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‘There were no warning signs’: what happens when your partner falls into the ‘manosphere’?
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2025
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Occasionally my partner does or says some things that remind me of the “manosphere” aka 4chan neckbeards.
And when it happens, we talk about it. I don’t pretend or let it go as “he doesn’t mean it” or “he doesn’t know what he’s saying”. I don’t get mad and he doesn’t get mad. We have an adult discussion and I’m careful not to talk down to him.
A perfect example was that he sometimes says “females” when he means “women”. I explain that it’s not a swear word but it’s still derogatory. I explain why. Once I did, he understood and stopped doing it.
It doesn’t have to be a big deal! Communication is key!
As long as you also made sure that if he does say it again he has to pronounce it like tamales
I laughed at this and now I’m going to do that in my head whenever I see that word
i don't know how could anyone watch Star Trek DS9 and still call women "females" like a Ferengi
Funny you say that! He doesn’t do it anymore but I just sent him this meme from !tenforward@lemmy.world!
serious answer: by consistently running and reading experiments that refer to male and female patients.
I try my best, but if I've read three-four papers in a day about a topic and all of them use male and female, probably gonna accidentally say female.
Sure, but honestly it sounds tiring if this kind of discussion is a recurring thing.
Agreed! But for me it’s not all that often, luckily.
Yeah, why can't he just agree with you on everything right out the gate?
No. Stop treating people like livestock.
You can go fuck yourself dude, trans women are women. For all social and identity purposes they are female.
Good luck with that. A red flag is a red flag.
I appreciate that he is willing to learn and grow. We all make mistakes. If you understand why it’s offensive and keep doing it, yeah red flag.
I think the ability to change with new information is admirable.
It is admirable and increasingly rare.
I'm sure this person really appreciates this warning about a person that they know and you don't
It's similar to how I appreciate your reply.
So, are you agreeing that your first comment was useless or that the comment you're replying to isn't? Can't have it both ways.
I think it depends on how often they're coming up with dubious takes, and how often there are repeats.
Like if you have to explain that gay people are just trying to live life, and that's fixing misinformation they got as a youth, fine. Good, even. But if you have that talk and then have to have to again a month later because they "forgot" or picked up more bad ideas? Concerning.
Friend of a friend was always getting talks to patch up his dicey world view, but then he'd go back to the same YouTube or shitty friends and come back two weeks later with a fresh batch of bad ideas. Really have to get to the root of the problem
I'm guessing you're single.
Everyone, keep in mind, there's a lot of losers on the internet who will never find love and don't want you to find love, either.
Don't end up like them unless you want to.
It logically isn't. While you think that, and anyone spending their future with you should mind it, it doesn't make it true.
Language isn’t always about logic. Discussing things in terms of male/female is fine in many contexts but is often done when discussing science or medical topics. Ex: the male pelvis has a different, narrower shape than the female pelvis. It’s also used in situations where people are deliberately ‘othering’ people. Watch any police bodycam footage and you’ll see that cops frequently say “male/female” when discussing non-police individuals.
In daily life, most people use men/women for non-scientific discourse. The women’s restroom. A group of men at the restaurant. Etc.
But here’s the thing. Male/female are used for any species (a male beetle), but man/woman are only used for humans.
Assholes like Tate push a twist in this dynamic so that men are called men but women are called females because it can be dehumanizing to women. When you say female you could be talking about an insect, but a man is human. It’s a succinct example of their philosophy. That’s why people consider it derogatory.
It is if you say “man” and “female” instead of “male” and “female”. While it can be a noun, it’s mainly used as an adjective to describe sex.
It’s like saying “A black owns the shop.” Instead of “A black man owns the shop.”
Notice how calling someone “a black” is kinda icky?
I was going to comment that, a while ago, I saw someone on Lemmy make almost exactly this comment.
Now I wonder if the person I saw was you or, alternatively, whether you saw the same person.
I don’t recall where it came from. I definitely read it somewhere and didn’t come up with it on my own. Probably here on Lemmy or on Reddit before that! It was the first example I saw that was able to articulate why it doesn’t feel right to say “female” as a noun when referring to a person.
Well, good on you for your progressive perspective and your willingness to express it.
The rule of thumb I use is that you shouldn't use adjectives as nouns when talking about people. The adjective needs a noun to describe.
That's extra cringe if they do: that person needs to sort out their words. Is it not derogatory if they say “male” and “female”?
