I am not a native English speaker and I have sometimes referred to people as male and female (as that is what I have been taught) but I have received some backlash in some cases, especially for the word “female”, is there some negative thought in the word which I am unaware of?

I don’t know if this is the best place to ask, if it’s not appropriate I have no problem to delete it ^^

  • n3m37h@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 months ago

    However, when it is used as a noun, it can be dehumanising. For example: “A female at my workplace has brown hair” is dehumanising.

    The fuck are you talking about?

    • BreakDecks@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      Using human nonspecific terminology to describe women is dehumanizing. They are women, not “females”. The only people who use “female” as a noun mean it the same way they might call a woman a “hoe”. It’s a word you use when you deliberately want to minimize the existence of another person. Literally referring to a woman like she is an object, or livestock…

      • n3m37h@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        8 months ago

        Using human nonspecific terminology to describe women is dehumanizing.

        What an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one.

        • BreakDecks@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          Of course you think “women aren’t human” is a funny joke…

          Touch grass, incel.

          • n3m37h@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            8 months ago

            Ass u me much? I never said that ya Qanon crazy fuck

            Sorry to tell ya I live on a farm, if anyone says that they are just projecting and should prolly go touch grass themselves

            The fact y’all think calling a woman a female is dehumanizing is fucking pathetic. Go out and get a life

            • myfavouritename@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              I get that you’re being practical here. You’re not technically wrong, and the people who are disagreeing with you really are arguing points of nuance.

              But they aren’t wrong either. That nuance matters in certain contexts.

              You can pick this hill to defend. Or you can learn something that you didn’t know about the people in your online community, and probably your IRL community too.

              Embrace learning something new. It will almost never be a waste of your time.

            • BreakDecks@lemmy.ml
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              8 months ago

              Ah, I understand now. You think that “human nonspecific terminology” and “dehumanizing terminology” are oxymoronic. Let me help clarify this for you with a lesson in reading comprehension:

              “Human nonspecific terminology” refers to terminology that isn’t used specifically to refer to humans. For example, nouns like “male”, “female”, “subject”, or “specimen” can refer to humans, but they can also apply to things like plants and animals. Casually using these terms socially is generally thought of as dehumanizing and disrespectful.

              This is opposed to respectful human terminology like “man”, “woman”, “participant”, or “person” that almost exclusively refer to humans.

              If a man thinks of himself as a man, but refers to women as “females”, people tend to assume he has less than an acceptable amount of respect for women, since he uses less human terminology to describe them than he would to describe himself.