Do you use the terms feminine or masculine to describe people?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

What about manly and womanly?

They seem quite ingrained in our culture, but is there any way of using them without implying that other men/women are somehow, you know, not as much a man/woman?

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:24 (twenty years ago)

surely 'broline' and 'feline' have replaced such antiquated terms by now?

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:28 (twenty years ago)

i use masc/fem occasionally, but only when the person in question is an extreme case. i suppose it's almost a sarcastic thing.

manly/womanly is way too romance novel.

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:29 (twenty years ago)

What about if you were a fashion writer? Would you use describe a look as feminine?

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:31 (twenty years ago)

~~use~~

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:31 (twenty years ago)

Alba, no, but I do have some shorthand although it's not necessarily gendered which is the point, I guess -- for instance in my family we are partial to using "Laura Ashley" and "Auntie Ch3ryl" as descriptive terms for very frilly or very English-country-garden or very country-kitchen kinds of things. Auntie Ch3ryl having been a specific person we used to know.

― Laurel (Laurel), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:33 (twenty years ago)

Recently, I've used the word "womanly" to refer to a specifically adult version of femininity, i.e. not girlishness.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:40 (twenty years ago)

I don't like it so much when people use womanly as a synonym for big breasts/hips. It makes me feel....whatever the female version of emasculated is.

I use blokey and girly more, when describing people, I think. Blokey is a bad thing and girly is a nice one.

― Cathy (Cathy), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:42 (twenty years ago)

Womany = adult woman-like (girlyness fading, not usually a good thing)
Womanly = very essentially and powerfully woman-like (a good thing)

― The Milkmaid (82375538-A) (The Milkmaid), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:47 (twenty years ago)

I once saw a Donohoe show where there was this stripper who suggested a man was a paedophile, because he said he preferred women with smaller tits.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:48 (twenty years ago)

manly = very essentially masculine, maybe kinda smelly, in a good way
masculine = possessing the qualities of a "man" (mutable)

― The Milkmaid (82375538-A) (The Milkmaid), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:49 (twenty years ago)

Note: I didn't think too much before I defined those words, so they're up for refinement. I would not say that "manly/womanly" have fallen out of usage though -- they're still vital and useful, at least in my personal lexicon they are.

― The Milkmaid (82375538-A) (The Milkmaid), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:51 (twenty years ago)

People have implied that to my face, Alba! Or to my tits, perhaps I should say.

― Cathy (Cathy), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:51 (twenty years ago)

What, they've stared at your tits and said "I bet they go down a storm with paedophiles"?

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:56 (twenty years ago)

The oyster's a
Confusing suitor;
It's masc., and fem.,
And even neuter.
But whether husband,
Pal, or wife,
It leads a soothing
Sort of life.
I'd like to be
An oyster, say,
In August, June,
July, or May.

― Laurel (Laurel), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:57 (twenty years ago)

What about "a real man" and "a real woman"? Is that the most oppressively normalising formulation of all?

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:58 (twenty years ago)

"Red-blooded male"

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:59 (twenty years ago)

xpost: what's worse is when they use "real" to mean "masculine."

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 22:00 (twenty years ago)

It has usually been mean girls who said it. Though once it was someone I was dating. Why am I only posting about boobs and bras tonight?

I don't know which is worse, a "real man" or a "real woman". Both highly objectionable.

― Cathy (Cathy), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 22:02 (twenty years ago)

I can't imagine using either "masculine" or "feminine" without either a) it being clear from context that what's really being referred to is some kind of agreed-upon set of assumptions abt gender or gender roles or etc among a certain group, or b) making that distinction concurrent to using the term. So, no.

― Laurel (Laurel), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 22:02 (twenty years ago)

I say macho sometimes. Perjoratively.

― Cathy (Cathy), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 22:06 (twenty years ago)

And effeminate, affectionately.

― Cathy (Cathy), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 22:07 (twenty years ago)

I don't use the term "masculine" because it doesn't really sound like what it's supposed to describe.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 22:10 (twenty years ago)

I use them thusly

http://www.lomblad.net/rob/archives/blogimages/masc.jpg

― Why does the birds always shitting on me? (noodle vague), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 22:10 (twenty years ago)

I have been using the term dude-ical to describe dudeliness...and that when I describe the frat boy caricature of manliness.

The tread title makes me think of "I am the very model of a modern major general...I use the terms of masculine and feminine to describe people."

― Abbott (Abbott), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 22:25 (twenty years ago)

Would any women be OK with having their faces described as masculine?

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 13:31 (twenty years ago)

Funnily enough, my colleague's on the BBC website right now working out the sex I.D. of his brain.

― BARMS, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 13:42 (twenty years ago)

Oh yes, I put that test on a thread a while ago. I was a man, pleasingly. Except when it came to my finger lengths.

