Of course, there are quite a few men - I’d say a majority - who use the term “bitch” to mean “feminine scum”. The female equivalent of “bastard” or “asshole”. A woman being honestly insulted like that telling herself that such an insult is a compliment actually reinforces the insult by adding arrogance and self righteousness to the mix.
Males have other emotions and concerns than insecurity and gender politics. Pretending that men are one dimensional machines who have no purpose but hating and fearing women is just as insulting and sexist as anything spouted by some woman hater.
Well, yeah, I refer to myself as a male and to other male-bodied people as males, more often than not. I don’t tend to subscribe to “man” as a construct that I give any creedence to.
I fail to understand what is supposedly wrong with the word woman. It’s the actual correct word out of them all, after all. You can’t go wrong by saying a woman is a woman. Same goes for the word man for the other gender. I completely fail to understand people’s aversion to the perfectly good and correct words man and woman.*
*Except for AHunter3 and his radical gender-revolutionary ideology. Although I disagree with it, at least he’s thought it through and explains his reasons cogently.
Got no problem with female. Girl is not acceptable because, at 57, I hardly fit the description. However if you call me girl, I’ll work the word 'boy into my reply and go on with my life.
Gal doesn’t bother me if guy doesn’t bother you. Woman is just dandy too.
I’ll also answer to ‘Goddess-like personification of all things good’ but that is a bit cumbersome for casual conversation.
Bitch not so much.
I don’t know anyone, male or female, that thinks it acceptable to call men "assholes’ or “dumb-ass”. When I read stuff like that, I always wonder who the poster hangs out with and why.
Whenever I do something that someone doesn’t like, their first go-to is to call me a bitch. It’s moot for this discussion whether I earned it or not (sometimes yes, sometimes no), but it is definitely the go-to insult for women.
“Females” is just weird. It’s like the person saying it learned how to relate to women from all their friends in their Dungeons and Dragons group.
I’m not really understanding the hate for the word “female”. It’s perfectly appropriate, depending on its use, although I guess I could refer to the non-male side of my family as “the enatic line”. Do you all also dislike the word “feminine”? Or do you prefer “woman-like”? Serious questions, not snark.
Also, please – if you’re reading this thinking, “WTF, there’s nothing wrong with the word ‘female,’” please trust the testimony of the women in this thread who are saying that they don’t like it, and respect that.
Again, if you belong to a profession where “male” and “female” are used as nouns equally, such as law enforcement, it’s cool – it’s part of the jargon of your profession. But if you think the binary option is between “females” and “men,” think about what’s going on there with your terminology and why you might use it.
You have to consider the source and the context. It’s not a cultural “thing” to think of men as alien creatures whose brains work in bizarre and unknowable ways, the way it is to characterize women as such. If a woman is going around calling women “women” and men “males,” well, she probably has issues, but it’s not a widespread phenomenon the way calling women “females” and ascribing to Pick-up Artistry gimmicks that instruct men to see women as either dogs you can condition or robots you can program are.
Do you get what I’m saying? The word “female” in and of itself is not the problem – it’s the mindset behind its use that’s the problem. Like many people in this thread and elsewhere have said, it’s a red flag for Issues With Women.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone use “males” in the same way we’re discussing the use of the word “females” here. I think I would find it weird too, though.
According to the late, great William Safire in his NY Times column On Language, the word “female” is an adjective which should only be used when gender is both relavent and in doubt. The female actress Whoopi Goldberg? No. The female executive Joanne Smith? No. The female executive Chris Jones? Yes, if her gender is somehow relevant.
Maybe somebody has already mentioned this and I overlooked it, but I thought the main feminist objection to both female and woman was that they present the masculine form of the word (i.e., male and man) as the base/default, with an affix forming the feminine.
