With surveys reporting that an increasing number of young men are subscribing to these beliefs, the number of women finding that their partners share the misogynistic views espoused by the likes of Andrew Tate is also on the rise. Research from anti-fascism organisation Hope Not Hate, which polled about 2,000 people across the UK aged 16 to 24, discovered that 41% of young men support Tate versus just 12% of young women.
“Numbers are growing, with wives worried about their husbands and partners becoming radicalised,” says Nigel Bromage, a reformed neo-Nazi who is now the director of Exit Hate Trust, a charity that helps people who want to leave the far right.
“Wives or partners become really worried about the impact on their family, especially those with young children, as they fear they will be influenced by extremism and racism.”
I think we grasp cognitive meaning & emotive force in language. I think we also understand the concept of twisting words, have likely rolled our eyes witnessing it, and generally agree that a fair, reasonable person should resist it.
The claim is the word itself is derogatory. It’s an argument roughly of the form:
These look like errors of reasoning: a persuasive definition (a definition biased in favor of a particular conclusion or point of view) and a type of straw man fallacy. While it can be used in a derogatory way, that’s not the general, conventional meaning.
Yet you attempt to defend the claim by a (specious) logic language doesn’t follow, either. Language does follow a standard (of sorts): convention. By that standard, the claim is false.
Natural language gains conventional meaning through collective choices of the language community. This general acceptance is reflected in responses of native speakers (not niche online opinions who don’t decide for the entire language community).
If (as reported) native speakers require frequent “correction” on a word’s meaning, that indicates the proposed meaning isn’t generally accepted. A longstanding definition (like “female” as a nonderogatory noun) holds more weight than a novel reinterpretation recognized by fewer.
If the “corrections” aren’t, then what are they? At best, a proposed language change—an attempt to push the idea that the noun “female” is derogatory and change the way allies speak.
Is it a good proposal?
Would defining the noun “female” as derogatory weaken sexist ideologies? Unlikely: extremists like Andrew Tate wouldn’t adjust their rhetoric because of a vocabulary. They wouldn’t need to adjust a single word.
Is it just? Justice requires targeting wrongdoers narrowly—discrediting problematic messages, condemning extremist ideologies, promoting deradicalization. Blanket condemnation based on a word punishes nonoffenders instead of actual wrongdoers. Antagonizing nonoffending parties alienates potential allies rather than foster change.
The result? A reductive purity test that challenges & penalizes allies instead of challenge wrongdoers. That is neither right nor beneficial.
Would making the noun “female” a dysphemism suggest to society that femaleness is wrong/taboo? That seems misguided.
Why that word? The assumption appears to be that usage by sexist extremists taints the word itself as if the word is to blame for their rhetoric. It’s roughly an argument of the form
First, is premise 1 true: do figures like Andrew Tate even use the noun “female” disproportionately? I’ve only seen it among socially awkward individuals: not the same crowd.
More crucially, this argument is invalid: it’s a genetic fallacy (guilt by association).
Thus, the proposal doesn’t advance (and may undermine) a good cause, is unjust, may rely on incorrect premises, and is poorly reasoned: it’s not good in any sense.
or legal or technical or any context for impersonal abstraction. Such language has appeared in classified ads for apartment rentals: there’s even a movie about it. Not derogatory. Context matters.
While US policing has serious issues, this claim seems forced: impersonal terms are standard in legal settings.
Recalling an earlier question: do they?
Though interesting if so, that alone doesn’t make the word in general derogatory. Nonderogatory instances are common (as you’ve identified). If a word requires a particular message to be derogatory, then the message (not the word) is responsible.
The use of a word in a derogatory message doesn’t make it derogatory. That would require an unattainable level of purity (ie, never appear in derogatory messages) for nonderogatory words.
Your argument really shows the people who “consider it derogatory” misattribute an entire rhetoric to a word.
Final thought: humans don’t need constant reassurance that they’re humans to know they aren’t being demeaned (unless they’re painfully insecure).
tl;dr The claim that noun “female” is derogatory is false according to conventional meaning established by the language’s community, corroborated by the frequent need to “correct” native speakers. Moreover, the claim doesn’t advance (and may undermine) a good cause, is unjust, may rely on incorrect premises, and is poorly reasoned.