, chaps, gents, boss, hoss, cheif, buddy, pal, son, sonny, sonny boy, muchacho, hombre, old timer, Mac, Joe..
"Yeah what's up?"
I don't think we need to cancel Guys and Dolls just yet.
I love that half of these are fully gender neutral terms of endearment in Australia 😂
Honestly a lot of them start out as or still contextually imply "males" in the US, but can be used gender neutrally as well now too. Like "how you guys doing" vs "hanging out with the guys."
It's interesting isn't it? "Guys" can include women, and can even be a group of only women, but you can't talk about a single woman as a guy - "I snogged this gorgeous guy last night".
Using "guys" for a group of only women works only in 2nd person. You can say "I love you guys!" to a group of women, but you can't say "I was hanging out with the guys" when talking about the same group.
Which just so happens to be the perfect segue for me to pitch my proposal to make 'cunt' the de facto (gender neutral, naturally) pronoun/collective pronoun.
I'm on board!
I'm a big fan of the word cunt in all of its current uses it's my preferred slang term for my own, though it's rare to find someone who's not taken aback by that in the bedroom.
Would it be a grammatically consistent pronoun? "oh, someone left cunt wallet, I hope cunt come get it" or do we need a cunt/cunter situation? So cunt can collect cunter wallet.
Here I go once again with the email
Every week I hope that it's from a female
Oh :( Not from a female
*member of the feminine species
Lass
I favor wench.
Now that's classy, my lassie!
Sir please stop licking the females
Mmmmmm'lady
Tarts evoke the perception of a sour flavor profile for me. Like "tart" flavor is sour/tangy
The wimwams
A guy walks into a psychiatrist's office. He says:
"I'm a teepee, I'm a wigwam, I'm a teepee, I'm a wigwam, I'm a teepee, I'm a wigwam!"
The doctor says, "Calm down man, you're two tents."
What is the difference between "people with vaginas" and "people with vaginas of the feminine species"? And what is the "feminine species"? Is it some (unspecified?) species where every specimen is of the feminine gender?
He calls them the "female species" because the can't (won't) successfully breed with his own.
People with vaginas include some trans men. The idiot in OP is not totally wrong. People with vaginas are females. But what he means is (cis) women.
Also trans women can have vaginas (surgery), and it is possible to be born with a vagina but no (functioning) uterus.
And intersex people exist.
The way the OP phrases it rules out trans men who have vaginas, trans women who have vaginas, and a bunch of cis women who've had certain pelvic traumas or cancers and therefore don't have vaginas.
What he's trying to say is "if you were born with a vagina and you align with it" which is actually still funny because I was born with my vagina, I like my vagina, I'll be happily keeping it even after all my surgeries....but if this OP saw my face he would put me in the "trans man" bucket because they lack nuance around identity.
like how all cats are girls and all dogs are boys?
Broads.
I call em Snatchers
Is the cute name "beaver" still used?
Are Beavers really cute? The teeth of these large water rodents are orange because they are full of iron; these teeth never stop growing.
But if you are being serious, women don't really like being reduced to names that refer to their pudendum. It is objectifying.
Source: Canadian woman.
Edit: just realized which sub this is posted in. Oh well, think of the vocab word "Pudendum" as my Xmas gift to you. (Refers to a woman's external genitals, ie. vulva.)
Of course women don't like being reduced to names. But all hetero males do it. It starts with little boys in grammar school and no matter how old you are it never stops. Now this is not something that a normal guy would ever say out loud to a woman but they are thinking it just the same. Human nature has embedded this into the hetero male DNA. It's not a denegration of women. Every male has a mother, sister, or daughter and would never want them disrespected.
As far as male slang terms for vagina, I think it's a long list. Though I don't think women use many slang terms for male anatomy. I'd guess because sex for a woman is mostly emotional. For a guy, while it may be emotional it is foremost a fun physical activity which makes it easier to joke about. Remembering back to my grammar school days, I believe the origin of "beaver" is that back then women had lots of pubic hair. Pubic hair trimming and "landing pads" were not in vogue. And the pubic hair surrounding a vagina sort of had the look of a "beaver".
