February 2nd, 2011

“Females” posting on The Border House!

The Border House is a blog that I follow that has a mission of inclusiveness of various types of people. However I’ve come across a LOT of non-inclusive language.  This being that the comments are mostly un-moderated. Unlike Shakesville, TBH doesn’t have “language policing”. I hate to call it that, but that’s the closest term I can find.

So when I walk into some articles and some comments it’s “females, females, females, men, men, females, men” and even the occasional “males”.

Female/s is NOT a noun, if you find yourself using it as a noun, use woman. This even pertains to the use of “human female”, female is still being used as a noun, female human works if your trying to distinguish between humans and orcs or elves or such.

Why this matters to me? Because I’m tired of being othered and dehumanized by language. It’s very dehumanizing to refer to women in that fashion. I finally had it when the the title for one article is “Something’s Missing…” about women not being present in various towns of WoW. The comments then proceed with the “females” nouning tribe and that’s when I couldn’t read any more. A feminist place I thought was inclusive was allowing for the dehumanizing of women. I also get the feeling whenever I bring it up, that “It’s that harpy and her “females” bit, can’t she contribute to the discussion.” While no one’s come out and said it yet, maybe they have I just haven’t read it, I get the feeling that I’m just being ignored since the mods don’t do anything and few people else comment on it. I should have to explain why it’s wrong to use the word really, one of the tenets of the blog before commenting is “Feminism 101”

I honestly wish that the mods would police the comments a bit more and edit the language, with a note EDIT: removed the dehumanizing and send a “warning” to the person to learn about language and why sounding like a Ferengi isn’t cool. I just feel like I beat my head against the wall every time I mention it, because I am the ONLY one mentioning it. If the mods can’t/won’t do it, I just feel others should at least be mini-mods and pointing it out. It’s like “Hey guys your behind me right” and find your standing on your own.

The only time that someone called someone out on it was only one article and then, that was it.

Sexism

6 responses to ““Females” posting on The Border House!”

      • @maverynthia Oh yeah I don’t blame you for putting moderation in place; it was the first thing I set up on mine. And I have no trolls yet.

  1. Well I’ll try to say something when I see it happen in the future, since that’s about all I can do.

    And I’ve had to deal with the getting banned for speaking out. ._. (Well, okay I got a warning and left voluntarily. Especially egregious in that it was supposed to be a trans space.)

  2. I thought I spoke up on the issue once or twice. Or maybe I just thought about it and then panicked and said nothing. That happens a lot. ._.

    I’m a bit wary of the prospect of editing comments though, but I would not be opposed to more strict comment moderation–a couple threads recently I gave up on completely because they felt like there was too much derailing going on.

    I do support you on this, and I can try to address the issue when I see it if it’ll help; though the usage doesn’t particularly bother me except inasmuch as I know it bothers other people, so I’ll probably miss some.

    (And this is one of the areas my social phobia is going to start kicking in in, so it really would help more if one of the editors got involved in this.)

    • I see lots of derailing going on. Though if no edits then maybe a short moderator reply of “‘Females’ is dehumanizing, please use ‘women’ instead” It’s a quick response and only maybe edit if the suggestion is ignored.

      Really I don’t have a lot to be bothered about, I’ve got a little privilege in that way, so I try to take on the stuff that might compound on the other language that’s being used.

      I might have a bit of social phobia. I don’t really like to start “fights” as I see them, even though no one is fighting. I’ve been banned on a few forums for speaking out, and it’s silenced me a bit.