all 26 comments

[–]Cass 10 insightful - 5 fun10 insightful - 4 fun11 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

He literally has "they/them" in his twitter profile.

[–]TheOnyxGoddess 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (23 children)

Gender Criticals have decided to use "they/them" as an insult for people they don't deem worthy of being called "she/her" and suddenly they understand exactly how to construct sentences with a gender neutral pronoun.

They're so up their own ass in their victimhood mentality to lack the cognitive ability to figure out that we use "they" and "them" because they are collective words used by the speaker to address a group of people, not gender-sensitive snowflake individuals. I've been addressing unknown individuals with "he" because that was the Old English gender neutral word if you don't know the individual's sex. No one here is pandering to them, we are all using proper English and they are just looking to be offended by any little thing. Drama queens.

[–]usehername[S] 9 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 2 fun -  (22 children)

Actually some GC people will call TiMs and TiFs "they" instead of the proper pronoun to avoid offending them.

that was the Old English gender neutral word if you don't know the individual's sex

Speaking of Old English, we really need to start calling men "weremen" again and allow "men" to be gender-neutral, as opposed to changing every word that has man at the end (policeman, fireman, congressman, mailman, ect.).

[–]LilianH 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

No it is to avoid being banned by twitter.

[–]usehername[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Yikes, I don't use Twitter. They'll ban you just for that?

[–]LilianH 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Yes, misgendering is a bannable offence. That's why Meghan Murphy was banned, she replied "yes that's him" to a photo of mr-wax-my-balls and was banned.

[–]usehername[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Fuck Twitter x_x

[–]TheOnyxGoddess 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (17 children)

Actually some GC people will call TiMs and TiFs "they"

They're a minority. Majority of Gendercriticals use the correct terminology.

Speaking of Old English, we really need to start calling men "weremen" again and allow "men" to be gender-neutral

I honestly don't like that because the term sounds awesome and I don't like calling the male race "weremen" (sounds almost like saying werewolf and it makes them sound sort of cool, but really, that's just my personal view of how it sounds). From a pragmatic viewpoint, it's well ingrained in society's consciousness "men" refers to males and can also refer to humans in general depending on the context (much like "he" is also gender neutral). I never came across "weremen" until today but have encountered "he" in more recent years (slightly before the TRA movement gained more traction) so I think that would be more recent in the English speaker's psyche. I really don't see the point of changing our English language at all especially if we're living in a globalised world and the language is so widespread and taught around the world.

[–]usehername[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (16 children)

They're a minority. Majority of Gendercriticals use the correct terminology.

True.

(sounds almost like saying werewolf and it makes them sound sort of cool, but really, that's just my personal view of how it sounds)

Actually that's the origin of the word werewolf! The word came into use back when men were referred to as weremen, so a werewolf is a sort of man-wolf.

"men" refers to males and can also refer to humans in general depending on the context (much like "he" is also gender neutral)

Yeah, but why should males be the default in language? Technically, females should be the default, as they are in nature. Males have modified female bodies; they are the deviation. Though ideally, it would be like I said with a neutral word as the default, especially since men and women both make up 50% of the population. I also don't mind using "they" as a pronoun when the sex of a person is unknown; I especially prefer it to "he" which just conjures up the image of a male in my mind.

I really don't see the point of changing our English language at all especially if we're living in a globalised world and the language is so widespread and taught around the world.

I think it'd be better in the long run, but trying to change it could become a shitshow. Changing that one word would prevent us from having to turn our entire language gender-neutral one word at a time, which seems to be the current movement (congressperson, mail person, ect.) it's just awkward. We have a perfectly good gender-neutral word for all humans: "man", and the only thing we'd need to do is refer to men as weremen. No other words would need to change.

[–]TheOnyxGoddess 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (15 children)

Yeah, but why should males be the default in language?

