I’m not a native English speaker, so forgive my ignorance, but isn’t “women” a noun, not an adjective? Why not just say “female artists” or “female writers”?
As a side note, I’ve also literally never seen anyone say “men artists” or “men writers”. What gives?
I’m not a native English speaker, so forgive my ignorance, but isn’t “women” a noun, not an adjective? Why not just say “female artists” or “female writers”?
The English language is unusual in that it doesn’t have gendered nouns, so we find other, often quite clumsy, ways to indicate it. You’re right that it doesn’t make sense grammatically; we say it that way simply because it scans better.
As a side note, I’ve also literally never seen anyone say “men artists” or “men writers”. What gives?
Patriarchy. Society defaults to the male. That’s not unique to the English-speaking world, of course.
As a side note, I’ve also literally never seen anyone say “men artists” or “men writers”. What gives?
Patriarchy. Society defaults to the male. That’s not unique to the English-speaking world, of course.
By this I meant that people more often say something like “male nurse” than “man nurse”, but I agree, fuck the patriarchy.
Because male nurses are uncommon and in that specific circumstance female is the default that most people assume.
That doesn’t really answer why “woman” can be used this way but “man” can’t:
- Female writer: ✅
- Woman writer: ✅
- Male nurse: ✅
- Man nurse: ❌
Lots to unpack here.
First: female/male vs women/men. Female/male is usually used in clinical settings and for animals. Using female/male is implicitly dehumanizing. And I think this is a common trait of most romance languages: macho and hembra, for instance, are used primarily for animals in Spanish. Tell us your language and I’m guessing someone can explain it in your language.
Second: Nouns can function as adjectives: race horse, history teacher, ticket office. I think “woman writer” also implies that the writer is writing for a female audience.
Third: “Female artist” is actually OK in my book because it’s used an an ADJECTIVE and the really offensive use is “females” as a noun. “Do you see those females over there by the bar?” But I think it can be a case of overcorrection to avoid “female” as adjective.
There’s a funny one that I heard: “lady senator.” So dainty and refined.
Fourth: MALE is the default in patriarchal societies. If you refer to someone without specifying gender, the assumption is that they’re male (and let’s face it: probably also white).
In my language (Slovenian) all nouns are gendered, so we don’t really use adjectives to gender nouns. And yes, I agree, saying females or males does sound dehumanizing.
Thanks for the explanation!
To add on, I’ve found that referring to women as “females” in anything other than formal or scientific contexts has adopted something of a sour taste in recent years. The practice is often associated with incel/misogynistic behavior and ideology, probably because it implicitly strips women of their personhood and reduces them to their sex. Put another way, both a female dog and a female human could be called a “female”, but only one could be called a “woman”.
That’s my own two cents though, take them with a grain of salt.
Yes, that is if you turn “female” into a noun, which does sound weird and dehumanizing, but using “women” as an adjective just sounds incorrect. Maybe people do that because they try to avoid saying “female” at all costs to avoid being accused of misogyny or dehumanization.