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 13:54 (twenty years ago)

Add it here please ta.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 13:59 (twenty years ago)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sex/add_user.shtml

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 14:00 (twenty years ago)

UPDATE: He's a woman.

― BARMS, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 14:06 (twenty years ago)

Wow, the line angle thing is great fun!

― melton mowbray's APOCALYPTO! (adr), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 14:07 (twenty years ago)

I was exactly in the middle of male and female brain, I think. Presumably because I don't have any of the skills associated with either sex. I cannot read maps or follow directions, I have no visual memory, I can't multitask and I'm not particularly empathic. I get really annoyed when I am doing something like getting hopelessly lost and someone comes and tells me it's a female trait. I'm just not very good at a lot of things.

― Cathy (Cathy), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 14:07 (twenty years ago)

The thread is here:

The Harvard President who posited that there are more men in science because of innate sexual differences in cognitive ability

Is it prissy if I ask people to post their results on that thread and not here?

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 14:11 (twenty years ago)

I was doing some thinking along these lines the other day, specifically how out-dated these words are, or at least, the way in which they're used. I was wearing a pink shirt into work, and somone said (presumably joking) "Oh, I see you've got in touch with your feminine side." Now, wearing pink is clearly neither mascualine OR feminine, but I was trying to think of stuff that IS masculine or feminine, in real life as opposed to cultural stereotypes, and I couldn't think of much. Is liking shoes only a girl thing? No. Is liking cars a boy thing? No. So what IS there? So it seemms to me that using the terms "mascualine" or "feminine" is lazy thinking, that you're falling back on pre-defined gender roles, instead of trying to define things yourself.

And yeh, women and men DO think about things in different ways, that much has been PROVEN BY SCIENCE, but how that relates to the way that men and women conduct themselves, and their likes/dislikes, I'm really not sure.

― Johnny B Was Quizzical (Johnney B), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 14:19 (twenty years ago)

I am 50% male. I think it's because I scored so well at the rotating thing. I have always loved and been very good at those puzzles.

I am right brained, I like systems, I have masculine fingers, but I score like a girl on the synonyms test.

― Hello Cthulhu (kate), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 14:21 (twenty years ago)

I got 50% male, and scored highly on the rotation puzzle and the angles one. I put this down to video games (or maybe this is the reason I like video games so much). I have girlish fingers.

On the synonyms test, it claimed I had two words total, when I must have put in about 30 total. Am I really that much of a spazz, or is it because I put each word on a seperate line?

― melton mowbray's APOCALYPTO! (adr), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 14:32 (twenty years ago)

Is it prissy if I ask people to post their results on that thread and not here?

Sorry Alba!

― melton mowbray's APOCALYPTO! (adr), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 14:33 (twenty years ago)

Ah right. Well that was quite interesting.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 14:36 (twenty years ago)

BUT DUDE, THREAD STARTERS ARE NOT THREAD OWNERS!!! STOP TRYING TO CONTROL THE FLOW OF THIS THREAD, FASCIST, ETC. BLAH BLAH BLAH

Since, apparently, that's the done thing around here.

― Hello Cthulhu (kate), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 14:36 (twenty years ago)

Oh. In which case, my result was I'm androgenous. is that how you spell it?

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 14:39 (twenty years ago)

Now, wearing pink is clearly neither mascualine OR feminine,

Well, I don't know. It is traditionally a colour worn much more often by women than men (regardless of the reasons for that). If you see masculinity and femininity as denoting qualities and preferences that are more prevalent in one sex than another, then wearing pink surely is a feminine thing? City shirt trends notwithstanding.

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 14:42 (twenty years ago)

i have been described as "asexual"...wtf?

― latebloomer is a belly with a guy pierce in it (latebloomer), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 16:14 (twenty years ago)

i mean, i'm anything but mentally, i guess i give off a non-gender vibe in person?

― latebloomer is a belly with a guy pierce in it (latebloomer), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 16:16 (twenty years ago)

asexual is horrible, it basically means 'i am choosing to ignore that you have a sexuality because the alternative is inconvenient/creepy'

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 16:21 (twenty years ago)

im masculine as fuck.

― cheshire, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 17:17 (twenty years ago)

asexual is horrible, it basically means 'i am choosing to ignore that you have a sexuality because the alternative is inconvenient/creepy'

-- Gravel Puzzleworth (mostlyconnec...), March 22nd, 2006.

yeah, that's what i'm thinking:-/ but this is from asking my friends, not people i'd want to be involved with sexually anyway

― latebloomer is a belly with a guy pierce in it (latebloomer), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 17:19 (twenty years ago)

i describe people as "girly" a lot, by which i mean (always refering to females): conforms to the gender norms of women. i don't know if i have a male equivalent. maybe "ridiculously male". i think i would say that. "yo that dude is just ridiculously male, y'know?"

― j c (j c), Thursday, 23 March 2006 00:43 (twenty years ago)

laddy?

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 23 March 2006 08:00 (twenty years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.