If it's not broken, don't fix it. I personally do not think there's a massive issue with "man" being some sort of "default". It seems almost befitting because it can be short for other words (e.g. woman, human).

Technically, females should be the default, as they are in nature.

Technically, it doesn't mean the English language is broken if we made the word man as some sort of "default". It's just language, it's a system we use to communicate with people.

I also don't mind using "they" as a pronoun when the sex of a person is unknown; I especially prefer it to "he" which just conjures up the image of a male in my mind.

Does thinking up an image of a male affect your ability to communicate and treat someone else like you would a treat a woman differently from a male? We're all surrounded by things that can affect our biases (e.g non-english names) but it doesn't mean we should change the language to teach society to have an open mind. If we start doing that, we should get rid of racial identifying words, like "Chinese" and make everyone who speak English call themselves English names. When I use the word "he", I think "word to use to address an unknown individual" and less image of a male (as that's what I associate with), I don't let the bias affect my ability to communicate and investigate situations, as I've already mentally filtered people into the "unknown" department. Other people do the same thing.

Changing that one word would prevent us from having to turn our entire language gender-neutral one word at a time, which seems to be the current movement (congressperson, mail person, ect.) it's just awkward.

Changing the language to make it "gender neutral" isn't going to help (we're already seeing the effects of that push from the TRAs).

it's just awkward.

No it's not. You're at this point no different from TRAs who feel there's an issue with language being sexist (I just realise there's an irony to me arguing with another feminist about restructuring the English language when this post is about mocking TRAs having an issue with pronouns).

We have a perfectly good gender-neutral word for all humans: "man", and the only thing we'd need to do is refer to men as weremen. No other words would need to change.

There is no need to change any other words at all or try to start a trend of using a different word, the language right now is perfect (aside from some slang words being ruined). I wouldn't mind people using the word "she" as the default word, because technically, we don't know the sex of the person, and it doesn't really change today's language in a way to introduce a new word (or reintroduce an old word that's almost no longer used) and go against it's structure and "he" at it's basic purpose, isn't far off from "she", so it's not even a massive leap to make "she" a gender-neutral word as either word can be used to address whatever unknown person (they both can be used as placeholder pronouns). If you think about it, using "she" is as correct as using "he" from a pragmatic point of view, as they both can be used to address the individual if you have no idea what is their sex.

If it says anything, if you suddenly ask me if I'm talking to a woman or a man, and after seeing me use "he" online, you're going to find me first thinking "woman", because I tend to subconsciously project some level of my image to strangers online (which I think I read somewhere in psychology which many people do when interacting with others), the default "he", even though an image of a "male" comes to my mind has a lot less impact than you think and I'm not a unique case (and I doubt I'm uncommon either). I don't put any stock to my shallow thoughts on anyone I'm conversing with (those thoughts are irrelevant to how I should communicate with someone), unless I know who they are (e.g. an adult who understands basic English).

I looked up "wereman" and haven't got any sources of the word existing so I'm curious where you got this word and its etymology from. I looked up "man" and got that it's from the old germanic word from "mann". I found the word "wer" which is Old English and by itself meant "man", nothing I read has shown there's been an etymological connection to "werewolf".

Edit: Wording

[–]usehername[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (14 children)

I'm not arguing that "man" shouldn't be the default. I'm arguing that males shouldn't be the default, and that the word "man" should be kept and considered gender-neutral, while we call men something else.

Does thinking up an image of a male affect your ability to communicate and treat someone else like you would a treat a woman differently from a male?

No, but can you think of one good reason why I should think of a male as the default whenever I'm speaking about someone whose sex I don't know? And can you see how that contributes to women's second-class status?

You're at this point no different from TRAs who feel there's an issue with language being sexist

Do you think it isn't?

I looked up "wereman" and haven't got any sources of the word existing so I'm curious where you got this word and its etymology from.

