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*deletes long reply* Let's focus on the essence here. Legolas Send a noteboard - 07/04/2012 06:38:08 PM
I wrote a long reply with paragraphs that dealt with all of your points, some of them agreeing, others pointing out how you're wrong or at least highly disingenuous, and yes, also one admitting that Vivien's statement about grammar was factually wrong (I admitted my own factual errors already). Might as well delete the lot of it and focus on what matters, though.
(1) It is ungrammatical to use "female" as a noun and "female" also carries with it universally a connotation of reproductive biology that is reductive, so therefore you should never use female as a noun.

Versus:

(2) Even though you can use "female" as a noun and the connotation today among American speakers is as an effectively harmless synonym for "woman", the word "female" has a history of being used with reference to a female's biology exclusively and for some today this connotation still holds, so therefore it is advisable and preferable to use "woman" over "female" as a noun, just to be on the safe side, so to speak.

There is certainly a difference between those two. But if people walk away from this argument just remembering your statement number 2, with the single addition of the word "many" or "most" between "among" and "American speakers", I think we can all be content. Or as content as we can be without having seen hard data on how widespread exactly the connotation is, anyway.
The citations Vivien supplied absolutely support that second claim. I completely agree with it, and will in the future take care to heed this advice. But the second claim was not the original one that Vivien made, the one that she and you still seem to stand by and the one I've been arguing against The two statements make very, very different factual claims and significantly different normative judgments. There are at least three solid points of disagreement that I took up with Vivien and you and others. I can always enumerate them propositionally if you want. In any case, there you have it.

Nobody ever made your statement number 1. I made part of it and retracted it; Vivien made another part of it and can speak for herself, though I for one don't think she meant it that way. The third part of it is inherently subjective so it's not actually a "claim".