Whatever happened to "femoid"? I know I read that one somewhere.
The future is femoid
Not with Jailbait mod Spez at the helm.
It’s important to note that jailbait featured girls who were intentionally posed/looked much younger than bordering 17. I think people might try to justify it/imagine it as older looking teenagers, it was not.
The mods/power users also traded CSAM, and comment sections were used for trading the real thing. There may have been official rules against it, but these communities had codes.
There was also violentacrez little empire. I don’t understand what purpose a community like “picsofdeadkids” has. I think even if you are a free speech absolutist you can question what obligation Reddit had to host such content.
Fucking excuse me?? Nvm, I probably don't wanna know...
Pointing out how fucked up it was wasn’t very popular at the time - it was all about the “free speech”. This was the era of professional quote makers and dictionary definitions of ephebophilia. Reddit refused to take any action on jailbait until the Anderson Cooper special. Violentacrez was doxxed by Gawker, if you just look at the list of subreddit names it’s enough.
Factor in the plausible idea that Ghislaine Maxwell may have been a Reddit power user…
Girl?
Little princess?
Adorable little slut? 😡
My adorable little slut? 🥺
(it's me, I'm the adorable slut)
Princess is a nasty thing to call a woman. https://medium.com/@viridiangrail/princesses-are-nsfw-f9e6c3d4532d
It's a shitpost.
For me, the male equivalent is "little buddy".
You can also hit your homies with "sport" or "squirt". Squirt is funny to me as it's like... Yep that's how you were made.
that can still be infantilizing for an adult woman
Wo-men? Well, I've heard of men, but this sounds like a foreign language to me.
Girl, woman
Girl can absolutely be interpreted as condescending if you're talking to/about an adult
Hey girl calm down why are you getting so hysterical?
Did I man correctly? 😇
My sides. xD
So much cultural imperialism in here.
Once US-Americans decide how they want a word used, they will harrass and cyber-bully everyone into using it the same way / using the same word
Boys, you need to realize that english isn't "your" language. You don't get to decide how others speak it.
It's everyone's language, everyone can bully each other over it. The Brits added u to a bunch of words just to fuck with us..and then misspelled tire. Just last week heard an upper class indian with more British roots give a more Americanized indian man shit for spelling it tire rather than tyre, with zero knowledge of the history.
On the whole I think English speakers are relatively polite about misunderstood words in person, even relatively racist asshats. But when you can't read the accent, you default to your own culture and in that culture it's pronounced to rhyme with tamales.
My brother in christ, the british spelling is the original.
The reason you spell it differently was a conscious decision of your revolutionaries to differentiate themselves from the brits
You used the same spelling before your independence.
And how about "noone can bully" instead of "everyone can bully"?
Just throwing tht in the room here.
I won't bully you for writing "recognise" just to assert your independence, you let us be us and everyone is happy, is tht a Deal?
No, it's not, go learn history. Its a mix and match on both sides usually because spelling wasn't standard anyway. Webster picked ones he liked, mostly to feel superior to Brits, Brits picked the opposite to feel superior to americans. We have the legacy accent, uk has the posh accent to sound different. We did simplify some words, Brits complexified others to be more posh.
The british spelling comes from the conquest of the duke of normandy and was already being standardized before your independence.
This is again such a us-centric way of thinking.
"We are so important the british chnged their entire language just to spite us"
I really don't want to be rude when I say this, but I can't find any better qords: please get out of your bubble. This US-centrism really annoys others.
And don't tell people to "go learn history". It's just bloody rude, even if you would have been right.
I like "broads" mself.
"It's Ma'am"
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?
Hello, my name! 👋
"Make me a sammich, jewbacca117" just doesn't have the same ring to it
Birch, please!
I suppose I can call you my name if you really want.
With 117 I can only do chief, sorry.
Is your name Mayor? Or is that your title?
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.
'Man' refers to human individuals, especially adult male humans. So the word is pretty flexible, and can technically refer to any human regardless of age.
