No stupid questions time: This kind of lurks in the back of my mind and I sometimes find myself hesitating to use the term “female” to refer to female figures in any context. I don’t have to do that, right? Like, would “woman lawyer” be better than “female lawyer” in contexts where specifying gender might be relevant? I would conversely prefer the term “male lawyer” in the same context and “man lawyer” sounds just as odd to me as “woman lawyer”. “Lawyer who is a woman” is a little verbose, too. Am I overthinking this?
Sorry but “woman” is not an adjective and its use that way is grating. You wouldn’t say “man teacher” and it sounds wrong. So does “woman lawyer” or “woman voter.”
The neckbeard/incel thing is using “female” when “woman” would be acceptable and more common, like “look at these females” or something. It doesn’t mean we have to abolish the word “female” entirely from the lexicon.
Yeah, that seems to align nicely with the instincts I outlined in my comment. No need to apologize. Thanks!
My personal rule is female adjective is okay, female noun is not.
From what I googled, it’s especially bad when you pair “man” and “female” together, which makes sense to me.
Just don’t use male or female as nouns to refer to humans. That simple. If you’re talking about animals it doesn’t matter.
If you’re talking about animals it doesn’t matter.
Not even that it doesn’t matter, it’s almost entirely the point. The reason why using ‘females’ as a noun to refer to women is dehumanizing is because it’s a noun we use for animals.
Yes you’re over thinking this. A woman lawyer is just a lawyer. Same how a male lawyer is just a lawyer. Unless the gender of the person is important, leave it out of their job title. Use the word actor to describe both men and women who act. Flight attendant for men and women, or receptionist, or any other word. The vast majority of time you can leave their gender out of the description and it’s fine.
My personal take is to just use lawyer, when gender is irrelevant. This may get your audience confused when using “she” in the next sentence. But it could help weaken the stereotypes about genders if we did this more often IMHO.
If needed “female lawyer” or “lawyer who is a woman” are good otherwise.I know, use the worst of all options, “lawyeress.” /s
When we’re driving, my wife often acts as a navigatrix
Waiter = Waitress
Lawyer = LawyressLawyer femoid 😒
lawyeoid 😏
I work in statistics and we never use girl of woman, only female. The line is vastly different in age and meaning depending on culture, religion, law, or heritage. Even in western societ, 13, 16, 18, and 21 are all valid before tipping to 40, 50, 60, 65, 68, and 70 where the term can be prefixed with some form of adjective.
It’s old-fashioned. Just say female and every culture/society understands you without confusion or insult. Save you embarassing/insulting people while travelling too.
They’re just called lawyers, unless they’re lawyering with their genitals and their sex is somehow relevant.
“single female lawyer fighting for justice and also being single,”
That’s a deep reference. Very nice.
I’m a nostalgia sniper today
“70% of lawyers suffer discrimination in the workplace but only 30% of lawyers face discrimination.”
There are obviously still contacts where the distinction is important.
Maybe from an equity perspective, but not from a lawyer perspective. So you’d probably say “we need more women in law”.
Because the topic is women. If the topic was lawyering, then sex won’t come up.
Immediate scenario that came to mind here is
The client demanded any other public defender, as long as they weren’t black or female.
Such as discussing discrimination, statistics, etc
Best be safe and call them “girl lawyer”
What the guys behind closed doors at the Republican Party leadership look like when they take their mask off.
“You let them wear clothes?”
They are all just from the rib of a man or whatever it was anyway, right?
“Men and females.”
Yes that’s the issue, if you use them inconsistently. Males, females. Men, women. Same for boys, girls actually. Saying boys and women or men and girls can seem belittling to the other.
I consistently used males and females in some contexts but I’ve noticed that it often still comes across as weird when talking about humanoids.
Anecdotal but most people I hear using ‘female’ are women.
If they have big ears they are either the big bad wolf, or ferengi in disguise
I refer to them as laaaaydeeeees
Also does anyone find it odd how often society calls grown women girls while they stick to men when referring to men without a second thought? I still do it when I’m not paying attention.
Stereotypically, women always strive to look as young as possible, so calling one a girl can be seen as a compliment. While men, stereotypically strive to appear mature, hence calling one a boy can be considered an insult.
Same as the other reply, I don’t disagree. Do I think there’s mal intent? Nah. But I’m sure this has an unconscious effect on how we perceive women. Besides lots of women look young without even trying, I think with the improvement of medicine and public health, people in general are just looking younger nowadays so we should nip this habit in the butt.
I don’t disagree with you that society does think that way, but I disagree with the sentiment so much.
I’m 33 and afab. I accepted being called a “girl” until I was about 23 (probably not a coincidence that that was the age at which I graduated college), but it started chafing at like 16, even though I didn’t have a good alternative at the time (because I agree that “female” as a noun feels gross). If someone called me a girl now I would correct them without hesitation in basically every scenario outside of a eulogy or wedding speech.
I really wish there was a better option. I don’t really like “woman,” but it’s better than gal, lady, dudette, chick, or girl imo. I’m perfectly fine with guy or dude, especially in plural, but I’m probably an egg, so that colors my perspective for the singular use a little.
I honestly don’t see this changing any time soon because there are biological incentives behind both stereotypes. And, anecdotally, my gf (40+) will pout if in some context I refer to her as a woman, and be like “noooo, I’m a girl… :(”. Semi-jokingly, of course, but only semi.