It's hard cringe & awkward: certain to provoke odd looks.
Referring to someone as an instance of their gender could be icky & cringe. That it's also derogatory doesn't follow: the easiest counterexample is "a male".
Male's haven't been actively repressed as a result of their gender for thousands of years. Simply switching the genders does not work because they're not equitible terms. Systematically speaking, they come from different backgrounds and expectations.
I take your point that "female" as a durogatory term is relative to the context it's used in. But we can't pretend we've lived in a world of equal opportunity that treats men and women, males and females, equally in trying to make that point.
While I agree with the first part, that is not implied or necessary to refute the argument as presented.
They argued the same reasoning applies to "male" (literally). It clearly doesn't.
Therefore, whatever the reasoning could be, their argument isn't it. Basic logic.
If a sound argument exists, we should present that. Otherwise, we're pretending to reason.
What makes you the ultimate authority on what terms a woman can consider "derogatory"? Where do you get the power to decide what words other people should use to describe their own feelings? What makes your opinion about it more valid than those of others?
Have you considered that the same word can make two different people feel two different ways? Unless you've got the power to know exactly what another person is feeling, there is nothing that makes your thoughts more valid than the thoughts of others in this matter. Doubling down that "derogatory" isn't the right word to use gives the impression that you don't believe "female" actually feels derogatory to a lot of women. Gotta wonder why that might be.
I don't need to be or decide it and it's not my opinion: the language community is the ultimate authority of their language. Their collective choices establish observable conventions. Linguistics is dedicated to that approach.
Subjectivist fallacy: your opinion/feelings don't make claims true. Up doesn't mean down because someone feels that way.
Language has conventional, established meanings.
Another comment fully argues, explains, & criticizes your argument, which I won't bother to rehash here.
Way to absolutely miss the point.
A not-insignificant amount of women think using the term "female" is derogatory. Women who feel that way are part of the "language community." You're talking like we're some outsider group, whose use of English is less valid than yours.
Language is alive - it evolves, it changes. As well, English famously doesn't have an established body to define meanings. Rather, English words are based on common usage. Women commonly experience the usage of "female" in a derogatory sense. We didn't designate it this way - all we're doing is pointing out that it's used in this way. Just because you don't feel a derogatory sense from a given word doesn't mean those that experience it that way are wrong.
If you had gone out to research the usage of "female," including how people perceive it in different contexts, you'd see just how many anglophones disagree with you. But those people would probably, by and large, be those who've experienced that word in a derogatory way - in other words, they'd be women. So how about we stop acting like this is a semantics issue and get to the point you're really saying, which is that women's experiences and opinions are somehow worth less than yours.
And a nonsignificant amount don't. That doesn't establish a generally accepted convention of the language community.
True: still not a conventional definition per earlier remarks.
Exactly: convention.
Incomplete evidence or composition fallacy.
Nope, not implied & it's not about my use, either. It's about observed, established convention: see earlier remarks (notice a pattern yet?). The lack of consistency across usages indicates that derogatory meaning is not a convention.
And plenty of innocuous instances exist as discussed before. That doesn't make a word itself derogatory:
I don't deny derogatory instances. Do you deny nonderogatory instances?
It's simple overgeneralization: people can draw wrong conclusions about their observations, especially if they disregard conflicting observations (incomplete evidence fallacy). Observing derogatory uses while disregarding nonderogatory uses doesn't justify any conclusion about a word's conventional definition.
It varies by message, so it's not the word itself.
Straw man fallacy. Not implied.
Maybe you follow the logic I wrote, but the conclusion still feels wrong, so you're unwilling to accept it. Let's unpack that feeling.
The conventional definition that the noun "female" isn't derogatory feels wrong, because sexists use that word in an ugly way, and opposing that would feel relieving. What can we do with these feelings? Here's one idea: even though it's not generally accepted, let's make the noun "female" an official dirty word. Let's accept the premise of their sexism that "females" are lesser and take it further than they did: spread it to the broader community, normalize it into the official language so everyone accepts the noun for an entire gender is a dirty word. The sexists might even be grateful.
Would that feel better? If so, then extraterrestrial anthropologists studying you might reasonably conclude you're a misogynist. Otherwise, you might want to tell your feelings "Fuck you, feelings! Stop making me do stupid shit!". Alternatively, understand your feelings & guide them better.