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this post was submitted on 07 May 2025
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In posts like this and elsewhere, commenters kept claiming the noun female to refer to a human is generally derogatory or offensive.
Someone wrote
Despite abundant evidence here (search females), in classifieds, personals & online equivalents (eg, ads that limit eligibility to females), or text corpus searches revealing that the noun female referring to humans is often non-derogatory, so it all depends on the context, they'd insist that usage of the word itself is offensive, insulting, or disrespectful, and they wanted everyone taught to think that until it's the generally accepted meaning. They didn't seem to consider that promoting unconventionally sexist framings (ie, female is a dirty word) for wider adoption in our language serves sexists more than anything, and it might make more sense to resist that.
Feeeeeeeeeemales?! UGH!!!!
Outside of a purely descriptive term of the biological differences between the sexes, that is derogatory.
It is often used to dehumanize women, as the term is mostly used when talking about animals.
Often used to dehumsnise women... Where?
Anywhere biggots congregate, incels often use it to degrade women.
Let's ban all words then, in that case.
So you didn't look at the
did you?
Why would I?
You cite no source for what you write as if it was fact.
The fact that you try to make it look like scientific language tells me that you actually know why the term is derogatory, and you doubling down makes me think you argue in bad faith.
Confirmed: couldn't even search females in lemmy. Disregards common classified ads. Claims "bad faith" while ignoring evidence in bad faith.
Because the claim is empirical, and yours violates plain observation?
Searching random websites is anecdotal, not actual statistics
Statistics aren't needed to reject an overgeneralization. On the contrary, you would need something like statistical generalization: you're (over)generalizing the meaning of a word. Any counterexamples suffice to defeat a bad generalization, since no sample should contradict a true generalization: look it up or take introductory logic.
You're overgeneralizing, and only asserting your claim doesn't begin to meet the burden to support that. In contrast, I've indicated evidence exists & where it's readily found, which you ignore. Ignoring evidence that doesn't suit you is a fallacy (often committed in bad faith).
The fact remains that counterexamples to your claim are common, which wouldn't be expected if the conventional meaning were derogatory.
Here's an example quoting a story in the news:
So your claim is that by referring to her daughters as females, this mother is insulting them?
While I might be able to argue in "bad faith", the unsolicited speech productions of the community do not. Do you want to ignore more examples?
I see no link to a study or anything, so nothing new
Counterexamples don't require studies: learn logic.
Refuting the claim "men are generally bald" merely requires the existence of a few men who aren't. You're claiming "female is a derogatory noun to humans": as shown it isn't. Can you explain what the mother quoted in the news is saying about her daughters if your claim about female is true? No, your claim fails.
Deny plain observation all you want: your claim is false.
You have yet to show that it isn't derogatory, so far you just have your own oppinion.
Thus you are wrong.
Now I do see that you are registered at lemmynsfw.com, generally I would not hold your instance against you if you make a resonable argument in good faith, but based on your creepy attitude and fixation with derogatory/demeaning terms combined with your instance of choice tells me that this is a kink, which is fine if done with consent, but you are pushing your kink on others outside of spaces where it is accepted.
Examples have been given, so it's not opinion: it's plain observation which you're denying.
Where's your evidence? You've only given an overgeneralization
and questionable speculation (not observational evidence) that doesn't support it.
Even if a term often dehumanizes, does it follow that the term itself is derogatory (especially if common uses often don't dehumanize)?
The speculation poses generalizations on observable phenomena.
Some problems with that: where's your observational, generalizable support for any of it? (Empirical generalizations need that type of support.) Is 2 even true & how would you show that?
Does your overgeneralization withstand observation? No: if it did, then the example given & other refuting instances wouldn't be easy to find.
What is an empirical claim that fails to account for observable reality? Worthless.
Outright denying observations that conflict with your claim/pretending they don't exist is part confirmation bias & part selective evidence fallacy. Try respecting logic & choosing tenable claims that can withstand basic observation.
FYI Linguistics and much of science rely on methods other than statistics. Classical & relativistic physics were developed without it. Planetary observations rejecting geocentrism didn't involve statistics. Much of linguistics is detailed observation & analysis of language samples to identify patterns and rules, so good luck finding statistical studies to support your claims.
lol, just because you post a long comment with links to Wikipedia, doesn't mean that you are right.
No, logic does that: showing everyone else you're wrong is just icing.
lol.
You have done nothing of the sort.
You're entitled to be wrong & deny reality. Everyone is entitled dismiss your position.
Well, your argument at the moment seems to be purely based on your opinion on on the fact that someone people do use the term in a derogatory sense, but this absolutely doesn't translate to "it is generally used" as such.
The argument of the other person seems to be grounded on the empirically easily verifiable point that you can find plenty of non derogatory uses of the word in mainstream media, which is a solid argument against the word being "generally used" in a derogatory way.
In fact, I believe your argument really is "incels and others in the manosphere use this word as a derogatory term, and using this word can associate the user with them, hence I don't use it and I don't recommend to use it". Which is a perfectly fine position, which I personally disagree with, but that doesn't rely on a distortion of reality and is a consequence of a personal political choice (that I respect fully).