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Anon studies human behavior
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this post was submitted on 31 May 2025
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No, the writer in OP may not have needed to use males (men & boys). Explain the necessity for males.
Wouldn't that imply then that he's referring to women AND girls? Because he does explicitly say men in the post.
Females does mean women or girls, and they wrote young. It is logical to write men when boys are absent or not discussed. Again: where's the necessity for males?
The context doesn't indicate offensive use of females, so picking over that word looks indiscriminate like the critic is stigmatizing the word itself. Again: what good does that advance?
He's looking for young girls then. I'm not sure that's such a good thing, nor does it make his use of females any better.
Not sure friend requests count as "looking" in that sense. Young girls is a bit of a reach: young females could mean girls or young women where the age of the girl is unspecified.
Great job not answering the questions: a sign of real integrity.
Well if you want an answer to the question it's purely the way it comes off. A lot of women I know get the ick when people use the word female in that context.
And a lot don't. Icks aren't valid reasons & can be unjustified.
We all can read context as written without free associating extra assumptions. The context doesn't indicate offensive use of females.
If you read what someone wrote, twist it into something else, & judge them for it, that is unjustified. What good does it promote?
More broadly
wasn't given. As stated before
The question remains: what good is advanced by treating females like a dirty, toxic word?
None at all, and the real argument wasn't that females is a dirty toxic word. It's the context in which it is used.
The context in OP where females was used inoffensively?
You haven't pinned down the problem with the context of the word: I don't think you can. All I think you have are opinions & assumptions unsupported by context.
Either the context or the word has a problem. If it's not the context, then it's the word, which means we're really arguing about treating females as a dirty, toxic word.
If it is the context, then you can identify that problem (in a way that clearly sets it apart from inoffensive uses of the noun female): it's puzzling no one has so far.
So OP is asking what's wrong with young girls that they don't accept friend requests from strange men, and your asking why people are pointing that out as a problem?
Already answered: they wrote young females.
They wrote mutuals.
Nope: question clearly stated above about picking over a word.
You get points, though, for picking over the message instead of a word: notice females not mentioned. 👍
And you just said "females" refers to women or girls.
So if they are sending friend requests to "young females" then they are sending friend requests to "young women" or "young girls".
If they don't want to sound like they are sending friend requests to the young girls of their coworkers (all of their mutuals after all) then "young women" would have been the better word to use.
Nope, doesn't follow logically. As I wrote at the link you willfully ignored, it could mean girls or young women, since they are female & they are young: I think you know that. Some word choices circumvent disagreements over words with vague distinctions: while no choice is wrong or offensive, young female is less opinionated & unlikely to clash with varied opinions on the distinction between girls & young women.
Your diversion, however, leads nowhere & doesn't answer the question raised before.
So how young are the girls OP is upset about not accepting his friend request? If there's concern that some people would refer to them as "girls" instead of "young women" the grossness of the statement stands.
You go on this long when people make grammatical errors like using the wrong "their" in their posts? Or is it just excusing language the dehumanizes women that gets you fired up?
I don't know & neither do you: the words are vague as you likely know. A sensible interpretation: they're discussing girls who could be young women & vice versa.
They didn't say they were upset.
Not really, and still not answering the question: you do that an awful lot.
You've never encountered older women who want to be called girls or girls who want to be called women or people sensitive about their age who find the wrong word offensive? They averted that minefield.
You're digressing & excusing treating females like a dirty, toxic word by nitpicking any mention of it. I'm not here (1) pretending the use of females is offensive, (2) failing to properly articulate how the problem isn't the word when (3) we all can see the context isn't offensive.
The question remains: what good does that advance? I understand why misogynists would want you to keep promoting their usage of that word: if everyone stigmatizes the noun female, then it becomes generally accepted as a dirty, toxic word, so yay misogyny.
Nonetheless, they're the minority, and the common usage of noun female isn't offensive until we change it.
Anytime someone says “can’t use females anymore, misogynists use it” instead of resisting that by reasserting the more common usage, they’re letting a minority like those misogynists take over & decide the meaning of language for the majority. (Unwitting) accomplices take capitulation a step further by policing language to promote & enforce misogynist meanings: regardless of intent, that's you.
Language & cultural conventions take cooperation: stop cooperating with & caving to misogynists. Definitely stop actively supporting them.
If you're going to advocate for a cause, then stop incompetently betraying it. Your cause deserves better than incompetent advocates like you. So tell us: what good is that language policing advancing?
The fact that the use one form for one gender and a different form for another gender is exactly the issue.
What's the logic there that makes it offensive?
The comment mixes women & females so it doesn't appear fixated on a word offensively.
When discussing complete sets, it symmetrically places words of a set together: "men, women" and "married, single".
When not discussing complete sets, only the words needed appear: they write "single young female" without "single young male", because there was no reason to write the latter—it's not part of the topic. The shift to females happens in a new sentence.
Again: explain the necessity for males. Are you expecting everyone to write males for no reason whenever they write females (or the reverse)? Do we need to do the same with married & single? Are you claiming incomplete sets of words or asymmetry is offensive?
That shit would be exhausting. Please explain the issue: otherwise, it looks like you're simply picking over the noun female.