Looks like I made a mistake. Wer, meant male, but wæpman was the word generally used for men, but here:

Traditionally, many writers have used man and words derived from it to designate any or all of the human race regardless of sex. In fact, this is the oldest use of the word. In Old English the principal sense of man was "a human," and the words wer and wyf (or wæpman and wifman) were used to refer to "a male human" and "a female human" respectively. But in Middle English man displaced wer as the term for "a male human," while wyfman (which evolved into present-day woman) was retained for "a female human."

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/were+man

etymological connection to "werewolf"

late Old English werewulf "person with the power to turn into a wolf," from wer "man, male person" (from PIE root *wi-ro- "man") + wulf (see wolf (n.); also see here for a short discussion of the mythology). Belief in them was widespread in the Middle Ages. Similar formation in Middle Dutch weerwolf, Old High German werwolf, Swedish varulf.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/werewolf

Definitely don't think we should go back to wæpman (weapon person), but we could make a frankenword werman/wermen.

[–]TheOnyxGoddess 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (13 children)

I'm arguing that males shouldn't be the default, and that the word "man" should be kept and considered gender-neutral, while we call men something else.

I'm arguing that there's nothing wrong with "man" being the default in their language, you can easily tell if someone is talking about a male or mankind based off context. The word Man was also used in Old English as an indefinite pronoun, "one, people, they." It was used generically for "the human race, mankind" by c. 1200.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/man

I really think "man" being the "default" is not really different from "woman" being the default. We might offend a few loser males if we do that, but that's their problem.

No

So it doesn't affect your ability to think without bias. Good. The system is not broken.

but can you think of one good reason why I should think of a male as the default whenever I'm speaking about someone whose sex I don't know?

Because pronouns don't affect how you treat the person, they're just there to describe the person and can be used as a more grammatically correct placeholder over "they/them" (which are plurals). Whether you actually think it's a man or not does not affect how you should talk to them. Regardless if they're a man or a woman, you still have to treat them the same, unless it's for medical reasons, you would need to know their sex (and you would be given their sex on their medical records anyway).

If you think "male" as the default when using male pronouns as a placeholder when talking to a stranger is an issue, then that's your problem. In my experience, I find that I don't really think much about if the person is a woman or a man as I'm interested in getting a point across when using the pronouns and care very little about offending some person who I don't know.

And can you see how that contributes to women's second-class status?

By your logic, a reason why we're all systematically oppressed because many cultures seem to put "males" as the default in their language. Considering that the word "man" is the default in many first-world westerner's mind and female status has elevated much higher than many Asian and third-world countries (e.g. China, Japan) for many years, it would mean that language has zero impact on oppression. Sponsorships, gender-diversity job targeted opportunities are given to women, with their respective language's "default" being "man" in the.

Example: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-12/queensland-police-recruiting-women-crime-corruption-report/100133594

Majority of people still think "man" first, whether how they treat others with respect and as equals is a separate case.

Edit: Wording

[–]usehername[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (12 children)

By your logic we're all systematically oppressed because many cultures seem to put "males" as the default in their language and not because those cultures decided to create a system which puts females at a disadvantage.

I never said anything like that. It's a huge pet peeve of mine when someone says "bY yOuR lOgIc" and it's nothing close to my logic. All I said was that it contributes. I didn't say it was the only cause of women's oppression because that's fucking stupid and you're strawmanning. However, it contributes to a culture in which men are humans and women are the other humans. The deviants.

Considering that the word "man" is the default in many first-world westerner's mind and female status has elevated much higher than many Asian and third-world countries (e.g. China, Japan) for many years, it would mean that language has zero impact on oppression.

That's a ridiculous conclusion. You skipped a lot of steps there. There a lot more contributing factors than language.

[–]TheOnyxGoddess 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (11 children)

I never said anything like that. It's a huge pet peeve of mine when someone says "bY yOuR lOgIc" and it's nothing close to my logic.

