• otp@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    The problem is when people use “female” and “men”.

    Male and female are sort of dehumanizing words. Great to use in science, but awkward to use in casual conversation. It’s like telling someone “Your epidermis looks so smooth”.

    When you use “females” in combination with more appropriate word for males (e.g., “men”), you end up sounding like an incel or something.

    And since people generally don’t use “males” when talking about men casually, even just using “females” outside an academic context is enough to make it sound a lot like how an incel would speak.

    So “females” isn’t a bad word, but incels use it in a way that demeans women. If you use it in a non-scientific context, you’ll probably end up sounding like an incel.

    (All the "you"s are meant to be the “general you”; I’m not trying to pick on anyone in particular)

    • schmidtster@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I have a female friend group and male friend group.

      Men and women sounds weird there, boy and girl can be taken wrong.

      Lots of people use the terms in every day use, I don’t know why it’s being claimed it’s not. People slip up, make mistakes.

      This just seems like an entire reverse white night scenario. People getting mad over nothing or just wanting to be angry about something.

      • knightly the Sneptaur@pawb.social
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        8 months ago

        I have a female friend group and male friend group.

        The gendered terms there are adjectives which describe the two friend groups. Sounds fine.

        But using “female” by itself to refer to a woman should be avoided unless the speaker actually wants to sound like a Ferengi.

        No moral conflict or language policing necessary, just an awareness of the tonal implications of one’s word choices.

        • schmidtster@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Right people are human and make mistakes, so to accidentally use the term interchangeable is perfectly acceptable.

          People are trying to make an issue out of nothing, the only op-Ed’s on this is a decade old at this point.

          It’s not a thing, and never will be. Use context to help you instead of just deciding a word is suddenly derogatory.

          • knightly the Sneptaur@pawb.social
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            8 months ago

            Hence, this thread where someone pointed out that the word choice might have unintentional implications, which triggered a few oversensitive incels who percieved it as an attack on their choice to speak dismissively of women.

            • schmidtster@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Nah, it’s the reverse, it’s a red flag for men to avoid women who try to say it’s misogynistic and not appropriate.

              Context makes it okay or not, not the word itself.

              Theres also more people explaining why it’s okay instead of people defending it, so I don’t know what your point was there.

              • knightly the Sneptaur@pawb.social
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                8 months ago

                For someone who insists that context is the determinant of appropriateness, you sure don’t seem to be considering that women might have a different context for the term. XD

                • schmidtster@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  Of course they do… how’s someone supposed to know that the person they are talking to is a snowflake and takes normal words to the extreme…?

                  Did I say otherwise somewhere…?

                  This is entirely a feminist problem, not men, not women, feminists. And it’s a wonderful red flag for other people when it’s brought up.

                  • knightly the Sneptaur@pawb.social
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                    8 months ago

                    Of course they do… how’s someone supposed to know that the person they are talking to is a snowflake and takes normal words to the extreme…?

                    Try asking.

                    Did I say otherwise somewhere…?

                    Yeah, you acted like someone offerring grammar advice was an ill omen of social decay.

                    How are people supposed to learn to avoid sounding like misogynists if we can’t even warn them without triggering extreme moral outrage in sensitive snowflakeslike yourself?

                    This is entirely a feminist problem, not men, not women, feminists. And it’s a wonderful red flag for other people when it’s brought up.

                    Seems the other way around to me. You’re the one getting mad about words here.