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 male and female are simply outdated terms.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.
Pro-tip:
Never correct a person who refers to women as “females”
Don’t ever teach misogynists how to refine their language and to develop a more socially-acceptable way of concealing their attitudes.
Let them throw up those red flags immediately so that people can immediately avoid chuds who use this language.
I have a strong preference for “rough sleepers” because there are people who are in temporary housing, that are couch surfing etc. which don’t strictly fit into the term homeless but who experience precarious (and typically inadequate) housing and because some people consider places home, such as their cars (sometimes by preference), and devaluing what a person calls home because it doesn’t meet my personal definition of a home is kinda shitty whereas acknowledging that their home may be precarious or inadequate without erasing the fact that it’s home to them, I think, is preferable.
/rant
Correcting a misogynist is more likely to provoke a visible reaction than ignoring problematic speech. If it isn’t corrected, it becomes normal.
I mean, that’s kind of the point though.
I think it’s preferable that using the term “female” as a noun is normalised among people who see women as objects and that they continue using that term because it’s like a klaxon identifying people who are misogynists or who have latent misogynistic beliefs.
If we coach misogynists in ways to conceal their misogyny then it becomes much, much harder to identify them especially in social media spaces.
I’d much rather that these people loudly announce themselves to the people who know better than to blend in with people who are progressive and radical.
Teaching people to adjust their language doesn’t change their beliefs.
Misogynists have historically held more institutional power than women. We had a time when women knew how to speak inclusively and misogynists didn’t, it was called the 1960s. It sucked.
Yeah, I know that those times sucked. But they didn’t suck because the people who are oppressing and exploiting us didn’t know to couch their language in progressive wording. I think that framing it in that way is a very idealistic take and does a serious disservice to the realities that oppressed groups faced in the 60s because the people who were fighting for better circumstances definitely weren’t out on the streets demanding that their oppressors use more polite language while they screw them over.
Take a look at Joe Biden’s progressive verbal stance and the virtue-signalling events he holds compared to what he’s actually done to protect and defend the rights of trans people as the perfect example of why kind words don’t mean shit when you’re beneath the jackboot.
Look, you can do whatever you feel is important to you.
Personally I just don’t see the value in training misogynists in how to be more effective predators by concealing themselves amongst people of good conscience to be anywhere close to a priority for me. Quite the opposite actually.
it’s also what most homeless orgs use here (england)
We’ve moved away from that here to “unhoused” which is likely politically-motivated to narrow the scope of who faces inadequate and unstable housing to exclusively the people who are out on the streets tonight.
So, y’know, if you’ve got a couch to crash on for this week then it’s basically a screw you: you’re totally fine and we’re not going to consider you kinda deal.
I think one of the reasons of using unhoused over rough sleeper or homeless, is that unhoused using the participle -housed- implies that there is someone who should do the housing (and is failing) rather than a failure of the unhoused to find their own shelter.
That being said, I don’t think it’s a strong implication, and you’re right it doesn’t cover the scope of people in precarious housing situations.