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Re: *deletes long reply* Let's focus on the essence here. Dan Send a noteboard - 07/04/2012 09:26:34 PM
I wrote a long reply with paragraphs that dealt with all of your points, some of them agreeing, others pointing out how you're wrong or at least highly disingenuous, and yes, also one admitting that Vivien's statement about grammar was factually wrong (I admitted my own factual errors already). Might as well delete the lot of it and focus on what matters, though.


Well, isn't it disingenuous to make the preface without actually addressing your objections? If you want to do it separately, go for it. I'm more concerned with accusations of being disingenuous. Wrong I can live with. So at least address the former.


(1) It is ungrammatical to use "female" as a noun and "female" also carries with it universally a connotation of reproductive biology that is reductive, so therefore you should never use female as a noun.

Versus:

(2) Even though you can use "female" as a noun and the connotation today among American speakers is as an effectively harmless synonym for "woman", the word "female" has a history of being used with reference to a female's biology exclusively and for some today this connotation still holds, so therefore it is advisable and preferable to use "woman" over "female" as a noun, just to be on the safe side, so to speak.

There is certainly a difference between those two. But if people walk away from this argument just remembering your statement number 2, with the single addition of the word "many" or "most" between "among" and "American speakers", I think we can all be content. Or as content as we can be without having seen hard data on how widespread exactly the connotation is, anyway.


I'd insist on "most", but otherwise I'm fine with that. See? The dialectic moves and resolves itself, and we're all the better for it! Perfect Hegelian synthesis! I love playing the role of antithesis!



The citations Vivien supplied absolutely support that second claim. I completely agree with it, and will in the future take care to heed this advice. But the second claim was not the original one that Vivien made, the one that she and you still seem to stand by and the one I've been arguing against The two statements make very, very different factual claims and significantly different normative judgments. There are at least three solid points of disagreement that I took up with Vivien and you and others. I can always enumerate them propositionally if you want. In any case, there you have it.

Nobody ever made your statement number 1. I made part of it and retracted it; Vivien made another part of it and can speak for herself, though I for one don't think she meant it that way. The third part of it is inherently subjective so it's not actually a "claim".


Really? I mean, this is an objection? Ok, fair enough, let's address it. We can divide it into thirds as you did. No one made that claim in this thread in the form of those three statements in that sequence. But it's a reconstruction, and a pretty fair one. Vivian explicitly stated the first part, as you note. She also explicitly stated the third part many times over above. The second part was indeed supplied by you, and D0ma too, but you did indeed retract it. Vivien remained silent on it, falling back on her feelings, which is questionable but not invalid. However, nearly all the articles she cited actually stated this part expliictly as well. I won't pull quotes on the ipad, though, since it's a nightmare. I'll happily give word by word justifications via copy/paste tomorrow when I'm at my PC if you still disagree that my reconstruction is representative. Just look at the article I quoted a couple posts above here, which pretty much states things as I just did., That should be sufficient for now. So it's a very fair reconstruction, and a stronger one than explicitly stated anywhere in the thread (though indeed explicitly stated in the articles).

Also, please note, third part is not subjective, it is normative. Don't conflate the two. Subjective claims extend over one's own subjective experiences and are limited to them. Normative claims are not subjective, since they are claims about how other people in the world should conduct themselves, and to that extent they are objective. You can call them external, or transcendent depending on your conceptual scheme of choice, I suppose, though, If you're thinking part 3 is subjective because she falls back on her feelings, which is something she said I believe herself, this is also incorrect. In that case her justification is subjective, and its own claim, but the actual "should" statement which was issued still is Normative and objective. If she wants to cite something like the connotation as a justification for her Normative statement, that then would be a justificatory claim that is objective. Js.

Anyway, I'm pretty fine with the above statement as an effective resolution. I'm interested in your responses to this, but the post above is just loose ends pretty much that I'll get to tomorrow.




