The rule for using Male and Female is: if you could just as easily be talking about an animal, it's a way of dehumanizing the subject of the statement.
"Those females over there": Female what, Sheep? Oh, Female Humans. Luckily we have a word for that. Just say Women, dawg.
"Female Teacher": animals can't be Teachers, so you're fine.
"Females" is used more colloquially because misogyny is baked into society, but it goes both ways. Being called "a Male" is gross. I am not interchangeable with a Ram.
Only tangentially related. But do anyone else actively try to anthropomorphize animals and try to avoid separating humans from animals or am i just weird?
I know in science they usually tend to do the opposite, but at least as far as mammals and birds are concerned they’re at least sentient enough to have a tangible experience of existing. And it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that other intelligent animals experience emotions similarly to ourselves.
Of course they do not give a fuck if i call them “It” or “Her/him”. But it feels better to humanize them. And the opposite feels like turning them into inanimate objects.
36
u/Dragonssssssssssss 17h ago edited 16h ago
The rule for using Male and Female is: if you could just as easily be talking about an animal, it's a way of dehumanizing the subject of the statement.
"Those females over there": Female what, Sheep? Oh, Female Humans. Luckily we have a word for that. Just say Women, dawg.
"Female Teacher": animals can't be Teachers, so you're fine.
"Females" is used more colloquially because misogyny is baked into society, but it goes both ways. Being called "a Male" is gross. I am not interchangeable with a Ram.