• GreyShuck@feddit.uk
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    18 days ago

    Yes, fun idea. No problem with that but… that ‘flag’ is a sail. They’re different things.

  • Etterra@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    Remember, pirates did fly red flags as well as black ones. The red ones meant you were extra fucked.

    • eddanja@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      I think black was like, “We just want your shit and we’ll let you live if you surrender” while red was like, “We’re gonna kill and then take your shit or take your shit and then kill you, either way you will not survive,” kinda thing.

    • philthi@lemmy.world
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      17 days ago

      What was the point of the red flags? Or… why would anyone choose to fly a red flag? I’m trying to understand why anyone would broadcast “if we come near you, you’re fucked”. It seems a bad hunting strategy.

      Also, why didn’t merchant ships fly red flags to be less bothered by pirates?

      • Etterra@lemmy.world
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        17 days ago

        Red meant that no quarter would be given, they’re going to fucking kill you. Black flag meant they would take your shit without slaughtering you. Granted, fighting back would still get you killed either way. Pirates tended to make examples sometimes, or want revenge, thus slaughter. Of course if they didn’t kill everyone, they might press-gang you into service, and now your a pirate too. So red means you’re dead.

        • philthi@lemmy.world
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          16 days ago

          I get what you’re saying, I’m struggling to understand why any pirate would ever want to fly a red flag.

  • AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works
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    18 days ago

    female as an adjective for clarification (like “oh you’re looking for that female doctor over there”) is ok, female as a noun is just weird

    • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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      18 days ago

      There are contexts where it makes sense, mostly medicine or science, but even in those contexts it’s deliberately dehumanizing, which is the point. It is also the only English word for a female human that does not imply age, as woman and girl both do.

      The quick sniff test: “Males and females”? Clinical, but probably fine. “Men and females”? Fucking Ferengi freak, avoid that guy

  • Revonult@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    I been wondering people’s opinion of “Female” in some instances. Like is “First Female president/athlete/mayor/lawyer” appropriate? “First woman____” doesn’t sound right and you wouldn’t say “first man athlete to run 2 hour marathon” you would use male.

    Most things can be rephrased maybe, but obviously using Females outside these instances is very right wing cringe.

    • Zombiepirate@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      “Female” is fine to use as an adjective.

      It’s also fine to use as a noun when describing livestock, which is why it’s a red flag to describe women that way.

      • snooggums@lemmy.world
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        18 days ago

        What is a good word to use for people who are female of any age including young children that are not old enough to be called women in addition to women?

        ‘Women and girls’ is pretty clunky when talking about something that is gender specific, but applies to all ages.

          • snooggums@lemmy.world
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            18 days ago

            ‘Gendered violence against teenage women and girls’ is really clunky. Especially if it needs repeating across paragraphs.

            If there isn’t something, that’s fine.

            • SavvyWolf@pawb.social
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              18 days ago

              “Gendered violence against females” on the other hand sounds a bit too clinical though… Like you’re removing their personhood

              • snooggums@lemmy.world
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                18 days ago

                If ‘females’ wasn’t used by online sexists to treat women as objects would it sound that way?

                • SavvyWolf@pawb.social
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                  18 days ago

                  Maybe! I don’t know if “gendered violence against men” also has the same connotations.

                  Maybe this is indeed is a case of those people poisoning the term.

        • xtr0n@sh.itjust.works
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          18 days ago

          Women is probably fine to use when the ages can be gleaned from context. You can also make the noun non gendered and use female as a adjective like “female students” or “female patients”

          • snooggums@lemmy.world
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            18 days ago

            I’m mainly asking when ages span from birth to old age and the goup would basically be “female persons” or “male persons” which is clunky.

            Sometimes it can be rephrased, but it often requires multiple words to mean the same thing. Plus “women of all ages” will be read as not including children.

            I’m mostly pissed that sexists ruined the only single word term we have for half of the population.

