• @Zombiepirate
    link
    English
    464 hours ago

    “Female” is fine to use as an adjective.

    It’s also fine to use as a noun when describing livestock, which is why it’s a red flag to describe women that way.

    • snooggums
      link
      English
      5
      edit-2
      4 hours ago

      What is a good word to use for people who are female of any age including young children that are not old enough to be called women in addition to women?

      ‘Women and girls’ is pretty clunky when talking about something that is gender specific, but applies to all ages.

      • @Klear
        link
        English
        53 hours ago

        Just ask yourself if you’d use “males” in that context.

        • snooggums
          link
          English
          92 hours ago

          I absolutely would use males in that context. “Toxic masculinity has a detrimental affect on males of all ages” sounds perfectly fine to me because I don’t know of a different label for the group and males doesn’t have the same dehumanizing usage as females.

      • Justin
        link
        fedilink
        113 hours ago

        boys and men / girls and women sounds right to me

        • snooggums
          link
          English
          43 hours ago

          ‘Gendered violence against teenage women and girls’ is really clunky. Especially if it needs repeating across paragraphs.

          If there isn’t something, that’s fine.

          • SavvyWolf
            link
            fedilink
            English
            103 hours ago

            “Gendered violence against females” on the other hand sounds a bit too clinical though… Like you’re removing their personhood

            • snooggums
              link
              English
              53 hours ago

              If ‘females’ wasn’t used by online sexists to treat women as objects would it sound that way?

              • SavvyWolf
                link
                fedilink
                English
                63 hours ago

                Maybe! I don’t know if “gendered violence against men” also has the same connotations.

                Maybe this is indeed is a case of those people poisoning the term.

                • snooggums
                  link
                  English
                  32 hours ago

                  “Don’t forget about gendered violence against boys!” would be a likely response to a statement about men.

                  It is absolutely a case of a term being poisoned, which does mean it needs to be treated more carefully but sucks when there isn’t an alternative.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        64 hours ago

        Women is probably fine to use when the ages can be gleaned from context. You can also make the noun non gendered and use female as a adjective like “female students” or “female patients”

        • snooggums
          link
          English
          33 hours ago

          I’m mainly asking when ages span from birth to old age and the goup would basically be “female persons” or “male persons” which is clunky.

          Sometimes it can be rephrased, but it often requires multiple words to mean the same thing. Plus “women of all ages” will be read as not including children.

          I’m mostly pissed that sexists ruined the only single word term we have for half of the population.