Democratic strategist James Carville argued “too many preachy females” in the Democratic Party could be to blame for President Biden’s bleeding support from key voters. In an inte…
Well, here he’s clearly using “Females” to be exclusive and offensive, demonstrating that the term does, in fact, have that potential, is my point.
It is kinda nice when trying to figure out other cultures’ taboos, that you can get something as cut and dry as “this word or concept can show up in a news article when politicians misuse it.”
Kinda intimidating, but also a useful frame of reference, because then there’s post like yours which specify that its context-specific.
It can be really frustrating when you spend years tiptoeing around something, only to find out that the person you learned it from just had weird personal hangups or something.
Yeah at a fundamental language level every word has implications. Any given word is less one specific meaning than it is one or more primary meanings with a whole constellation of associated concepts. Picking to use a specific word means one thing but its associated concepts also shade the surrounding words and sentence. The word “female” is not offensive any more than a word like “red” would be, but it carries a clinical connotation as well as being problematic with regards to trans people and the trans movement in general. Depending on how it’s used it could offend someone, but with the right tone or context so could asking someone “How old are you?”. So it’s wrong to say in absolute sense that “female” is offensive, but like many words it can be used in an offensive manner.
Well, here he’s clearly using “Females” to be exclusive and offensive, demonstrating that the term does, in fact, have that potential, is my point.
It is kinda nice when trying to figure out other cultures’ taboos, that you can get something as cut and dry as “this word or concept can show up in a news article when politicians misuse it.”
Kinda intimidating, but also a useful frame of reference, because then there’s post like yours which specify that its context-specific.
It can be really frustrating when you spend years tiptoeing around something, only to find out that the person you learned it from just had weird personal hangups or something.
Yeah at a fundamental language level every word has implications. Any given word is less one specific meaning than it is one or more primary meanings with a whole constellation of associated concepts. Picking to use a specific word means one thing but its associated concepts also shade the surrounding words and sentence. The word “female” is not offensive any more than a word like “red” would be, but it carries a clinical connotation as well as being problematic with regards to trans people and the trans movement in general. Depending on how it’s used it could offend someone, but with the right tone or context so could asking someone “How old are you?”. So it’s wrong to say in absolute sense that “female” is offensive, but like many words it can be used in an offensive manner.