As far as I can tell, everybody involved in this argument learned something out of it, excepting Celia, and your statement 2 comes as close to a consensus as anything I've seen, so seems like a good closing note.
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The Hunger Games gets a ... different kind of review. - 03/04/2012 03:37:39 PM 2124 Views
"Written by a female with femalist themes" - 03/04/2012 04:38:54 PM 923 Views
Ok, I did and basically it's garbage. *NM* - 03/04/2012 04:53:00 PM 741 Views
I grant that I haven't read the Hunger Games yet - 03/04/2012 05:10:38 PM 865 Views
No, it's totally off. *NM* - 03/04/2012 05:39:03 PM 730 Views
fair enough. like I said, I haven't read it yet. *NM* - 03/04/2012 07:20:34 PM 679 Views
I can only speak for the film, which was not feminist. - 03/04/2012 06:01:18 PM 840 Views
Where do I start? - 03/04/2012 07:43:18 PM 838 Views
Hermoine was the most kick ass of the Potter kids. - 04/04/2012 03:08:17 AM 709 Views
So? Hunger Games has lots of male characters. - 04/04/2012 05:30:21 AM 762 Views
His racism point... - 04/04/2012 02:32:43 PM 649 Views
Makes me almost wish I knew the source material so I could judge what he is saying - 03/04/2012 10:50:48 PM 750 Views
Why don't you think the Hunger Games are feminist? - 03/04/2012 11:17:53 PM 853 Views
Why would I consider it to be femenist? - 04/04/2012 01:51:24 AM 735 Views
Completely agree with your first paragraph - 04/04/2012 08:22:35 AM 797 Views
Re: Completely agree with your first paragraph - 04/04/2012 01:43:55 PM 760 Views
Unfortunately truly ordinary female characters are so rare that the exceptions stand out - 04/04/2012 01:49:16 PM 783 Views
Fair enough - 04/04/2012 02:33:22 PM 828 Views
Stop using female as a noun! - 04/04/2012 03:51:13 PM 751 Views
It's stuff like that that makes you lose cred - 04/04/2012 05:26:24 PM 753 Views
It's fairly derogatory as a noun, though, have to agree with Vivien on that one. - 04/04/2012 07:30:18 PM 745 Views
I don't think Jens was really using it that way, though - 04/04/2012 07:34:28 PM 681 Views
Thank you! - 04/04/2012 08:03:38 PM 781 Views
Of course he didn't intend it that way, but that's how it sounds. - 04/04/2012 08:06:03 PM 758 Views
I understand that, but it's still such a ridiculous thing to get fussed over - 04/04/2012 09:20:01 PM 804 Views
You are rather exaggerating just how "fussed" anyone did get, you do realize. - 04/04/2012 09:51:22 PM 717 Views
Her tone was not just "informative". It was accusatory - 04/04/2012 10:17:57 PM 694 Views
Female is perfectly acceptable to use in a medical/clinical setting. *NM* - 04/04/2012 10:36:57 PM 927 Views
so if your problem is people using it disparagingly... - 04/04/2012 10:45:10 PM 662 Views
That's not what I said. - 04/04/2012 10:51:41 PM 775 Views
I'm going to have to just outright disagree with you then. *NM* - 04/04/2012 10:54:25 PM 707 Views
If I wanted to be accusatory... - 04/04/2012 11:05:37 PM 727 Views
Are you a native English speaker, Legolas? (Clarified to preempt possible internet tears) - 06/04/2012 09:29:28 AM 736 Views
Nope. (edit) - 06/04/2012 07:23:54 PM 742 Views
Re: Nope. (edit) - 07/04/2012 04:51:30 AM 808 Views
"Female that"? That's even worse. - 07/04/2012 11:42:00 AM 697 Views
Ok. - 07/04/2012 03:27:16 PM 975 Views
Re: It's fairly derogatory as a noun, though, have to agree with Vivien on that one. - 05/04/2012 02:21:21 AM 760 Views
