4 ms·

Just curious: what are negative connotations of "female"? I'm not a native speaker.

by oytis 8y ago

rhapsodic 8y ago
>Just curious: what are negative connotations of "female"? I'm not a native speaker. I am, and I'm not aware of any. But if there are, they probably grew out of the weird taboos that, in some segments of English-speaking culture, tightly control what terms one is permitted to use when speaking about gender-related issues. Most of us, fortunately, don't consider ourselves bound by these taboos.
chongli 8y ago
It's very subtle. "Females" is a term used for women in some of the seedier corners of the internet. It implies grouping women with female animals rather than grouping them together with men as human beings.
- enriquto 8y ago
  I have read your comment several times and still fail to find any meaning to it. Is it some sort of joke/sarcasm ?
  - chongli 8y ago
    It's completely sincere. I have seen it happen plenty of times. A quick search and perusal of the headlines backs me up. [1] [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=referring+to+women+as+females&t=iphone&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=referring+to+women+as+females&t=ip...
    - leereeves 8y ago
      Seems to be an extreme fringe position supported by a few articles from Buzzfeed, Jezebel, The Root, Reset Era, a YouTube video, and a reddit post with 7 votes. The rest of the results are about calling women "girls" which can be offensive for obvious reasons. Perhaps you could point to a specific example where "it implies grouping women with female animals rather than grouping them together with men as human beings."
      - chongli 8y ago
        It's generally the extreme fringe misogynist groups that use the term females almost entirely to the exclusion of "women." I'm rather surprised I'm getting so much pushback on this here, of all places. I thought it would be pretty obvious to most of the English as first language population here.
        enriquto 8y ago
        English is not my first language, but if I understand correctly, "woman" is often a noun and "female" is often an adjective; but the usage can be interchanged. The articles that you link say that using "female" as a noun is somewhat demeaning. OK, I can agree with that. What I don't get is how using "female" as an adjective can be demeaning at all? This is a different question that seems very surprising as a non-native speaker. Using the noun "woman" as an adjective (in apposition) is maybe grammatically correct, but sounds very strange to me.
        waterhouse 8y ago
        There are people who argue that all kinds of things are demeaning or offensive. For example, some have argued that "person with disabilities" should be preferred over "disabled person" because using the word "person" first emphasizes their humanity. I heard someone claim that saying "I'm going to go home and sleep to recharge my batteries" is demeaning (to yourself!) because you're talking about yourself like a machine. As far as I know, these notions do not usually come from (a) studies showing e.g. that, if you have people read text using one phrase or the other, and then give them questions designed to evaluate their opinions of disabled people, you see an actual effect; or from (b) a statistically significant sample of actual disabled people saying they really would prefer one phrase over the other; but usually from (c) an academic thinking something up and writing about it, and other people reading about it and adopting the new phraseology so as to avoid the chance of being called "insensitive". Sometimes it makes it out of academia and we end up hearing about it.
        rhapsodic 8y ago
        > I'm rather surprised I'm getting so much pushback on this here, of all places. I thought it would be pretty obvious to most of the English as first language population here. I suspect it's not obvious to the overwhelming majority of English speakers that there is some problem with referring to females as females, or describing them as female. In my observation, claiming that using the word "female" to refer to females is somehow problematic is the fringe view. Not the other way around.
- waterhouse 8y ago
  This seems to be an interesting case, where using "female(s)" as a noun is the usage that some people have objected to, and now this spills over into people avoiding the usage of "female" as an adjective. Well, I suppose that kind of evolution is par for the course with any word that ends up getting deemed offensive.

Just curious: what are negative connotations of "female"? I'm not a native speaker.

by oytis 8y ago

Just curious: what are negative connotations of "female"? I'm not a native speaker.

>Just curious: what are negative connotations of "female"? I'm not a native speaker. I am, and I'm not aware of any. But if there are, they probably grew out of the weird taboos that, in some segments of English-speaking culture, tightly control what terms one is permitted to use when speaking about gender-related issues. Most of us, fortunately, don't consider ourselves bound by these taboos.

chongli 8y ago

It's very subtle. "Females" is a term used for women in some of the seedier corners of the internet. It implies grouping women with female animals rather than grouping them together with men as human beings.

enriquto 8y ago
I have read your comment several times and still fail to find any meaning to it. Is it some sort of joke/sarcasm ?
- chongli 8y ago
  It's completely sincere. I have seen it happen plenty of times. A quick search and perusal of the headlines backs me up. [1] [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=referring+to+women+as+females&t=iphone&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=referring+to+women+as+females&t=ip...
  - leereeves 8y ago
    Seems to be an extreme fringe position supported by a few articles from Buzzfeed, Jezebel, The Root, Reset Era, a YouTube video, and a reddit post with 7 votes. The rest of the results are about calling women "girls" which can be offensive for obvious reasons. Perhaps you could point to a specific example where "it implies grouping women with female animals rather than grouping them together with men as human beings."
    - chongli 8y ago
      It's generally the extreme fringe misogynist groups that use the term females almost entirely to the exclusion of "women." I'm rather surprised I'm getting so much pushback on this here, of all places. I thought it would be pretty obvious to most of the English as first language population here.
      - enriquto 8y ago
        English is not my first language, but if I understand correctly, "woman" is often a noun and "female" is often an adjective; but the usage can be interchanged. The articles that you link say that using "female" as a noun is somewhat demeaning. OK, I can agree with that. What I don't get is how using "female" as an adjective can be demeaning at all? This is a different question that seems very surprising as a non-native speaker. Using the noun "woman" as an adjective (in apposition) is maybe grammatically correct, but sounds very strange to me.
        waterhouse 8y ago
        There are people who argue that all kinds of things are demeaning or offensive. For example, some have argued that "person with disabilities" should be preferred over "disabled person" because using the word "person" first emphasizes their humanity. I heard someone claim that saying "I'm going to go home and sleep to recharge my batteries" is demeaning (to yourself!) because you're talking about yourself like a machine. As far as I know, these notions do not usually come from (a) studies showing e.g. that, if you have people read text using one phrase or the other, and then give them questions designed to evaluate their opinions of disabled people, you see an actual effect; or from (b) a statistically significant sample of actual disabled people saying they really would prefer one phrase over the other; but usually from (c) an academic thinking something up and writing about it, and other people reading about it and adopting the new phraseology so as to avoid the chance of being called "insensitive". Sometimes it makes it out of academia and we end up hearing about it.
      - rhapsodic 8y ago
        > I'm rather surprised I'm getting so much pushback on this here, of all places. I thought it would be pretty obvious to most of the English as first language population here. I suspect it's not obvious to the overwhelming majority of English speakers that there is some problem with referring to females as females, or describing them as female. In my observation, claiming that using the word "female" to refer to females is somehow problematic is the fringe view. Not the other way around.
waterhouse 8y ago
This seems to be an interesting case, where using "female(s)" as a noun is the usage that some people have objected to, and now this spills over into people avoiding the usage of "female" as an adjective. Well, I suppose that kind of evolution is par for the course with any word that ends up getting deemed offensive.