Comment on Took me by surprise
Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks agoChicks? Gals? Women? Dames? Ladies? Sheilas? Lassies?
Words man. They aren’t all insults. Sometimes it’s ancillary, just trying to convey information. We’re majoring in the minors. It’s a dirty joke. You’re worried about the group pronoun they’re using? I agree female has a little bit of the m’lady feel to it. But come on, let’s overlook that.
Unless we want to use group pronouns like we do with animals. A herd of cows. A murder of crows. An annoyance of pronoun correctors.
qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 2 weeks ago
I’m pretty sure that’s exactly why referring to women as “females” is problematic — using male/female as nouns is fine for animals. Humans, not so much…
ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Never seen a guy complain about being called a male though.
YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Maybe because they’re not the ones being subjugated with the language?
DesolateMood@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
Nobody uses male the way incels use female
Even with the above point in mind, I would still find it odd if someone referred to me as male
Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Humans not being animals and all…
qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 2 weeks ago
Of course we’re animals, but let’s use some common sense wrt cultural norms here. A dog of mixed lineage is mutt, but it’s completely inappropriate to refer to a multiracial person as such. A female dog is a bitch, a male is a stud; the sexism is pretty obvious when applied to humans. It’s fine to talk about owning a dog; it’s not ok to talk about owning another human (except perhaps children, in certain contexts).
Yes, we are animals too, but that doesn’t mean we should talk about each other in the same way. (And I say this as a vegetarian who thinks we should treat all animals with significantly more respect than we currently do.)
Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
But surely if male/female is appropriate for EVERY OTHER ANIMAL, we’re a bit silly to exclude ourselves.
The “mutt,” “bitch,” and “stud” examples aren’t all purpose and therefore aren’t germane - you’d be using words for a specific species. That’d be weird.