I have to keep reminding myself of this. I’m in my late 20s and I still slip up when referring to myself sometimes.
Fun use of “boys” has been really popular for quite some time. Me and the boys. Boys will be boys.
‘Guys’ even tho the singular is used to mean a man, is really an a-gendered plural
Those are specific phrases but yeah I getcha. And you could argue, like some other replies said, sometimes “boys” is used in casual ways, “girls” is used as an equivalent to “guys”, it can mean “gals” too. Fair points but I do believe people have some kind of aversion to “woman/women” and won’t ever use if in a fun context. it’s just an uptight sounding word for some reason.
Hell, a business or industry run primarily by men in their fifties and older can be referred to as “a boys club.”
I hear almost daily how the older secretary and HR women call the workers “boys”, I think it’s quite endearing but tbh it doesn’t have the same history of belittling really.
As a man, this has legit always bugged me. We use “girls” in contexts that we would NEVER use “boys” in, even when they’re the same age.
I just view it as a quirk of the language. “Guys and girls” or “guys and gals” are paired words. Guy is a casual way to refer to men, so I think people use girl as a casual way to refer to women because it’s sort of the pair to guy. Lady feels too formal.
You’re just encouraging me to refer to women as “females” with this.
Gotta love how “”””radfems”””” love the term “adult human female” too.
Trans women are adult human females.
Obviously the exclusionary group is going to exclude the people they don’t like with their slogans though. Trans exclusionary radical feminists don’t believe trans women are women. The “adult human female” shit across from them “defining woman” or something to that effect.
I know, but I used to really piss off transphobes with that line. At least one immediately quote retweeted me, while calling me out as an “extreme misogynist” (she was defending Matt Walsh of all people, saying he’s just practicing his “right to religion”) just before blocking me.
Funny how trans people never have religious rights in these discussions. Or how they refer to “trans ideology” rather than trans religious or philosophical beliefs. If I were to opine on my beliefs of the soul/spirit, I would say I was created with a female spirit in a male body. If I have any religious belief, then it is a religious worldview where such a thing is possible. Yet trans people never seem to have their religious rights acknowledged.
It’s the result of the far-right gaslighting people with the fear of communism, and how anti-religion (not letting christofascist to destroy our democracies) = holodomor and work camps.
True. It’s just a slogan in the same way that “being White is all right” is or “All Lives Matter” is. It’s not supposed to mean what it means. It’s a code.
Like - once, 4chan (/pol/ and /b/ primarily, early mid 2010s) that it would be funny to make drinking milk a racist thing. It was explicitly discussed how this would make people upset about people drinking milk, and how this would be funny. The alt right weirdos in on the joke get the joke, leftists are befuddled and outraged, the stupid conservative weirdos are laughing at the dumb liberals and their cancel culture getting worked up about milk. Same thing with that pinched thumb and index finger “okay” symbol. 14 and 88 have lost their plausible deniability in most spaces at least.
Very similarly, the idea of MAPS was a /pol/ operation that was carried out to delegitimize the LGBT movement. The idea of people identifying with a sexual orientation based on being exclusively attracted to children, to the point of creating a pride flag, was mostly a /pol/ op. This is not to say that there aren’t creeps who did actually identify as such as a consequence of this movement, but it wasn’t a natural movement of creeps.
Language games. The limits of my language are the limits of my world. They mean something entirely different even in just human there.
Just tells you how easily the media can seed prejudices. One good story is enough.
Honest question from a non native: what is wrong with the term female?
And what word could you use for the sex girls and women are part of where people wouldn’t imagine you look like a space neolib?
Female is still an acceptable term in some context: eg, when referring to the social group on a societal level, female can be fine, also for identifying someone’s genetic/biological sex as “female” for medical/official contexts, that’s still okay in most cases.
Where it’s not okay is to use it on an individual level or to refer to a small group of ladies. The term is seem as cold, clinical, and in some cases, dehumanizing. It comes off as boiling down a person to their function in reproduction and nothing more. “You are the female and you carry children.” Kind of thing. Like women are some kind of bakery for your crotch goblins, and not people worthy of respect.
But something like “the female population of the country” is fairly okay, since you’re referring to the entirely of the people who identify as female, not an individual or small group of individuals.
At least, that’s my take. I’m just some guy. If any women want to correct me, I defer to your judgement and opinion, and happily retract any contradictory statements I may have made. I am always happy to be corrected.
Short answer: It’s a turn of phrase the Incel movement popularized as a dehumanizing dogwhistle.
Long answer: In current American English, “Female” and “Females” are highly formal terms and really are only commonly used in situations like law and academic discourse (this is true of “male” and “males” as well, though there’s much less cultural baggage associated with those terms). People who use them in casual conversation instead of the much more common “Women” (or the diminutive, “Girls”) tend to be the kind of person that uses formal language to emphasize their own intellectual superiority over the common masses, and in particular all the women who won’t have sex with them. In fact and almost invariably, this is presented in the form of explanations about why nobody wants to have sex with them, and the cultural forces that are causing it, and why deep down it’s the women’s fault they can’t get a date, and it just all goes downhill from there.
edit: clarity
I recently watched The Orville, and immediately think of the Moclans and their Ultra-Misogyny
Clyden!!!
