Here’s my two cents. It’s hard for people to keep up with the euphemism treadmill. There was a time when the word “female” didn’t have the negative connotation that it does now mostly thanks to co-opting by incels. It should also be stated that the word “male” doesn’t have the same negative connotations and it’s similar to how there’s slurs for black people but none for white people.

So why do people find “female” offensive? Well for starters it’s dehumanizing. Women is a less academic term and female implies some biological essentialism. I think the crux as to why it’s a big deal now is that women do not refer to themselves as females in the manner that men do. Men do not think of themselves as males, they do not call other men males, men call themselves men. male and female are simply outdated terms.

I suspect one day as society moves towards a more genderqueer position men and women will become unacceptable to say too. Idk. Like I think we need to acknowledge that there is such thing as a euphemism treadmill, that languages change, words become offensive or nonoffensive over time, and like all we can do in order to be a fucking decent human bean is to conform to society’s standards as to what is acceptable as according to the treadmill. Unless it’s some shit like calling the homeless, the unhoused. Then in those specific instances we got to run against the treadmill. But in this specific instance, we need to run with the treadmill on this one. Nothing feels better than conforming with society.

  • queermunist she/her
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    1 year ago

    It’d been something Redditeurs have been doing since way back in the SRS days - weird nerd shit.

      • queermunist she/her
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        1 year ago

        I swear brd used to look different. Was there some kind of ip controversy or something?

        • Owl [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          I think the biggest difference is that brd isn’t massive.

          But I also vaguely remember there being a different brd too early on? Whatever it was, this one was the main brd for most of SRS’s relevancy.

          • queermunist she/her
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            1 year ago

            Maybe it’s the shading or something that’s making it look weird to me? Like it looks basically right but there’s just something different.

            Or maybe I’ve changed! 🤔 😧