Sorry, I made my mistake and made an edit before I read your response. It's pretty fair you get offended. (I tend to post from my phone and then edit because the responses are already on the thread, hence why a lot of comments have edits on them).

However, it contributes to a culture in which men are humans and women are the other humans. The deviants.

Perhaps you should actually ask men around the world, in person so you know they are males, instead of just simply absorbing information straight from feminist articles (yes, this one is an assumption, your argument seem to stem from feminists and sjws proclaiming oppression at every little thing and not look at the structure and mechanisms of oppression). You might get some standing from religious leaders and backwater areas, but those areas tend to coincide with absent or lack of feminist movement, which needs to be more prominent so they would stop seeing women as the "devil". Speaking of which at that point if you do start campaigning for women's rights, you don't start with the language, you start with their treatment of females and in doing so start changing their cultural attitudes towards females. If you campaign for women's rights, you're just changing the culture, not the language and slowly removing the thought a woman is a "devil" from that culture.

That's a ridiculous conclusion. You skipped a lot of steps there. There a lot more contributing factors than language.

Then you better prove your point that language is oppressive. You haven't, you're just saying "I think male first, therefore...". Language is just a system and culture is another system. Culture dictated the formation of language, but it didn't make it oppressive and made men think only for themselves, that's the misogynism doing that. I put forth evidence that female rights have been achieved despite language being sexist. My conclusion is fair, especially if you look at gender-specific advantages offered to women and looked at the feminist movements all over the world.

Edit: Wording

[–]usehername[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

I somehow missed these from one of your earlier posts:

If we start doing that, we should get rid of racial identifying words, like "Chinese" and make everyone who speak English call themselves English names.

That is a completely different line of "logic" and totally irrelevant to the subject at hand.

So it doesn't affect your ability to think without bias. Good. The system is not broken.

I don't speak for all English speakers.

On to your most recent reply...

Perhaps you should actually ask men around the world, instead of just simply absorbing straight from feminist articles (yes, this one is an assumption).

Yeah, and it was a false assumption. Most men already think like that (they are default and women are deviations from them), as evidenced by all Abrahamic religions. Having it built into the language simply further cements that idea in their minds. Feminist articles... ffs. It became clear to myself and many other native English-speaking women when were little girls, coming to understand the language. In general, men think women are like another species, totally alien to them, and the English language places them as the default human while women are the strange "others". I got this perspective from listening and speaking with many men and reading their forums. Again, my point is that while obviously male-default language didn't invent women's oppression, it is clearly a symptom of and a contributing factor to it.

I put forth evidence that female rights have been achieved despite the language being "sexist".

And I never argued that female rights couldn't be achieved despite language being sexist so what's your point? You're not trying to prove it isn't sexist, you just don't think it's a big deal.

Culture dictated the formation of language, but it didn't make it oppressive

Obviously the language is reflecting the oppression of the culture, but changing language can influence culture.

gender-specific advantages offered to women

Like what?

My conclusion is fair,

Lmao. You are employing a logical fallacy. Correlation does not equal causation. Also, the statement of fact in your conclusion:

female status has elevated much higher than many Asian and third-world countries (e.g. China, Japan) for many years

Does not stand in opposition to my claim:

Male-default language is both a symptom of and a contributing factor to women's oppression.

Qualifiers:

This does not mean that male-default language is the only contributing factor, or even one of the biggest contributing factors to women's oppression. This does not mean that it's impossible for women to accomplish anything or have feminist movements when they speak a language that uses male as the default.

I feel like you're not understanding me because you keep saying things that are totally irrelevant and erroneous. I'm also guessing English isn't your first language?

[–]grixit 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I use "they" for individuals when i don't know their sex because that's an old established usage of the word in English. I don't use "they" on demand for someone when i do know their sex.

[–]kwallio 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I tend to just use the person's name or say "this person" instead since its less cumbersome. Even so why can't they (ha) just let people say "they" instead of whatever genderspecial pronoun they are demanding this week?