James Finn
1 min readAug 31, 2022

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Honestly, the first thing that jumped out at me from that quoted statement is "female."

Why use clinical language like that? Why call a woman a female when the word woman works perfectly well? "Female" is dehumanizing. Linguists say it probably entered general usage from law enforcement jargon.

Cops are trained to say female instead of woman or girl – to desensitize them to the humanity of the people they are often only theoretically protecting and serving.

People who imitate cop talk? Danger, Will Robinson. They're likely bought in to dominance hierarchy values. They're likely enjoying demonstrating how high up they are in the hierarchy.

That reminds me of a series of YouTube videos that went viral this summer. A young boy, probably 12 or 13, made a bunch of very well produced imitations of police reality shows, in which he plays a cop arresting, and often beating up, suspects played by his friends and family members.

The videos don't look and feel malicious, and I guess people like them because they're cute, but I find them disturbing because this boy has clearly internalized dominance as a virtue.

He does not make episodes that feature de-escalation or community service. His videos always feature violence against citizens as admirable.

His videos also always feature him calling women and girls females, instead of women and girls.

A big warning sign.

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James Finn
James Finn

Written by James Finn

James Finn is an LGBTQ columnist, a former Air Force intelligence analyst, an alumnus of Act Up NY, and an agented but unpublished novelist.

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