As far as I can tell, everybody involved in this argument learned something out of it, excepting Celia, and your statement 2 comes as close to a consensus as anything I've seen, so seems like a good closing note.
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The Hunger Games gets a ... different kind of review. - 03/04/2012 03:37:39 PM 2218 Views
"Written by a female with femalist themes" - 03/04/2012 04:38:54 PM 1007 Views
Ok, I did and basically it's garbage. *NM* - 03/04/2012 04:53:00 PM 823 Views
I grant that I haven't read the Hunger Games yet - 03/04/2012 05:10:38 PM 949 Views
No, it's totally off. *NM* - 03/04/2012 05:39:03 PM 815 Views
fair enough. like I said, I haven't read it yet. *NM* - 03/04/2012 07:20:34 PM 762 Views
I can only speak for the film, which was not feminist. - 03/04/2012 06:01:18 PM 921 Views
Where do I start? - 03/04/2012 07:43:18 PM 927 Views
Hermoine was the most kick ass of the Potter kids. - 04/04/2012 03:08:17 AM 790 Views
So? Hunger Games has lots of male characters. - 04/04/2012 05:30:21 AM 848 Views
His racism point... - 04/04/2012 02:32:43 PM 736 Views
Makes me almost wish I knew the source material so I could judge what he is saying - 03/04/2012 10:50:48 PM 834 Views
Why don't you think the Hunger Games are feminist? - 03/04/2012 11:17:53 PM 935 Views
Why would I consider it to be femenist? - 04/04/2012 01:51:24 AM 825 Views
Completely agree with your first paragraph - 04/04/2012 08:22:35 AM 877 Views
Re: Completely agree with your first paragraph - 04/04/2012 01:43:55 PM 844 Views
Unfortunately truly ordinary female characters are so rare that the exceptions stand out - 04/04/2012 01:49:16 PM 879 Views
Fair enough - 04/04/2012 02:33:22 PM 923 Views
Stop using female as a noun! - 04/04/2012 03:51:13 PM 829 Views
It's stuff like that that makes you lose cred - 04/04/2012 05:26:24 PM 838 Views
It's fairly derogatory as a noun, though, have to agree with Vivien on that one. - 04/04/2012 07:30:18 PM 828 Views
I don't think Jens was really using it that way, though - 04/04/2012 07:34:28 PM 760 Views
Thank you! - 04/04/2012 08:03:38 PM 866 Views
Of course he didn't intend it that way, but that's how it sounds. - 04/04/2012 08:06:03 PM 846 Views
I understand that, but it's still such a ridiculous thing to get fussed over - 04/04/2012 09:20:01 PM 881 Views
You are rather exaggerating just how "fussed" anyone did get, you do realize. - 04/04/2012 09:51:22 PM 799 Views
Her tone was not just "informative". It was accusatory - 04/04/2012 10:17:57 PM 771 Views
Female is perfectly acceptable to use in a medical/clinical setting. *NM* - 04/04/2012 10:36:57 PM 1014 Views
so if your problem is people using it disparagingly... - 04/04/2012 10:45:10 PM 742 Views
That's not what I said. - 04/04/2012 10:51:41 PM 857 Views
I'm going to have to just outright disagree with you then. *NM* - 04/04/2012 10:54:25 PM 789 Views
If I wanted to be accusatory... - 04/04/2012 11:05:37 PM 806 Views
Are you a native English speaker, Legolas? (Clarified to preempt possible internet tears) - 06/04/2012 09:29:28 AM 830 Views
Nope. (edit) - 06/04/2012 07:23:54 PM 823 Views
Re: Nope. (edit) - 07/04/2012 04:51:30 AM 888 Views
"Female that"? That's even worse. - 07/04/2012 11:42:00 AM 780 Views
Ok. - 07/04/2012 03:27:16 PM 1063 Views
Re: It's fairly derogatory as a noun, though, have to agree with Vivien on that one. - 05/04/2012 02:21:21 AM 835 Views
I think the language difference is really interesting. - 05/04/2012 03:13:03 PM 835 Views
English is not French, and it's not German. Particularly the connotations of American English words - 06/04/2012 09:39:00 AM 908 Views
LOL! You don't say... - 06/04/2012 05:06:20 PM 807 Views
LOL u so mad - 06/04/2012 06:19:28 PM 795 Views
The prospect of "losing cred" is not going to stop me from speaking my mind. - 04/04/2012 10:30:03 PM 793 Views
My dear - 09/04/2012 01:07:34 PM 837 Views
LOL - 09/04/2012 01:57:53 PM 688 Views
guess what, it is a noun. *NM* - 04/04/2012 07:26:39 PM 672 Views
That's the first time I have ever heard/seen anyone say that. - 04/04/2012 08:19:02 PM 798 Views
well it's important that you say "female human" - 04/04/2012 09:28:45 PM 792 Views
Re: That's the first time I have ever heard/seen anyone say that. - 04/04/2012 10:48:07 PM 786 Views
wait, so now you're claiming it's a grammatical thing? *NM* - 04/04/2012 10:58:31 PM 793 Views
No, I have issues with words that begin with the letter f. - 04/04/2012 11:09:45 PM 820 Views
ooookay then. - 04/04/2012 11:11:23 PM 874 Views
Re: Stop using female as a noun! - 05/04/2012 02:18:47 PM 738 Views
If dislike of the use of female as a noun makes me crazy town, I'm not the only crazy in here. - 05/04/2012 05:59:16 PM 778 Views
For the record, I certainly don't think you're crazy town. - 05/04/2012 07:23:18 PM 787 Views
Oh, so now we're using 'dislike' instead of 'should'. It's funny how you fell back on that. - 06/04/2012 10:01:59 AM 802 Views
Fascinating. - 06/04/2012 09:54:47 PM 836 Views
Re: Fascinating. - 07/04/2012 03:54:26 AM 814 Views
Just in case (however slim that chance may be) you are genuinely interested in citations/references. - 07/04/2012 05:34:37 AM 811 Views
What a joke. Do you even know what grammar is? - 07/04/2012 05:57:40 AM 863 Views
Oh, come off it. This should be the point where you admit to being wrong. - 07/04/2012 12:11:07 PM 753 Views
Sorry, no. Read better. - 07/04/2012 02:23:10 PM 783 Views
*deletes long reply* Let's focus on the essence here. - 07/04/2012 06:38:08 PM 764 Views
Re: *deletes long reply* Let's focus on the essence here. - 07/04/2012 09:26:34 PM 877 Views
Aha, we found the problem - 09/04/2012 01:03:35 PM 864 Views
You're being disingenuous. - 09/04/2012 12:57:38 PM 787 Views
To be fair - 04/04/2012 02:37:25 PM 830 Views
You didn't see thmovie? She is far from passive - 04/04/2012 01:46:16 PM 854 Views
Re: You didn't see thmovie? She is far from passive - 04/04/2012 02:23:33 PM 801 Views
Re: You didn't see thmovie? She is far from passive - 04/04/2012 07:51:46 PM 808 Views
This - 05/04/2012 12:20:04 AM 795 Views
I got half way through the review and got bored. - 04/04/2012 03:09:58 AM 769 Views
And it appears the writer of the article completely missed a central point of the story *spoilers* - 04/04/2012 05:44:40 AM 837 Views
I think that might be debatable - 05/04/2012 06:59:35 PM 813 Views
She still made plenty of choices and she did choose to kill. - 05/04/2012 07:13:47 PM 761 Views
The reviewer is kind of full of it, but makes a good point about the character - 04/04/2012 04:22:30 PM 860 Views
Out of curiosity (this off topic) - 04/04/2012 07:32:25 PM 761 Views
Rachel, of course. - 05/04/2012 12:17:41 AM 827 Views
Well. Now I've actually seen it. (mild spoilers) - 09/04/2012 12:17:03 AM 874 Views