              • snooggums@lemmy.world
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                18 days ago

                It is important that when we are addressing issues of sexism, that we try to make sure that the ideas are easily understood by women, men, girls, and boys so that everyone understands how to support equality. If we only focus our effort on men and boys, without recognizing the influence also has on women and girls, then it will not be as successful. For example, the social expectations of women and girls to dress in certain ways is commonly enforced by men, women, girls, and boys even if the influence is only targeted at women and girls. Not to mention the toxic masculinity that is applied to men and boys by men, women, boys, and girls that are commonly reinforced by telling men and boys to ‘man up’ in stressful situations.

                You are right, that is smooth as butter.

          • snooggums@lemmy.world
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            18 days ago

            I absolutely would use males in that context. “Toxic masculinity has a detrimental affect on males of all ages” sounds perfectly fine to me because I don’t know of a different label for the group and males doesn’t have the same dehumanizing usage as females.

            • NiHaDuncan@lemmy.world
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              18 days ago

              Male is literally the same kind of word just for the opposite sex/gender; the term specifically points out the ability to produce sperm (in many dimorphic species) for the purposes of reproducing with the opposite sex. It’s literally just saying “your distinguishing characteristic is your ability to inseminate another of your species” and is just as dehumanizing.

              The reason you would use it in that context is because it’s “[gender specific noun] of all ages.” Where if you were to say “boys of all ages” or “men of all ages” it would imply either all ages under 18 or all ages at or over 18.

              This is the same context in which you would use female as a noun, as girl/woman implies a restricted age range, just as boy/man, when you specifically don’t want one.

              • Danquebec@sh.itjust.works
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                16 days ago

                Doesn’t “men and boys” have exactly the same meaning though?

                I don’t feel deshumanized for being called a male.

                Disclaimer: I don’t use the noun “female” because I know some find it offensive.

    • ted@sh.itjust.works
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      18 days ago

      Woman as an adjective is picking up in my circles and podcasts I listen to. Woman scientist, woman entrepreneur. It may have sounded weird initially, but I’ve gotten over it and I suspect it will develop over time to be completely normal.

      I wouldn’t really compare it to the male/man counterpart, because men aren’t demeaned by being called “male” regularly.

      • toast@retrolemmy.com
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        18 days ago

        Woman used as an adjective like this sounds so wrong to me (probably because it isn’t an adjective). If you wouldn’t say man voter, man driver, men reporters, etc., then why would you say woman voter, women drivers, woman reporter? Just because some people use ‘female’ in a way that you object to shouldn’t make all uses of it objectionable. Do you want a world in which we can say ‘male patients’, but have to say ‘woman and girl patients’ instead of female patients? Why??

      • Revonult@lemmy.world
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        18 days ago

        I agree it works in most cases it works fine but like “First woman astronaut” feels weird.

        I mostly didn’t want to be accidentally participating in something shitty.

        Edit: or like “fastest woman athlete”

        • ted@sh.itjust.works
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          18 days ago

          Yeah, I remember feeling like it was weird, but both of those sound absolutely fine to me now.

          I also would never balk at “female” as an adjective in those cases, nor assume the speaker was being misogynist.

        • JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee
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          18 days ago

          I think both kinda sound equally weird because we for a lot of words like astronaut, the astronaut is already assumed to be male unless otherwise indicated. So male astronauts or man astronauts both sound clunky and kinda weird, and the weirdness translates over when you start indicating the astronaut is a woman by saying “woman astronaut” or “female astronaut.”

          The English language, and historical baggage just kinda fucked us on this one. We used to add ‘ess’ to the ends of words to indicate gender, but that was dropped outside of the use of waitress or actress for the most part. Not sure why that stopped, but I’m sure it’s interesting and I’m going to go look it up later.

    • Apepollo11@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      Thank you! This is always the first thing that pops into my head whenever I read somebody using “females” instead of “women”

  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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    17 days ago

    Okay here’s my pirate joke.

