Can’t be only one who hates “petite” right ? Only see it used to describe (short|small titted) adult women . Specially wen used in NSFW contexts just … bad vibesz all around , don’t like its connotations
- Unnecessarily gendered language describing physical traits anyone can have
- Tying physical attributes to gender
- Likens the (short|small titted) adult women to children , creating countless problems itself
Can we just get rid of it already ? Wy hasn’t it been dropped by now ?
CLARIFICATION : Only concerned with how it’s used in english
The reason it’s only used for women is because French is a Romance (gendered) language and petite is the feminine singular form of the word petit. It’s not different than the Spanish pequeña VS pequeño. I don’t necesarily see a problem with it, but Spanish is my native language so I’m used to the concept
@Canadian_Cabinet But like wy it needs to be that way for english ?
It doesn’t need to be, but English speakers have a habit of arbitrarily choosing the gendered word that they import from languages with gendered adjectives and nouns. For example, even men massage therapists are “masseuses” and not “masseurs”.
Somewhat strangely, we have slowly dropped our own gendered titles over the decades. We no longer say “manageress” nor “doctoress” and many people have stopped saying “actress”.
English speakers as a large group seem to not try to maintain any logic to their choices. They merely copy others and don’t think much about what they’re saying. If you refuse to use “petite” like that, it only increases the chances that others stop, but we would probably need some influential person to criticize it—but not too loudly!—for larger segments of the English speaking world to change their habits.