Saint Joseph’s University Student Paper Says to Avoid ‘Female’ When Talking About Women
“generally used to preface negative attributes about women”
Why does the left seem so determined to erase women? It’s just bizarre.
The College Fix reports:
St. Joe’s student paper: Avoid term ‘female’ when talking about women
Fresh off its reprimand of students who used day-long diversity/equity workshops as a period of rest and relaxation, the editors of the St. Joe’s University student paper now want everyone to mind their language during this Women’s History Month.
In particular, there are two terms for women with which The Hawk editors have a problem. The first, “particularly problematic” term, is “female.”
The word allegedly is “generally used to preface negative attributes about women,” the paper says, and is a way “to strip [them] of their personhood” and “reduce them to a biological name.”
Worse, the term reinforces outdated notions of gender such as the “traditional binary.” Words like “female” may seem “trivial,” the editors say, but it is crucial — crucial! — that people take care in how they speak … and to “consistently check [their] implicit biases.”
Then there is “girlboss,” which allegedly is a thing for fema– er, women in positions of power. Despite originating with a woman entrepreneur in 2014 and becoming a term of empowerment (and followed by an eponymous Netflix adaptation), the Hawk claims the first part of the term “implies adolescence,” while the second suggests only men should hold positions of authority.
If you’re a bit leery of this, here’s a pair of professors to assuage your skepticism:
“Linguistically speaking, when you put a modifier [or] an adjective in front of another noun, you’re saying that the noun by itself is sort of the norm, and the modified version is outside of the norm,” [sociolinguist and Professor of Modern and Classical Languages [Elaine] Shenk said.
There is also concern with the use of the term “girl,” said Chris Heasley Ed.D., assistant professor for the department of Educational Leadership, who co-led the session “Because Words Matter: Race and Gender Terminology” at the university’s Day of Dialogue on Feb. 16. “[Girl] has a context to a sense of ‘before maturity or adolescence’ versus a woman,” Heasley said.
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Comments
This is a trick the left has been using for a very long time to bully people. They claim there are “implications” or “connotations” that go beyond the actual meaning of the word and then act as if that is the True Meaning.
Leftist: “You used a bad word!”
Rational person: “No, it’s a perfectly ordinary word.”
Leftist: “But it can be used in a bad way so you’re a meanie!”
Rational person: “Wtf??????????”
(No, I am not implying that leftists are not rational people. I’m saying it openly.)
“ (No, I am not implying that leftists are not rational people. I’m saying it openly.)”
That alone warrants more upticks than I can give.
I prefer “chick.” Always have.
But I’m white.
If you’re not, you can’t go wrong with the popular “ho” or “bitch.”
What, Hawk? Did I find a subtle language problem you failed to find?
I like Dame. Frail is a bit out of date.
The guys who worked for me already used that term “DameBoss”. Or, maybe they were saying “DamnBoss”. I can’t remember…
With cool wearable tech that can detect language usage, speech infractions can easily be corrected with a kindly confiscation of assets or administration of a gentle electrocution.
Sorry, I’m a babe or honey user. Must be showing my age!
I imagine sweetie is frowned upon.
Excuse my language, but I wish these people would fuck off already.
“Despite originating with a woman entrepreneur in 2014…”
Mike – would ever use the term “man entrepreneur?”
The suffix -or is derived from a Latin nominative masculine suffix meaning terms like actor (male who acts), sailor (man who sails), or doctor (man who docts?!? … Latin doctus – having been taught; learned) are gendered on the basis of their suffixes not mere social norms.
The nominative feminine is -trix. Thus a female who acts is an actress, a female who sails is presumably a sail(o?)ress, and a female healer would be a doctoress, maybe? From a piece on English-Latin: authoressauctrix, captress or huntresscaptrix, emptress (buyer – male form emptor)emptrix, factressfactrix, temptresstemptrix.
Functionally, speaking of female actors (and yes this piece says don’t use female in such contexts), is to speak of female men who act. Thus the Left is debasing the language by trying to separate it from meaning and its etymological roots.
That’s done all the time, without comment or opprobrium, to men. I get annoyed every time I see “males” instead of “men” used in print. The former is a term for animals not humans.
Media very carefully never does that to women, even to the point of rather annoyingly avoiding “female” when it should be used, as an adjective. “Woman doctor” just grates.
I teach real science not fake crap and female is used to discuss biological sex differences in human physiology. I’m not going to tailor my language every time someone might be offended by facts of biology.
As I’ve read, male and female refer to sex, man and woman refer to gender (which used to be the same as sex but not anymore.)
They just want to eliminate the ability to speak about sex at all, and limit the discussion to their new concept of gender.
Don’t fall for it. Use male and female all the more!
So, if you put a modifier in front of a noun, such as the “fe” in female, that means male is the norm. OK, by that logic in the word “woman” there is the modifier “wo” in front of man, and man is the norm. Consequently, I shouldn’t be able to use the word, “woman” either. And of course, we can’t use the word, “girl”. So, how, pray tell me, do I refer to a Homo sapien with two X chromosomes?
These leftists are just insane.
That’s the point, there is to be no way to discuss the chromosome situation, because it isn’t important at all for anything. What really matters is gender identity.
Wrong! ‘Female’ comes from the Old French ‘femelle’ (from Lain ‘femina’) and has nothing to do with ‘male’ (Old French ‘masle’ from Latin ‘masculus’). The two words, of different origin, simply seem to be related by accident of sound in modern English. Also, the ‘-man’ in ‘woman’ just means a person (as in the German ‘Man’ in the usual phrase ‘Man spricht Deutsch’ = one speaks German). A ‘woman’ is a female person (Old English ‘wif’ = ‘woman’ becoming Middle English ‘wyfmann’).
As in most feminists’ examples of ‘Manglish,’ their assumed etymology is utter crap. Ignorance can be a powerful tool in the hands of the ideologically-obsessed.
HarvardPhD: Don’t you understand sarcasm?
I think the lesson of all this is that one should avoid college student newspapers when talking about women—or almost any other serious subject.