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This is actually helpful. Right now even definition of "woman" is a mine field. Foreigners often struggle with most recent dialect of P.C. English. Imagine som
by throw93232 4y ago
This is actually helpful. Right now even definition of "woman" is a mine field.
Foreigners often struggle with most recent dialect of P.C. English. Imagine someone who learned English from 1980ties movies and Southpark, and did not updated much...
For example we could use "African-American" in non ironic way, correct word now is probably capitalised "Black", that was offensive just a few decades ago.
- metalliqaz 4y agoThe definition of "woman" is only a minefield on Twitter. In the real world everyone knows what it means.
- throw93232 4y agoAnd twitter is like 50% of Internet and marketing. I do not want to be harashed by some weirdos. Just give me authoritative source for the most recent translation from 1980ties English. US went through Cultural Revolution, deal with it!
- Clubber 4y ago>US went through Cultural Revolution, deal with it! Perhaps some did, certainly some more than others, but the pendulum always swings.
- naoqj 4y ago
- thegrimmest 4y agoWould you enlighten me as to what it means, exactly? I'm not being facetious.
- pessimizer 4y agomySelf.protect("Adult Human Females") People who assert that the definition of "woman" isn't really in dispute usually say that women are "Adult Human Females." Others say this definition is exclusionary to some women, and therefore bigoted, and therefore an act of violence.
- throw_m239339 4y ago> Would you enlighten me as to what it means, exactly? I'm not being facetious. Depends on whether you think that word define objective individual traits and sexual characteristics or it is purely subjective. That's the true debate. It cannot be both. All I know is that 5/10 years ago everybody knew what that word meant...
- caiob 4y ago
- haunter 4y ago> Right now even definition of "woman" is a mine field Only if you [not you personally] live in a Twitter/Tumblr bubble
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- nxm 4y agoOr being vetted for a Supreme Court justice
- mc32 4y agoWell, apparently for the Supreme Court -where never the less the appointee inadvertently used biology as a basis for its determination (vg: I'm not a biologist...)
- Minor49er 4y agoThis video shows that Biden's supreme court pick claims to have trouble with the definition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG3XJXcDa5E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG3XJXcDa5E
- hunterb123 4y agoGP should have said liberal bubble. That encompasses both Twitter and the left's SC pick. Only one group is having trouble defining women.
- foofoo4u 4y agoI wish this were true, but the minefield of the topic has grown out of the twitter-sphere. Check out this video uploaded just recently: [Health department refuses to define ‘woman’ in Senate Estimates](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX_1QNXgjDM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX_1QNXgjDM). Australia's own health department struggle and eventually refuse to answer the simple question. Look at how uncomfortable they are with such an innocuous request. On similar trends, we are seeing once respected institutions, such as the ACLU, post tweets like this: https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1439259891064004610?s=20 https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1439259891064004610?s=20 . It's a tweet of a quote by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But the ACLU has decided to replace the word "women" with "people". This is a short step from what Google's new politically correct auto-suggestions are conditioning us towards.
- zmgsabst 4y ago“Coloreds” = Offensive racism that only my grandmother would use. “People of Color” = You better use this term and you’re racist if you think this includes East Asians, who are “White Adjacent”. I’m also glad that Google has come up with a tool to manage the language carousel — and I’m a native speaker.
- unpopularopp 4y ago>“Coloreds” = Offensive racism that only my grandmother would use. Yet it is a perfectly fine, and for a lot of people proud, word in South Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloureds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloureds This is also "the problem" of the internet where pretty much the US "dictates" the discourse, words that are perfectly acceptable in other countries/cultures effected by this. See also the spanish word "negro". One of the most ridiculous example was the Uruguayan soccer player Edinson Cavani who plays in the UK and used the word "negrito" in an Instagram post and had to apologize https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-soccer-england-mun-cavani-idUKKBN28B695 https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-soccer-england-mun-cavani... Hope there aren't many Google Docs user in Montenegro!
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
- memish 4y agoWhy isn't "people of color" as offensive as "colored people"?
- jefftk 4y agoWhy isn't "cream of coconut" the same thing as "coconut cream"? It's common for similar phrasings to have very different meanings (or, in this case, connotations)
- Kye 4y agoNot zmgsabst, but: It's like calling someone a homosexual. The phrasing reduces someone to that characteristic. People of color emphasizes they're whole people with a characteristic. Also be aware there is no more unity of thought among people of color than there is among other demographics, so this is just one person's understanding based on listening to comrades of color. There's also history in geography. What's offensive to people in one city, county, state, country, etc won't hit the same everywhere. In the UK, a fag is a cigarette, and queer was the more popular pejorative. I don't have a good view on how terms for ethnicity/race/etc evolved elsewhere, but there's probably lots of variety.
- _bfhp 4y ago"Hey, I noticed you are trying to use the term 'torture'. Do you want me to replace it with the more correct 'enhanced interrogation'?"
- dudeinjapan 4y agoI work in Japan, and this is so hard for non-native speakers. An example, an HR staffer meant to say "female empowerment" but said "woman-power" instead. There is an implicit assumption of bad faith or "not of our tribe" if one doesn't get the euphemistic language exactly correct, it really is a bunch of shibboleths.
- astrange 4y ago> I work in Japan, and this is so hard for non-native speakers. An example, an HR staffer meant to say "female empowerment" but said "woman-power" instead. Were they thinking of "joshiryoku"? That's a Japanese word that literally means "woman-power", but it's not feminist - it doesn't refer to "girl power", it means you're good at looking pretty.