    A ship is sailing the high seas when the crows nest guy calls down, “Pirate ship ahoy!” The captain tells the cabin boy, “Fetch my reddest jacket!” The boy brings the reddest jacket he can find and the captain puts it on. They engage in battle and sink the pirate ship. The boy asks, “Cap’n, why did you call for your red jacket?” The captain says, “So that if I should be wounded in battle the crew would not notice the blood and lose their fighting spirit.”

    Next day the crows nest calls down, “Twenty pirate ships ahoy!” The captain tells the cabin boy, “Fetch by brownest pants!”

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      17 days ago

      Well since we’re telling pirate jokes…

      A guy is at a party and sees a pirate coming towards him. He notices as the pirate approaches that the pirate has a little wheel sticking out of his pants.

      Naturally curious, the guy asks the pirate, “why do you have a little wheel sticking out of your pants?”

      “Arr,” says the pirate. “I don’t know, but it be drivin’ me nuts!”

  • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com
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    18 days ago

    Someone should really tell everyone from the south. I had no idea until it was pointed out to me by someone younger. Changed my behavior of course, but was simply ignorant before.

    • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      A lot of people use certain words just out of habit, the last thing you need is some SJW jumping down your throat and calling you names cause they don’t like your regional dialect. Lots of words I grew up with that were normal or not that bad, and now are considered super offensive. It’s not a malicious thing, all you can do is calibrate and learn, but some people get so worked up if you don’t use the words they’re used to

        • dan@upvote.au
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          18 days ago

          I don’t get why the saying is “shoving it down your throat” or “jumping down your throat” when it’s more like shoving it down your ear canal. You don’t eat what people are saying 🤔

    • ShareMySims@sh.itjust.works
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      18 days ago

      Yeah, but those people don’t get defensive when you comment on it, while those who are raising the red flag immediately do. It’s pretty easy to tell them apart from that point forward.

    • krashmo@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      What a sweetheart you are. Can’t even let a webcomic get away with not being inclusive.

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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      18 days ago

      Pretty sure non natives will be the first ones to use “woman” and not “female”. I know it’s not something we say in French anyway, a woman is a woman.

      • Owl@mander.xyz
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        18 days ago

        a woman is a woman

        Problematic part

        Blague à part, il existe d’autres langue (non-indo-européennes) ou la distinction est moins aisée à faire. Par exemple en Hongrois on dit “nő” pour “femme” et “nőstény” pour “femelle”, mais on peut les interchanger dans certains cas et les traducteurs automatiques s’y emmêlent les pinceaux des fois.

  • vordalack@lemm.ee
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    18 days ago

    Uterus having creatures

    Squishy Chested Humans

    Temperamental Beings

    Confusing Loud Wind Atronach

    Ever Bleeding Never Dying

    Human human Grower

  • Luvs2Spuj@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    I wonder if the joke would work better if it actually was a black background. This might also keep the ‘its a sail’ gang happier.

  • OpenStars@piefed.social
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    18 days ago

    Otoh, some women use this while referring to other women, e.g. “us females need to stick together!” - in a totally positive and inclusive manner (or what looks like that, from me on the outside - i.e. not using language in such manner myself, for either men or women).

    So maybe instead of a red flag it’s more like an orange one? VERY noteworthy, but not enough on its own to justify cutting off contact with someone, whereas for an actual red flag you would… right?

    • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nz
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      18 days ago

      Drag wonders why that woman chose to say females instead of women. It’s a very odd way to phrase it, and the only practical consequence of the change is to exclude trans women. Was that the intention?

      • Nfamwap@lemmy.world
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        18 days ago

        I’ve seen you around Lemmy for a little while now. Why do you insist on referring to yourself in the 3rd person?

        • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nz
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          18 days ago

          Due to claims that drag is always changing the subject to drag’s pronouns, drag has a rule about talking about drag’s pronouns on threads that aren’t about them. Drag will only talk about drag’s pronouns if somebody says “I want to change the subject to drag’s pronouns”. Drag isn’t going to change the subject to drag’s pronouns, somebody else has to, and clearly state they are doing so.

