• AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works
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    7 hours ago

    female as an adjective for clarification (like “oh you’re looking for that female doctor over there”) is ok, female as a noun is just weird

    • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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      2 hours ago

      There are contexts where it makes sense, mostly medicine or science, but even in those contexts it’s deliberately dehumanizing, which is the point. It is also the only English word for a female human that does not imply age, as woman and girl both do.

      The quick sniff test: “Males and females”? Clinical, but probably fine. “Men and females”? Fucking Ferengi freak, avoid that guy

  • GreyShuck@feddit.uk
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    11 hours ago

    Yes, fun idea. No problem with that but… that ‘flag’ is a sail. They’re different things.

    • MonkRome@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      Naw, they were using that before all the anti trans nonsense. It’s more about there inability to see women as human. They identify them more for their gender than being the same species as them. If they started calling them women that would humanize women too much…

  • Etterra@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    Remember, pirates did fly red flags as well as black ones. The red ones meant you were extra fucked.

  • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com
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    9 hours ago

    Someone should really tell everyone from the south. I had no idea until it was pointed out to me by someone younger. Changed my behavior of course, but was simply ignorant before.

    • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      A lot of people use certain words just out of habit, the last thing you need is some SJW jumping down your throat and calling you names cause they don’t like your regional dialect. Lots of words I grew up with that were normal or not that bad, and now are considered super offensive. It’s not a malicious thing, all you can do is calibrate and learn, but some people get so worked up if you don’t use the words they’re used to

        • dan@upvote.au
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          6 hours ago

          I don’t get why the saying is “shoving it down your throat” or “jumping down your throat” when it’s more like shoving it down your ear canal. You don’t eat what people are saying 🤔

  • 4oreman
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    9 hours ago

    he’d probably call women maidens

  • OpenStars@piefed.social
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    8 hours ago

    Otoh, some women use this while referring to other women, e.g. “us females need to stick together!” - in a totally positive and inclusive manner (or what looks like that, from me on the outside - i.e. not using language in such manner myself, for either men or women).

    So maybe instead of a red flag it’s more like an orange one? VERY noteworthy, but not enough on its own to justify cutting off contact with someone, whereas for an actual red flag you would… right?

    • Dragon "Rider"(drag)@lemmy.nz
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      4 hours ago

      Drag wonders why that woman chose to say females instead of women. It’s a very odd way to phrase it, and the only practical consequence of the change is to exclude trans women. Was that the intention?

      • OpenStars@piefed.social
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        24 minutes ago

        Well, women can be sexist too, even about one’s own gender, so indeed that’s a possibility. But as someone else mentioned on this thread, its usage seemed to predate trans really becoming known as being a thing (at least in the surgical sense).

        So I - who really knows nothing and isn’t really involved, but nonetheless I’ll still tell you my opinion! (bc you asked, ofc:-) - say: when in doubt, check the other factors. Perhaps she merely needs educated. Or perhaps we should not nitpick every tiny thing. Then again, is it really nitpicking to tell a woman that she is a human being?

        Anyway it still gets back to: is it a RED flag? And if so, what then - like is it worth having any further conversations at all with a person who uses such language? And for that, I say: use one’s best judgement.

        Then again, perhaps my thinking is outdated - bc NOW it is used to exclude trans women. Sort of? In some contexts it is, while in others it might not?

        But I can’t recall ever having used it personally, so I cannot really say why this would do such a thing.

        • Dragon "Rider"(drag)@lemmy.nz
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          11 minutes ago

          It can be both! A lot of women, such as JK Rowling, think the only worth they have as women is having a uterus and being conditioned to think less of themselves by a patriarchal society. If trans women are valid, that means women don’t have to exist for making babies. That means women can be raised to have self esteem. The fact that these things are an option, and these women didn’t get to have that privilege, breaks their hearts. Growing up trans is traumatizing, but these TERFs only focus on the privileges, like not having to deal with periods. They’re jealous. Too jealous to accept it. They have to believe that womanhood is suffering, or they’d instead have to accept that the suffering they endured was unnecessary.

      • Nfamwap@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        I’ve seen you around Lemmy for a little while now. Why do you insist on referring to yourself in the 3rd person?

        • Dragon "Rider"(drag)@lemmy.nz
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          2 hours ago

          Due to claims that drag is always changing the subject to drag’s pronouns, drag has a rule about talking about drag’s pronouns on threads that aren’t about them. Drag will only talk about drag’s pronouns if somebody says “I want to change the subject to drag’s pronouns”. Drag isn’t going to change the subject to drag’s pronouns, somebody else has to, and clearly state they are doing so.

  • Revonult@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    I been wondering people’s opinion of “Female” in some instances. Like is “First Female president/athlete/mayor/lawyer” appropriate? “First woman____” doesn’t sound right and you wouldn’t say “first man athlete to run 2 hour marathon” you would use male.

    Most things can be rephrased maybe, but obviously using Females outside these instances is very right wing cringe.

    • Zombiepirate@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      “Female” is fine to use as an adjective.

      It’s also fine to use as a noun when describing livestock, which is why it’s a red flag to describe women that way.

      • snooggums@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        What is a good word to use for people who are female of any age including young children that are not old enough to be called women in addition to women?