- glandium 4y ago女子力 encompasses more than looks, and is applied to males too.
- dudeinjapan 4y agoHmmm... excellent point. I think there is a clear cultural difference where "female empowerment" in the West includes things like women being equal to men and filling roles traditionally filled by men, where in Japan the ideal (among women to a greater degree) tends to be for women to be better at women's traditional roles, which goes beyond just looking pretty. So in this context the whole discussion around "female empowerment" may have been misguided, it's not clear this Japanese HR person had the same thing in mind as a Western HR person would. (To the extent that "female empowerment" can imply "smashing the patriarchy"/tearing down the existing order, this usually not fully achievable in a corporate context.)
- rchaud 4y agoWhat's stopping you from using "African American"? The switch to "Black" is part of an update to the style guide of newspapers and magazines. They publish articles describing the change, because it matters from an institutional history perspective. Someone looking at news stories before and after 2020 would notice that, so it merits explanation. That being said, it's a style guide change. It's not a law. You won't be cancelled for not using a capital B.
- paganel 4y ago> correct word now is probably capitalised "Black", that was offensive just a few decades ago. Genuinely asking: is that correct? I had thought the "correct" way was something between Afro-American and Person of Colour/PoC, apparently I was living in the past. I'm asking because I'm not from the States.
- ichicoro 4y ago>Right now even definition of "woman" is a mine field. Oh? And why would that be?
- 3qz 4y agoDefine woman in a way that includes both butch cis women and pre-hrt trans women, and isn’t tautological
- lionkor 4y agoThen likely youre not talking about the same thing anymore. Usually we talk about 'men' and 'women', and assume it makes up >90% of the population. Anyone else can simply pick whichever they feel like, can't they? So if you're pre-hrt trans, what is stopping you from just calling yourself a woman? Isnt that the whole point?
- xdennis 4y ago> includes [...] trans women That's the very issue people who refuse to define women have: it's very difficult to define "women" if it has to include some men. Otherwise it's very simple to define.
- Karawebnetwork 4y ago> Right now even definition of "woman" is a mine field. It is not. New words have been added to the vocabulary in order to better describe the world around us. So someone might choose to be called by one of those new words. But women are still women and people who are not women, well, they already weren't women. Think of it like code. It used to be that the only options were ["man", "woman"]. Now new strings have been pushed to this list because people noticed that it did not cover all users. What you are describing is the frustration that some people feel on being called by the wrong word. But this has always been the case. Call any human by the wrong label and frustration will be felt. That's not new. I have clear memories from decades ago of a long haired man who I was friend with being angry at being called "woman" and one of my aunt who has a deep voiced being angry at being called "sir" over the phone. if(user.genderIdentity !== wordUsed) { frustration++; } That line of "code" has always been present.
- bobsmooth 4y agoI've yet to read a definition of "woman" that isn't tautological or doesn't rely on stereotypes.
- dan-robertson 4y agoThe problem is that it actually is hard to define. If you’re a normal human being you won’t do dna tests or inspect people’s genitals or whatever to decide how to carry out your social interactions (and maybe you shouldn’t care anyway). You’ll probably end up with some combination of memory, guessing based on name, and ‘looks like a woman’. If you’re a state and are trying to make these classifications in law you’ll find it’s actually fraught with difficulties. This isn’t some modern problem with transgender people; there are plenty of people for whom biological sex is hard to categorise too, eg various kinds of intersex people, or those with unusual chromosomes or gene expression. Historic solutions would look like: - apply social ostracism - give some combination of legal rights of men and women - go with however the person presents (and possibly avoid talking about it/have the person avoid the risk of confrontation about the matter) - don’t define man or woman in the law and let the judges/people figure it out if need be Maybe the problem is that the thing that tends to matter really is the social construct and not something that can be easily measured if only you had the right instrument. And then perhaps the issue is that legal definitions tend not to be as rigid as those used in, say, mathematics. Another fun question to try to answer is what the definition of a person’s name is or should be. In my country there isn’t really such a thing as one’s legal name and the state/courts will go for a name you use for yourself or a name people know you as. But it’s still possible in society to get someone’s name wrong or to see cruel nicknames in the playground.
- rootusrootus 4y ago> For example we could use "African-American" in non ironic way, correct word now is probably capitalised "Black", that was offensive just a few decades ago. I could consider that a substantial improvement, to be honest. I actually knew a real African American, but almost everyone I've met who is called African American seems to in fact just be American. I wouldn't want to be called European American, myself, so I have always thought 'black' and 'white' where sufficient when a racial descriptor needs to be used for whatever reason.
- bobsmooth 4y agoI've read definitons that say "African-American" specifically refers to the descendants of slaves whereas immigrants from Africa are called <country>-American. For example, Elon is South African American.
- rootusrootus 4y agoThat would certainly raise the complexity level a bunch. I wonder how many generations would it take to lose the qualifier? Am I a "German American" because 14 generations ago some guy named Casper immigrated to the US? I do look a bit German, and my name certainly is a derivative of a German surname, but at 14 generations I think it's safe to say the actual amount of German blood in my veins is vanishingly small.
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago>Right now even definition of "woman" is a mine field. Only for those who have an interest in placating the emotionally handicapped. The beauty of speaking freely, clearly and without censoring yourself out of regard to those with childlike sensibilities is that the only people you end up offending are those who deserve to be offended.