Edit: as in, where “woman” or “girl” would be grammatically correct. e.g. “a lot of females work at that company” vs “a lot of women work at that company” or “that company has a lot of female employees”
A bit of the second one, but not fully? I don’t think using “female” as a noun when talking about a person sounded good, but it’s appropriate for animals. I imagine incels chose that because it wasn’t the way people spoke, but was only weird at worst, so it wasn’t that suspicious initially.
I hope that you can extend some grace to people born in different eras. When I hear something like “woman employee,” I hear my Greatest Generation grandparents, and believe me, neither “woman doctor” or “woman driver,” nor any similar construction was complimentary.
I think it was the Boomers who started to use “female” as an adjective, because it sounded clinical, descriptive, and non-judgemental. So “female employee” sounds much better to my ear. (But, FWIW, the use of “female” as a noun is total cringe.)
Yeah, inceldom has coopted the word, and now I hear that “woman doctor” is preferred, but it’s not always easy to remember that on the fly when you grew up with the opposite connotation.
My comment was more about the use of “female” as a noun, but your comment about which to use as an adjective raises an interesting point, especially because, as you mention, the generation to regularly say things like “woman doctor” in a not-so-great way has mostly died out. I’m not sure where things stand currently on which adjective is preferred; I think it’s mostly contextual at the moment? (Like “I would feel more comfortable being examined by a woman doctor” sounds grammatically a touch clunky but connotatively fine to me, whereas “I can’t believe what that idiot female doctor diagnosed me with” sounds grammatically correct but otherwise awful)
Here in Australia female doctor makes grammatical sense, and woman doctor sounds ridiculous. Woman doctor would have the same assumption as it also has an opposite in man doctor, which sounds equally as ridiculous unlike male doctor.
Now you could say my doctor is a woman and that makes perfect sense whereas my doctor is a female is ferengi.
What’s wrong with Executrix? That’s a perfectly acceptable, proper word. These days, it’s generally preferred to have a genderless noun like just Actor instead of Actress, but it’s still allowed.
Or of various feminist book titles featuring the noun?
Or the vast amount of people who use the noun self-referentially in dating communities (eg, “F4F/M”), classifieds (eg, “need a roommate […] females only”), or natural communication?
In conventional language, it’s an acceptable word.
Maybe you have this wrong, and instead it’s those who in effect (which may defy intent) stigmatize an entire gender by claiming their noun is wrong instead of embracing it as a word of pride.
This analogy fits language policing self-saboteurs.
Imagine online activists started condemning usage of the word dutch as a slur.
It’s bizarre: there is nothing wrong with the dutch, yet they’re acting as though we should think so & resist that urge?
Why are they propagating problematic presuppositions we don’t have about the dutch?
Why are they trying to make this official?
Are they some special breed of stupid?
Continuing this analogy, they drag you into fights by claiming you’re a racist for using the word when you’re not actually saying anything offensive about the dutch.
You & the rest of society know the word dutch isn’t offensive, yet these activists insist it is by pointing to some fringe online community spewing vitriolic propaganda about dutch inferiority specifically using the word dutch.
You repudiate their claim by asking why some fringe group irrelevant to wider society gets to decide the meaning of words, but they condemn your “hurtful” language and say you’re as bad as them or one of them.
Don’t be an asshole & use another word like Dutchperson, Netherlander, or Hollander they say: it’s the right thing to do & shows socially conscientious, moral rectitude.
This one has bitten me in the ass. Male and female are incredibly common terms in the medical community, but I try to limit my use of female to work only, if at all. On the plus side, I’ve learned I rarely need to use it at work. It literally only matters if we’re doing a deep dive into what’s potentially going on and need to branch out to figure it out
Although with the distinction between gender and sex continually becoming more prevalent in the zeitgeist, I find myself using the terms “male” and “female” more often than I used to.
I might specify more often to clarify, like “All the female medalists/athletes,” but that’s quite different from when you hear someone say “Oh, you know how females can be.” It’s like their vocalization process includes a filter that converts “bitches” to “female” at some point between the first thought and actual speech, because they finally got the memo that not everyone is a misogynist like they are. You can hear the disdain in their voices when they say the word female.
“Female” instead of woman or girl.
Edit: as in, where “woman” or “girl” would be grammatically correct. e.g. “a lot of females work at that company” vs “a lot of women work at that company” or “that company has a lot of female employees”
Every time I see the word used outside of a biological context, I imagine the person looks like this:
Female is a great adjective but an inappropriate noun.
is it just grammar or just incels ruining that word?
A bit of the second one, but not fully? I don’t think using “female” as a noun when talking about a person sounded good, but it’s appropriate for animals. I imagine incels chose that because it wasn’t the way people spoke, but was only weird at worst, so it wasn’t that suspicious initially.
Keeping up with this bullshit is almost a full time job.
That’s a good way to put it.
it helps if you read females like tamales.
Oh man, that’s gonna stick in my brain. Great, thanks.
I’m forced to read “spectacles” like a Greek because of a post like this.