      • OpenStars@piefed.social
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        18 days ago

        Well, women can be sexist too, even about one’s own gender, so indeed that’s a possibility. But as someone else mentioned on this thread, its usage seemed to predate trans really becoming known as being a thing (at least in the surgical sense).

        So I - who really knows nothing and isn’t really involved, but nonetheless I’ll still tell you my opinion! (bc you asked, ofc:-) - say: when in doubt, check the other factors. Perhaps she merely needs educated. Or perhaps we should not nitpick every tiny thing. Then again, is it really nitpicking to tell a woman that she is a human being?

        Anyway it still gets back to: is it a RED flag? And if so, what then - like is it worth having any further conversations at all with a person who uses such language? And for that, I say: use one’s best judgement.

        Then again, perhaps my thinking is outdated - bc NOW it is used to exclude trans women. Sort of? In some contexts it is, while in others it might not?

        But I can’t recall ever having used it personally, so I cannot really say why this would do such a thing.

        • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nz
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          18 days ago

          It can be both! A lot of women, such as JK Rowling, think the only worth they have as women is having a uterus and being conditioned to think less of themselves by a patriarchal society. If trans women are valid, that means women don’t have to exist for making babies. That means women can be raised to have self esteem. The fact that these things are an option, and these women didn’t get to have that privilege, breaks their hearts. Growing up trans is traumatizing, but these TERFs only focus on the privileges, like not having to deal with periods. They’re jealous. Too jealous to accept it. They have to believe that womanhood is suffering, or they’d instead have to accept that the suffering they endured was unnecessary.

          • OpenStars@piefed.social
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            18 days ago

            It is complex, and probably we can’t get too deep into it in this community, but yeah, a lot of people engage in fanciful thinking rather than live in reality - and some of those people are kind while some are the opposite. e.g. I want to be kind in thinking that as people age they find it harder to stretch themselves to consider new ideas - but is that even true, or just something that was made up, like will we become that way at some point? I used to think so… but I no longer do.

            And in case you are wondering how you could have missed the point of what I was trying to say… it’s not you, as there simply isn’t one:-).

            • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nz
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              18 days ago

              Most people get weaker as they age. But that’s because most people sit on their asses all day. Serious injuries do accrue, and they do make it harder. But back pain at 30 isn’t the way humans are supposed to work. The people who refuse to accept old age, and who keep working on their fitness, are the 60 year olds who run marathons. Not everyone gets to have that option, but it’s only the people who are both lucky AND stubborn who do. Nobody who lies down and accepts the passage of time gets to age gracefully.

              Brains work the same way. People get lazy. They think what’s happening is inevitable. They stop exercising, and their fitness diminishes. Self fulfilling prophecy. The dumbest old people drag has known were the ones with low self esteem. The ones who believed in themselves stayed sharp.

              • OpenStars@piefed.social
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                18 days ago

                Exactly - it’s like how Boomers claim to be the only ones with knowledge (“just do what we tell you, you stupid kids!”), as they hand nations (USA, UK, Germany upcoming, Brazil, and most every other nation on earth as well) over to totalitarian regimes. We used to fight the Nazis… now their kids have become them, or rather set their children upon the path to fairly soon become thus. So now I don’t know what to believe.

                Though if women are females, and females are women, then if both were true, then why couldn’t either word fill in for one another - what am I missing here?

                • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nz
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                  18 days ago

                  Though if women are females, and females are women,

                  But neither of those is true. Some “females” identify as men, and some “non-females” identify as women.

                  Also, think about the difference in the meaning of the words. One is an identity. One is biology; physical machinery. You know when corporations refer to people as “consumers”? It’s gross, right? Reducing complex three dimensional people to an economic function. Reducing people to a biological function is also gross.