What few others? I was simply referring to your previous post that said: " I'm not the only crazy in here" and "There are a couple men that spoke up in agreement and the responses to them have been respectful and polite."

When did I ever say I was getting any flack at all, or being brave? I did not say these things. If you're referring to the little copy/paste tangent filled with, in Doma's words, "platitudes", that was just a preemptive attempt to clarify my position and not offend unduly, and to prevent needless flaming.

The main thrust of my criticism is that you seemed to changed the nature of your argument against the substantive use of female from a normative argument that is either grammatically correct or politically incorrect (I'm still not sure which, both, I guess?) to one that is based on your own feelings and reactions to the word. Those are two different justifications to make.

It's both an issue of correct grammar and the dislike of female as a noun- it's very unpleasant to read or hear the use of female as a noun.

I'm amused by your constant references to grammar. Give me a citation, please, anywhere. I do not believe you and believe you are wrong, and a citation should be easy to come by. Or do you simply *feel* like it's the wrong grammar?

So it's either one of three things, or some, or all:

1) Grammatically incorrect
2) Politically incorrect
3) Personally distasteful

I addressed (1) above, and (3) I am discounting because one should not attempt to correct someone's vocabulary because they personally associate the words with certain meanings. That leaves (2), which can be stated:

The word "female" is politically incorrect because it has a connotation among English speakers that emphasizes reproductive biology, and when used as a substantive it subtly devalues and reduces women to their reproductive biological roles.

The issue I have is that in America, "female" simply does not have that connotation among English speakers. I grant that perhaps a hundred years ago it may have had a distinctly clinical sense to it- I actually don't know the history of the word. But presently it is completely interchangeable on a day-to-day level with "woman". It's become "anthropized" (made the word up, not a linguist) basically, to come to mean "female human".

Want some examples? The term "feminism" came to be associated with a Political and Ethical movement. The constituents then were understood as "females". It was one step in the anthropization of the term female. Most other animals do not have Politics or Ethics at all. Here the same word (or the root, or what have you) has been associated with a distinctly human endevour.

It's also reflected in ordinary language with the adjective "feminine". Were I to compliment a woman on being very "feminine", or someone were to remark on a male being (supposedly) uncharacteristically "feminine", most Americans today would understand the adjective to be referencing human traits, gender traits, that they associated with being a human female. Primarily cultural. For the average American, it would probably be something like wearing dresses, putting on makeup, speaking with a high, affected voice. Note that I'm not endorsing or believe this- just describing how "feminine" is deployed now, and they definitely reference human/gender feminine traits. They would not associate "feminine" with biological feminine traits.

So I'm claiming that "female" does not have the connotation among American English speakers that you claim, so the grounds for objecting to it as a subtle semantic shift simply don't exist. I was honestly surprised to here of the association, as were all of the other native English speakers here. Two people supported you, but based on shaky analogies from their own languages.


It's fascinating how some people discount others' feelings so automatically and sharply. It's not just that you're not willing to take them into consideration, but you have to go on a crusade to try to prove that my perspective and feelings are invalid. In regular life, if someone has different perspectives and feelings do you need to prove that they are wrong and only your outlook is correct?

This is an incredibly telling statement. Do you really think I'm out to discount your feelings, or your perspective? It's not about your feelings. I'm responding to a normative argument you made above at to Jens which I took to be on shaky ground, and which you in turn have been reiterating constantly. I'm responding somewhat virulently not because I am evil and repressive, but because your initial response and your sweeping claims were pretty condescending, and that your claims about the use of "female" were effectively incorrect.

You asked previously why you and not your male supporters were being singled out and rebuked. Look above. You were not singled out. Different focuses above, but if anything longer rebukes. I responded twice to you because you 1) began the debate 2) were condescending and 3) made by far the most posts on the subject, justifying it in different ways. I'd venture to say the level of venom is about equal among all the responses, and you'll note that when D0ma responded rather rudely, I stepped it up accordingly.

Arguments of this sort actually can be rationally analyzed and examined. Aren't you an engineer? I should think you'd appreciate that.