Oooh, my testicles sound so much fancier now!
And how did they get dusted with glitter?!
Hey, I always do that when it’s used as a noun!
Where’d you get that bag?
Oh, it’s a shemale
I hope that you can extend some grace to people born in different eras. When I hear something like “woman employee,” I hear my Greatest Generation grandparents, and believe me, neither “woman doctor” or “woman driver,” nor any similar construction was complimentary.
I think it was the Boomers who started to use “female” as an adjective, because it sounded clinical, descriptive, and non-judgemental. So “female employee” sounds much better to my ear. (But, FWIW, the use of “female” as a noun is total cringe.)
Yeah, inceldom has coopted the word, and now I hear that “woman doctor” is preferred, but it’s not always easy to remember that on the fly when you grew up with the opposite connotation.
how much I hate the euphemism treadmill.
My comment was more about the use of “female” as a noun, but your comment about which to use as an adjective raises an interesting point, especially because, as you mention, the generation to regularly say things like “woman doctor” in a not-so-great way has mostly died out. I’m not sure where things stand currently on which adjective is preferred; I think it’s mostly contextual at the moment? (Like “I would feel more comfortable being examined by a woman doctor” sounds grammatically a touch clunky but connotatively fine to me, whereas “I can’t believe what that idiot female doctor diagnosed me with” sounds grammatically correct but otherwise awful)
It’s so weird how they flip both of those words around. Like, they’ll say “females” instead of women, but then, they’ll say “a woman doctor.”
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That’s such an American take.
Here in Australia female doctor makes grammatical sense, and woman doctor sounds ridiculous. Woman doctor would have the same assumption as it also has an opposite in man doctor, which sounds equally as ridiculous unlike male doctor.
Now you could say my doctor is a woman and that makes perfect sense whereas my doctor is a female is ferengi.
Woman doctor and nan doctor are just gynecologist and andrologist
Isn’t a “nan doctor” a grandgynocologist?
Or a gerontologist.
I only noticed it now and it was a hilarious typo
But only if you look around and then covertly gesture at your genitals while saying it.
I think it would be “Doctrix” in older versions of English.
I tend to drive more when my family goes on trips, while my wife acts as navigatrix.
Then we both cackle while the kids ignore us in the back.
Cool word, it’s fun to put the emphasis on different syllables. I like it on the I.
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What’s wrong with Executrix? That’s a perfectly acceptable, proper word. These days, it’s generally preferred to have a genderless noun like just Actor instead of Actress, but it’s still allowed.
Executrix is still common when dealing with estates tho?
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Yeah, I only discovered the word when I read “doctoress” in a translation I was proofing and knew there was something going on there.
So the authors of these books?
Or of various feminist book titles featuring the noun?
Or the vast amount of people who use the noun self-referentially in dating communities (eg, “F4F/M”), classifieds (eg, “need a roommate […] females only”), or natural communication? In conventional language, it’s an acceptable word.
Maybe you have this wrong, and instead it’s those who in effect (which may defy intent) stigmatize an entire gender by claiming their noun is wrong instead of embracing it as a word of pride.
This analogy fits language policing self-saboteurs.
Imagine online activists started condemning usage of the word dutch as a slur. It’s bizarre: there is nothing wrong with the dutch, yet they’re acting as though we should think so & resist that urge? Why are they propagating problematic presuppositions we don’t have about the dutch? Why are they trying to make this official? Are they some special breed of stupid?
Continuing this analogy, they drag you into fights by claiming you’re a racist for using the word when you’re not actually saying anything offensive about the dutch. You & the rest of society know the word dutch isn’t offensive, yet these activists insist it is by pointing to some fringe online community spewing vitriolic propaganda about dutch inferiority specifically using the word dutch. You repudiate their claim by asking why some fringe group irrelevant to wider society gets to decide the meaning of words, but they condemn your “hurtful” language and say you’re as bad as them or one of them. Don’t be an asshole & use another word like Dutchperson, Netherlander, or Hollander they say: it’s the right thing to do & shows socially conscientious, moral rectitude.
This one has bitten me in the ass. Male and female are incredibly common terms in the medical community, but I try to limit my use of female to work only, if at all. On the plus side, I’ve learned I rarely need to use it at work. It literally only matters if we’re doing a deep dive into what’s potentially going on and need to branch out to figure it out
Although with the distinction between gender and sex continually becoming more prevalent in the zeitgeist, I find myself using the terms “male” and “female” more often than I used to.
I might specify more often to clarify, like “All the female medalists/athletes,” but that’s quite different from when you hear someone say “Oh, you know how females can be.” It’s like their vocalization process includes a filter that converts “bitches” to “female” at some point between the first thought and actual speech, because they finally got the memo that not everyone is a misogynist like they are. You can hear the disdain in their voices when they say the word female.
I found myself using female and male a lot after visiting a certain e621
spe’fy what show (in Dm if you prefer)
Non-native speakers in shambles. On the other hand, even males are not safe from us