Wait a minute...the female/woman debate thing

Apparently, this is actually a thing. That it's wrong to use 'female' instead of 'woman.'

Would anyone care to explain to me, succinctly and without jargon, why this is in fact a thing?

I don't necessarily expect any given person to do it, just anyone who is willing to humor me, thank you.

I've never heard of this, but it sound familiar. Could you link me where you heard about it.

I would also need a source, but my gut would say it's not simply the act of using 'females', but more like the use of 'girls', in that it's bad when it's "men and girls" or something similar. "Men and females", would be odd because, what? Why would you say that? "Males and females" would sound strange if you used it (just because it's unusual), but should be fine.

It is wrong to use female rather than woman in the context where one would not use male rather than man. Generally, the terms male and female are only acceptable as adjectives when referring to humans.

It is seen as clinical and dehumanizing to use "female" as a noun. You'll notice people do not use "male" as a noun either. "Female" tends to be used contextually in similar ways to "girl" (when used to refer to grown ass women), "gals", "ladies", or other dimunitive terms in contexts where men are referred to using adult terms and treated as the default. The term "female" as a noun has a negative connotation culturally because it is so often used in pseudoscientific and demeaning contexts.

darksidecat wrote:It is wrong to use female rather than woman in the context where one would not use male rather than man. Generally, the terms male and female are only acceptable as adjectives when referring to humans.

Ah, okay. That would be the better way of putting what I was trying to say >.<

Bam now I remember it, dsc you know everything I swear.

I can wrap my head around the rest of that stuff, even if I don't entirely agree...but what do you mean "pseudoscientific" concepts?

Pseudoscience = science that disproves feminist or liberal agendas, such as evolutionary psychology/biology.

We try and avoid using "female" in general simply because we noticed a lot of misogynists use it. Simple as that

In that case, it might help to define what precisely a "woman" is.

If it is simply a person of the female gender who has reached the age of majority, I can accept that.

Well, that's how "Man" is defined, right? Why should the age of being an adult human be any different for the female side of the species? But even still, I'd feel squicked out by referring to teenage girls or little, elementary-aged girls as "females".

Female is an adjective, not a noun, unless you are a scientist or in the military. And even when these groups use" females" as a noun, it's sort of understood that it's acting like a pronoun. FoSB was a biologist, they understood "females" to be replacing "female [animal]", and he's also a Marine, so, for him, females as a noun will take the place of the phrase "female Marine", or "female Recruit".

I've never seen a giant debate about it... xD but I do know that I always raise a Spockian eyebrow whenever I see some MRA/PUA stuff that refers to women as "females" or "the female" when as DSC said, it's not when you normally would use it. This became extremely jarring to me when we were regendering MRA/PUA stuff and you would get sentences w/ "males" or "male" that just sounded like we were doing an animal kingdom thing instead of talking about human interaction o_O

You’re better off not having friendships with men for these reasons. Your purpose for being with a male is simple: Sex. I’m sorry but anything beyond that is a road filled with pain.

like that "being with a male" is rly awkward o_O and so is the non-regendered "being with a female"

Agreed with Ami, the pseudoscience aspect comes in with PUA a lot, it seems. I'm actually very surprised Roissy didn't do it with his recent thing on Watson, but he might as well have with talk of 'women's hind brains' (because it's oh so genetically different from a man's... >.<).

A lot of issue comes with that because it posits women as animals that work on instincts while men use logic and fore brain thought.

"Pseudoscience" is a term with rather consistent usage. You could have googled it. Basically, it is something that uses some of the trappings of science, without applying the methodologies and principles used in science (homeopathic claims about purifying the cells of toxins is one example). When the term "female" is used within biological or medical contexts, the term "male" is the corrallary, it is never "men and females". Sometimes, people will use the term "female" because they really do want to sound more clinical and sciencey, when they are not actually discussing science or using terms consistently (like not using "male" to refer to men). It is okay to use clinical, distancing terms in clinical, distancing settings. For example a phrase like "discrepancies in cancer deaths between males and females" in a discussion of medical facts is unlikely to set off warning bells, but a phrase like "Russian females" in a general discussion.

It is not like "females" is offensive to the level of just saying "bitches" instead, but it is offputting and generally indicates other problematic elements to a discussion.

As to when to use woman vs girl-a good guideline is to look at what terms one is using to refer to men or boys of similar age. "When exactly does a person become an adult" can be a tricky question, but women and men=adults, boys and girls=not adults, and one should use either boys/girls or men/women consistently for a given age group.

