Yet here we are :/
Yeah I mean, the scientific example is kind of exactly what this thread is about. You're not talking to/about women as if they are fucking animals to be studied in a scientific way. Then again considering how many memes of the sort that get spread around as "harmless jokes", it's not exactly a stretch to assume that is indeed how some men view women as a whole.
Yeah well, but I thought that this is like the right way to call people, not men and women, but okay, I try to adapt. But honestly when an "a" makes a difference, that's where I feel like on thin ice....
Fair enough, the second sentence sounds very awkward.
But again, why is it dehumanising? I'm yet to see an actual decent answer to that simple question. There's been a lot of arguing that it is because it is an adjective, but as has been show it is also a noun. There's been a lot of arguing that people use it to refer to women but male isn't used to refer to men, but that is easily disproven. You can have a simple look at this forum as an example, a simple search for "males" (or even better, "white males") will find umpteen examples of "male" being used as a noun.
Honestly play it safe and just say refer to them by their name.
It's fine to ask question about language if it's not your first language or whatever.
People use it as a drop-in replacement for "bitches" the same way "thug" gets thrown around for black people.
It's honestly quite simple. If you're talking about a gendered group of something, you can say for example "female gamers". In that case you are talking about "gamers" as people and qualifying the group as being women who do gaming. In this case, it's pretty clear that you are expressing the group as a collection of actual people with brains that do stuff like thinking. For everything else, just use "women". Pretty much all there is to it for non-native speakers. There might be some edge cases but again, explain your background if someone calls you out and there won't be a problem.
Male and female are both clinical terms. Calling a woman a "female" while still referring to a men as "men" is dehumanizing because you're using a clinical term for one and not the other
If you’re dying to know you can just google it. The information is already out there.
I see it the same way as when someone says "the gays" or "the blacks" and the like, instead of "gay people" or "black people". It's quite literally removing the humanity of the persons, making them seem "other" or alien in some way that they're really not.
This thread is more or less about how it was used in the second example I wrote. You'd probably never refer to yourself like that even if you replaced "female" with "woman" in that sentence, but many men use expressions exactly like that and the use of the word "female" in that grammatical/idiomatic context is often pretty much shorthand to make a sentence come across exactly like that.
As I wrote before; this is where the scientific comparison comes into play. When we're talking about demographics, especially ones with the societal power balance shifted in their favor such as "white males" (I'd argue that this is less appropriate for minorities or oppressed people in the context of the demographic case you're making), that's exactly when you would use these words as nouns. As this forum is generally casual-leaning in terms of debate, I personally prefer writing "white men" regardless, but "males" is a scientifically formal way to approach the language used.
Well the very first of those links claims that no one refers to men as "males", whereas a simple search of this forum will show that not to be true.
Yet people still seem cool with referring to men as males. It happens on this very forum. Have a search.
Thug gets used as a replacement for black person? I almost exclusively hear it used for white young men in hoodies on street corners here in the UK. I would use thug without even considering someone might think I'm making a racial statement. In fact, 'Thug Britain' was a running joke amongst some of my friends to describe the goings on of a popular day time TV show called Jeremy Kyle.
You know you are in a thread talking about terms that are offensive while others have no problems with it or don't "get" what is so offensive about it?
The point behind the thread isn't that male isn't dehumanising and female is, don't feign like you don't understand.
Probably. I'm actually expecting when I hit retirement age the kids in that time period will start pushing to be refereed to as brown.
Honestly I see it more as recurring situation with native English-speakers, maybe naturally as the language lacks how nouns, for example, often change according to the gender of the person. As I read before: "A female friend", to indicate what in Spanish is «una amiga».
But thug has a negative connotation while female doesn’t. I’m not following this.
Because there’s a history of misogynist use of ‘females’ instead of ‘women’ to imply they are almost a different bloody species, whereas use of ‘males’ doesn’t come with the same baggage attached? Your reliance on frequency of use of the latter as an indicator of correctness of both is flawed as it doesn’t take into account the context of how it is and has been used all over the place. We don’t see entire websites and hate groups dedicated to creepy manifestos about ‘the males’.
Just to jump to the most extreme example I can think of so we can work backwards from there, imagine the way certain people online use the word “female” and how they use it to dehumanize someone. If you need examples, the cringe thread has you covered with gems like this:
Male is dehumanizing, but shockingly most women or people in general don't refer to men as males, shocker right?
TBH, the only time I really hear it being used is when it would still be offensive if you replaced it with the word women.
“Guys you’re telling me all these reasons why referring to women as females, a word that is used instead of woman to ignore their humanity, but I just don’t get it. I hear so many examples of police and military and researchers using males and female to speak very clinically and dehumanize their subjects, so why is it not okay when I’m using it in regular conversation. I just don’t get it. I see how you’re pointing out that people do this to women far more than men, but I just don’t get it. Please explain it some more. I just don’t get it.”
Dude
yep, i've seen this a lot too with stupid 4 chan memes.
Except that “y’all” has become a perfectly common expression outside of the areas it originated in. If you’re saying it while effecting an accent; then yeah, of course that’s offensive. But saying “y’all” is something people do all across the US for convenience sake as it’s way quicker and more natural sounding that “you all” and specifically avoids the need to indicate gender when talking to a group. It’s not at all the same as someone whose speaking English going up to people they assume speaks Spanish and saying “hola amigos,” so get out of here with that rationalization...
WHAT?!
No one said 'male' isn't dehumanizing, they said it isn't a common language construct actively used in modern communication. 'Female' as a replacement for humanific words, IS.
Then I honestly don't know what to tell you because, while still potentially disrespectful depending on the context, the second phrase indeed sounds infinitely less motherfucking crazy.
The hilarity of said awful post being preceded by this sarcastic gem... hahahahaha. Dear god, help. I'm dying.
You are hereby relieved of the burden of deciding what is or is not offensive to women. Now all you need to do is listen to women when they tell you. Isn’t that great?
That's the other side of the 'context' debate really.
perfectly fine, I can't think of any circumstancies where that would be an issue.
It makes a lot of difference because more than something one is, misogyny is something one DOES.