I think the language difference is really interesting. - 05/04/2012 03:13:03 PM 751 Views
English is not French, and it's not German. Particularly the connotations of American English words - 06/04/2012 09:39:00 AM 818 Views
LOL! You don't say... - 06/04/2012 05:06:20 PM 730 Views
LOL u so mad - 06/04/2012 06:19:28 PM 729 Views
The prospect of "losing cred" is not going to stop me from speaking my mind. - 04/04/2012 10:30:03 PM 701 Views
My dear - 09/04/2012 01:07:34 PM 737 Views
LOL - 09/04/2012 01:57:53 PM 606 Views
guess what, it is a noun. *NM* - 04/04/2012 07:26:39 PM 590 Views
That's the first time I have ever heard/seen anyone say that. - 04/04/2012 08:19:02 PM 705 Views
well it's important that you say "female human" - 04/04/2012 09:28:45 PM 717 Views
Re: That's the first time I have ever heard/seen anyone say that. - 04/04/2012 10:48:07 PM 705 Views
wait, so now you're claiming it's a grammatical thing? *NM* - 04/04/2012 10:58:31 PM 715 Views
No, I have issues with words that begin with the letter f. - 04/04/2012 11:09:45 PM 742 Views
ooookay then. - 04/04/2012 11:11:23 PM 798 Views
Re: Stop using female as a noun! - 05/04/2012 02:18:47 PM 663 Views
If dislike of the use of female as a noun makes me crazy town, I'm not the only crazy in here. - 05/04/2012 05:59:16 PM 691 Views
For the record, I certainly don't think you're crazy town. - 05/04/2012 07:23:18 PM 714 Views
Oh, so now we're using 'dislike' instead of 'should'. It's funny how you fell back on that. - 06/04/2012 10:01:59 AM 715 Views
Fascinating. - 06/04/2012 09:54:47 PM 756 Views
Re: Fascinating. - 07/04/2012 03:54:26 AM 721 Views
Just in case (however slim that chance may be) you are genuinely interested in citations/references. - 07/04/2012 05:34:37 AM 734 Views
What a joke. Do you even know what grammar is? - 07/04/2012 05:57:40 AM 766 Views
Oh, come off it. This should be the point where you admit to being wrong. - 07/04/2012 12:11:07 PM 673 Views
Sorry, no. Read better. - 07/04/2012 02:23:10 PM 706 Views
*deletes long reply* Let's focus on the essence here. - 07/04/2012 06:38:08 PM 700 Views
Re: *deletes long reply* Let's focus on the essence here. - 07/04/2012 09:26:34 PM 787 Views
Aha, we found the problem - 09/04/2012 01:03:35 PM 769 Views
You're being disingenuous. - 09/04/2012 12:57:38 PM 696 Views
To be fair - 04/04/2012 02:37:25 PM 749 Views
You didn't see thmovie? She is far from passive - 04/04/2012 01:46:16 PM 768 Views
Re: You didn't see thmovie? She is far from passive - 04/04/2012 02:23:33 PM 722 Views
Re: You didn't see thmovie? She is far from passive - 04/04/2012 07:51:46 PM 741 Views
This - 05/04/2012 12:20:04 AM 714 Views
I got half way through the review and got bored. - 04/04/2012 03:09:58 AM 696 Views
And it appears the writer of the article completely missed a central point of the story *spoilers* - 04/04/2012 05:44:40 AM 747 Views
I think that might be debatable - 05/04/2012 06:59:35 PM 736 Views
She still made plenty of choices and she did choose to kill. - 05/04/2012 07:13:47 PM 686 Views
The reviewer is kind of full of it, but makes a good point about the character - 04/04/2012 04:22:30 PM 778 Views
Out of curiosity (this off topic) - 04/04/2012 07:32:25 PM 680 Views
Rachel, of course. - 05/04/2012 12:17:41 AM 727 Views
Well. Now I've actually seen it. (mild spoilers) - 09/04/2012 12:17:03 AM 791 Views