Back when I was a kid in Urbana IL, a woman was elected mayor of either Urbana or the adjacent city Champaign and the headline in the paper referred to her as the city's "first female woman." Oops.

I'm a 35 year old girl and my partner is a 33 year old boy.

But maybe people should not base their generalized actions on my life because I also identify as a freak

I think the whole "Female" vs "Woman" thing stems from describing someone as "Female" sounds like you're describing cattle, or some such.

That and it sounds kind of awkward to hear people go "oh man i totally saw some hot FEMALES the other day i tell you what".

also a lot of times when they say "the female" or "the females" I feel like they forgot to add "of the species" to the end xD

I've always had a problem with people calling women "females" because female is an adjective and it reduces a person to one trait. Call me a female writer or female Texan or whatever, but otherwise I'm a woman or - gasp - a person. And I do hear people say "men and females" all the time. My doctor even said it to me recently.

Aside from the fact that it's slightly inaccurate to use sex when you mean gender, it's mostly just that you'll see people say it as a diminutive. There may not be a problem with that particular group of women... unless you're asked to stop and you don't.

The only time I've seen a 'debate' on the matter was when some sexist atheists kept insisting on using 'female' as a noun while referring to 'men', which bothered a particular woman, who asked them to stop. Sexists never like that. Granted, the gal might not have been so uncomfortable if the dude hadn't just granted carte blanche to all creepy dudes everywhere to hit on women whenever they felt like it; It's biology! There shouldn't be a debate; if you're making someone uncomfortable, just stop. Don't even argue, just stop doing it.

Oo, I worked with a guy recently who used "female" in place of "woman" a lot of the time. It always made me feel like O_o when he did it.

Used constantly, where "man" would be used for a male human it really is dehumanising. I never bothered to call him out on it because I knew he didn't mean it how it sounded, but it definitely showed how he'd internalised a lot of othering crap we're fed about women (and you know, gender wars bullshit).

This is not an assumption either: we had long discussions about relationships and sex; he was fairly open-minded but not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and super into how hot he was, so would keep drifting toward thinking in stereotypes until I gently encouraged him away from them.

I have a visceral negative reaction to it, and I'll you exactly why.

Because it is the way that people normally refer to animals and other living organisms.

example

I bought my mom a betta splendens a couple of months ago. It is a male.

If I'm gonna grow some really good cannabis sp., I want to make sure to have only female plants.

People don't generally refer to other people with male and female and instead use boy, girl, man, and woman. In this way it has a subtle(?) dehumanizing effect.

I flinch whenever someone uses the word "females" to refer to a human woman, mostly because every single time I've heard a man use it he's gone on to spew some of the most woman-hating crap I've ever heard in my life. It's associated with violent misogyny for me now.

It's bizarrely dehumanising, an attempt to take personhood away from women and reduce us to just another animal. And it's worst of all when the person calls me a female, but the guy next to me a man.

I think some guys use "female" because they think it gives their BS a scientific air. It must be right if it sounds like it came from clinical trials!

Whenever I hear someone refer to womens as 'females' I have a flashback to old, horrible Stan Lee comics where he makes Sue Storm say something like "Don't mind me, Reed, I'm just a silly hysterical female." I'm serious; she actually said stuff like that.

xD

OMFG have you ever read the old Ms. Marvel comics? (I have the collection cuz I love Ms. Marvel)... SO MUCH of the dialogue was like that!

First off, in her thought bubbles she referred to herself as "woman" all the time xD Like "Get up woman!" or "Think woman, think!" xD And secondly, almost EVERY issue was about her fighting some guy who called her a female (or guys in her civilian guise saying that) and it was all just "how dare a female say that to me!" xD She couldn't just punch giant robots, everything was about her gender xD

It reminds me of the Ferengi.

"FE-MALE!"

So whenever I see a post where someone is repeatedly referring to human women as "females" in a non-scientific context, I tend to picture them as Ferengi.

"Everything you wanted to know about Earth is right there in that PADD"
"You mean it'll teach me how to attract human females?!"
"Well, almost everything"

See, I would read that Ms. Marvel comic if the giant robots she punched were MRAbots. Heck, I'm not convinced that NWO isn't a robot, or at least a poorly programmed AI considering how canned his speeches are. If the MRAs are determined to paint gender relations in terms of a comic book battle between good and evil, I see them and raise them one.

*puts on cape*

Don't you know summer_snow, nwoslave is a robot. Thats old news, kirby made him, AWS, and DKM

http://manboobz.forummotion.com/t129-text-go-in-laugh-come-out#3059