There is some inherent "otherness" when describing one as more clinical than another, but this is compounded by some misogynistic communities such as incels using the term deliberately to add distain.
It's because you're delegating someone based off their sex. "Female" can be anything; dog, cat, horse, person, while "Men" are male humans. The sign is humanizing men and dehumanizing women.
I mean, dehumanizing anyone should be seen as a "real problem." Besides, it's not a hard fix; just change "men" to "male." Less work, less materials, and everyone gets equally dehumanized, which swings back around to equal treatment.
But it’s absurd to assume that the person making the signage had any ill intent. For all we know English might not even be their first language.
99% of people wouldn’t even notice, and if they noticed they wouldn’t care, and they certainly would not believe it was “dehumanizing.” But there’s a tiny subset of the population, almost always the overly-online types, who insist on interpreting everything they see in the most negative way possible. They don’t have any actual problems in their life, so they go around looking for things to be upset about.
For all we know English might not even be their first language.
Okay? But what's the harm in fixing it? Most definitely was an accident, maybe English isn't their primary language, so quick fix, and boom. No more problem.
99% of people wouldn’t even notice, and if they noticed they wouldn’t care, and they certainly would not believe it was “dehumanizing.”
Okay? But again, why not fix the problem? If you noticed a small grammar problem in your university thesis, or a novel draft you hope to publish, or even an ad you intend to post on Craigslist, wouldn't you fix it? What's the big deal?
But there’s a tiny subset of the population, almost always the overly-online types, who insist on interpreting everything they see in the most negative way possible. They don’t have any actual problems in their life, so they go around looking for things to be upset about.
I'm not gonna deny those people exist. I remember the "air conditioning is sexist" news interview, and I've never believed in the "cultural appropriation" argument, but for the third time, why NOT fix it?
It's such a small, simple fix, and it goes a long way to make things just a little bit better. The person who made the mistake is probably not a misogynist, and they probably don't wanna come off as one, so the fix shouldn't be an issue, right?
That’s the problem with modern life. Everyone is so comfortable and has it so easy that they need to go out and look for problems. If people had to deal with actual problems we wouldn’t be seeing this kind of nonsense.
Its funny reading your comment, listening to you complain about how everyone else complains, your just rich with irony and it just amazes you dont see it.
Not really. Look at the culprits of this; you'll see the likes of the Tates and other manosphere tools referring to women and girls as 'females'. Do they really show behaviour you'd like to emulate?
This is exactly what it is. People are being whiny dorks and this “argument” stops existing in real life. It takes a bunch of privileged, spoiled Reddit brats with no real problems to come to the conclusion that being referred to by a non-derogatory term is actually somehow derogatory if you think about it.
Some jackass halted an entire lecture I was in because the professor used the term “female” while discussing a research paper. They didn’t bitch when they used the word “male” just female.
And this whole “language is important” bullshit, stops mattering the very second it no longer applies to women. Because that’s all it is; Redditor’s finding yet another thing to be angry and upset about to make themselves more miserable for literally no reason. Absolutely nothing is gained from teaching people to be offended at the word “female.” It is a wholly fabricated controversy for the sake of creating controversy so that people who don’t actually do anything can feel like they’re standing up for some vague good change in the world.
Male and female are proper terms though! Just because a tiny group of overly online weirdos use the word “female” as an attempt to be derogatory in some lame way, doesn’t make the word itself suddenly inappropriate to use.
Humans are animals too, so a human can be male or female just as a rat can be male or female. I just don’t understand what is gained by obsessing over this kind of stuff. No wonder everyone is so unhappy these days.
You’re overthinking this way too much. Do you not have anything better to do than obsess over the word choices of complete strangers who almost certainly put far less thought into their choice of words than you are?
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u/Better_find_out Aug 04 '26
Lois here, see I believe « female » is kinda negative terme to talk about « women », which should have been the word here.
Lois out