I suspect some of the objections come from confusion (you hear a lot of people say "I don't know what I'm supposed to call them [for whichever group] now" and to an extent this is understandable - terminology does change quite a bit, there's dissent over it, and often a backlash if the 'wrong' term is used, even if that term used to be OK with the then-defining minority.
I really don't care if I'm called a girl, for instance (I find 'my lover,' to which Steepholm as a resident of Bristol will presumably be accustomed, a bit grating as it invariably invites a facetious response, but that's my problem). But some women obviously do. So if you're a well meaning man, and you try to say the right thing, only to get contradictory instances all over the place from feminists who take different approaches to language, you'll probably just give up.
In an ideal world we would all go forth and look stuff up and educate ourselves, but at the moment most people are struggling to maintain their own realities, let alone someone else's.
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Date: 2014-03-21 02:16 pm (UTC)I really don't care if I'm called a girl, for instance (I find 'my lover,' to which Steepholm as a resident of Bristol will presumably be accustomed, a bit grating as it invariably invites a facetious response, but that's my problem). But some women obviously do. So if you're a well meaning man, and you try to say the right thing, only to get contradictory instances all over the place from feminists who take different approaches to language, you'll probably just give up.
In an ideal world we would all go forth and look stuff up and educate ourselves, but at the moment most people are struggling to maintain their own realities, let alone someone else's.