I’ve never encountered a man or woman that hated being called whichever was appropriate
Must be cultural then (as another commentator pointed out). I'm not a native English speaker. Perhaps it must be different meanings associated to words influenced by my native language? Not sure haha
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.
Yeah, to my ESL ears man/woman are nouns, not adjectives, and using them as adjectives comes off as childish.
That said, "female X" can also sound clumsy, if it's implied that a bare X is male, e.g. "politician" and "female politician", vs male and female politician. There was a twitter account calling itself a "male programmer" which took the piss out of that trope.
100%, I also hate the stupid shit like “actress” as if we need a whole new fucking word when you can just say actor for everyone.
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.
Based
this is a conversation about accepting ideas rather than critisizing the form...
Go tuck yourself in!
P.s. bed! Goodnight, riwo!
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.
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).
How have you applied age to the word "man"? Unless you're not an adult and "man" to you means being an adult?
Guy probably is between 16 and 25 and doesn't want to be an adult lol
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
"First president with vaginas," per above. Kinda like graduating with honors.
... honey, there could be another reason you don't like being called a man. 👀 Just a thought.
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.
Why would they want to be called, 'boy', 'male', etc then?
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.
Fair enough. For me, any gendered language makes me dysphoric when I am not that gender. But of course gender is a very individual and personal thing.
'Extra-chromo-sapiens'.
The other ones are 'whiny-chromo-sapiens'.
'Arsehole' is a good cross gender term for any humans of known or unknown sex.
"seat-pee-ers"?
I love that this dumb dumb made a post on reddit. There are search engines, large language models, and the good ole thesaurus to find words that are synonyms. Figure. It. Out.
I call them flighty broads
What is a woman?
Someone who covers her drink when you enter the room
Try taking to one and find out.
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.
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.
Is it hypothetical because no one has wanted to reproduce with you for some elusive reason?
"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.
You thought you ate with this comment 😂
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.
Somehow this stuck with me, and while you are correct, in any conversation about menses I'd probably want to include the people who eg. use contraceptive methods that temporarily stop them, and people whose periods are so irregular they simply don't know if the next one is coming or not (my group). Personally I'd also want to include and hear from people who used to menstruate but no longer do, or who are likely to start soon.
In statistics afaik they tend to use "women of fertile age", which makes sense for those purposes, to limit it to one clear-cut group for clarity. In gynecology for individual patients I don't think any term is used, just a list of properties ("G0P0 menarche 12 cycle 28 duration 5 normal flow, last period 1.1.2025") and then you move on to the issue.
And that's for periods, a relatively clear-cut thing. Then you get to "people who had the female/male experience when growing up", or "people who perform the traditionally female/male role in a relationship" or the like.
So that hypothetic person is turned off by learning someone is infertile for any reason?
Let's say yes, since we're in a hypothetical. Breeding fetish, perhaps? Maybe just someone who's specifically looking for a long term relationship leading into children?
Trans women want to be referred to as just women, and biological women don't want to be referred to as Cis women, so other than female, what is there?
I agree that I get the ick from female when referred to by certain men, but at this point, I don't see another option.
The other option is "women"
Works for most conversations, I agree
Not wanting to be referred to as cis, is just as ridiculous as not wanting to be referred to as straight. It just means "not trans". The women who don't want to be referred to as cis are TERFs, so their opinions are irrelevant.
Is it just as ridiculous as not wanting to be referred to as trans? Why label what something is not rather than what something is?
The problem is female and women aren't grammatically equivalent, so you can't just drop one in place of the other anytime you want. It bugs me when people say woman president. Imagine electing a man president. The correct word in that case is male. You'd be electing a male president. I don't care about anyone's politics. I'm just getting tired of people in suits on tv using poor language and being asked to be taken seriously. And I'm not singling out democrats. Republicans adopted that language too. There are people on tv who wouldn't pass kindergarten telling us what they think will affect GDP.
I find your assertion that anything resembling "thinking" may occur at any point with such people either very generous or quite naive 😋
/s?
I sure hope so