        ‘Women and girls’ is pretty clunky when talking about something that is gender specific, but applies to all ages.

          • snooggums@lemmy.world
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            10 hours ago

            ‘Gendered violence against teenage women and girls’ is really clunky. Especially if it needs repeating across paragraphs.

            If there isn’t something, that’s fine.

            • SavvyWolf@pawb.social
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              10 hours ago

              “Gendered violence against females” on the other hand sounds a bit too clinical though… Like you’re removing their personhood

              • snooggums@lemmy.world
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                10 hours ago

                If ‘females’ wasn’t used by online sexists to treat women as objects would it sound that way?

                • SavvyWolf@pawb.social
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                  10 hours ago

                  Maybe! I don’t know if “gendered violence against men” also has the same connotations.

                  Maybe this is indeed is a case of those people poisoning the term.

          • snooggums@lemmy.world
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            9 hours ago

            I absolutely would use males in that context. “Toxic masculinity has a detrimental affect on males of all ages” sounds perfectly fine to me because I don’t know of a different label for the group and males doesn’t have the same dehumanizing usage as females.

        • xtr0n@sh.itjust.works
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          10 hours ago

          Women is probably fine to use when the ages can be gleaned from context. You can also make the noun non gendered and use female as a adjective like “female students” or “female patients”

          • snooggums@lemmy.world
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            10 hours ago

            I’m mainly asking when ages span from birth to old age and the goup would basically be “female persons” or “male persons” which is clunky.

            Sometimes it can be rephrased, but it often requires multiple words to mean the same thing. Plus “women of all ages” will be read as not including children.

            I’m mostly pissed that sexists ruined the only single word term we have for half of the population.

              • snooggums@lemmy.world
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                6 hours ago

                It is important that when we are addressing issues of sexism, that we try to make sure that the ideas are easily understood by women, men, girls, and boys so that everyone understands how to support equality. If we only focus our effort on men and boys, without recognizing the influence also has on women and girls, then it will not be as successful. For example, the social expectations of women and girls to dress in certain ways is commonly enforced by men, women, girls, and boys even if the influence is only targeted at women and girls. Not to mention the toxic masculinity that is applied to men and boys by men, women, boys, and girls that are commonly reinforced by telling men and boys to ‘man up’ in stressful situations.

                You are right, that is smooth as butter.

    • ted@sh.itjust.works
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      10 hours ago

      Woman as an adjective is picking up in my circles and podcasts I listen to. Woman scientist, woman entrepreneur. It may have sounded weird initially, but I’ve gotten over it and I suspect it will develop over time to be completely normal.

      I wouldn’t really compare it to the male/man counterpart, because men aren’t demeaned by being called “male” regularly.

      • toast@retrolemmy.com
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        8 hours ago

        Woman used as an adjective like this sounds so wrong to me (probably because it isn’t an adjective). If you wouldn’t say man voter, man driver, men reporters, etc., then why would you say woman voter, women drivers, woman reporter? Just because some people use ‘female’ in a way that you object to shouldn’t make all uses of it objectionable. Do you want a world in which we can say ‘male patients’, but have to say ‘woman and girl patients’ instead of female patients? Why??

      • Revonult@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        I agree it works in most cases it works fine but like “First woman astronaut” feels weird.

        I mostly didn’t want to be accidentally participating in something shitty.

        Edit: or like “fastest woman athlete”

        • JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee
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          6 hours ago

          I think both kinda sound equally weird because we for a lot of words like astronaut, the astronaut is already assumed to be male unless otherwise indicated. So male astronauts or man astronauts both sound clunky and kinda weird, and the weirdness translates over when you start indicating the astronaut is a woman by saying “woman astronaut” or “female astronaut.”

          The English language, and historical baggage just kinda fucked us on this one. We used to add ‘ess’ to the ends of words to indicate gender, but that was dropped outside of the use of waitress or actress for the most part. Not sure why that stopped, but I’m sure it’s interesting and I’m going to go look it up later.

        • ted@sh.itjust.works
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          8 hours ago

          Yeah, I remember feeling like it was weird, but both of those sound absolutely fine to me now.

          I also would never balk at “female” as an adjective in those cases, nor assume the speaker was being misogynist.

  • Mango@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    How do I formally refer to a girl I do not respect(because she’s a menace) who is late 40’s early 50’s? So the different terms have implications I don’t care for it want to convey.

    • ShareMySims@sh.itjust.works
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      9 hours ago

      Yeah, but those people don’t get defensive when you comment on it, while those who are raising the red flag immediately do. It’s pretty easy to tell them apart from that point forward.

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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      8 hours ago

      Pretty sure non natives will be the first ones to use “woman” and not “female”. I know it’s not something we say in French anyway, a woman is a woman.

      • Owl@mander.xyz
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        8 hours ago

        a woman is a woman

        Problematic part

        Blague à part, il existe d’autres langue (non-indo-européennes) ou la distinction est moins aisée à faire. Par exemple en Hongrois on dit “nő” pour “femme” et “nőstény” pour “femelle”, mais on peut les interchanger dans certains cas et les traducteurs automatiques s’y emmêlent les pinceaux des fois.

    • krashmo@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      What a sweetheart you are. Can’t even let a webcomic get away with not being inclusive.