Not in my usage it doesn’t.
How do you use it then?
I guess that’s kind of a bad example on my part because it’s a rare word for me to use. I don’t really like the sound of it. On rare occasions, I use it to describe obnoxious people that can’t help but vocalize how gutless they are.
But don’t you see how “gutless” feeds into that stereotype?
Kind of, but I don’t think it matters because the words are separated from the genders in my mind. To quote a brilliant man, “Calling someone a pussy isn’t the same as saying ‘Don’t be such a woman.’ Calling somebody a dick isn’t the same as saying ‘Don’t be such a man.’” No one in this day and age with a shred of decency or intelligence believes that women are inherently gutless. I actually just realized why I hate all this language policing. It’s basically because we, and by we I mean people that aren’t complete morons and aren’t complete and total piles of shit, have to watch what we say because stupid people believe stereotypes. I hate stupid people more than anything on earth, and to me, judging people based on their color or gender is essentially the stupidest, most ignorant thing that a person can do. I don’t do that because I’m not stupid enough to believe there’s merit to racism or sexism, so why should I change up my arbitrarily-deemed-offensive insults because other people are stupid enough to believe a stereotype that I myself don’t believe and everyone that knows me knows I don’t believe?
I guess my hangup is that there is one specific gendered insult that is supposed to be far, far worse than any other, even other female-gendered insults, and is unacceptable in any context for very vague reasons of nondescript power dynamics and vague references to “history”. I know about the historical oppression of women, but why this word rather than any other?
I’m pretty sure it’s the same reason that “fuck” is a lot worse than “shit”.
Perhaps to a soccer mom it is, but like yhwx said, they’re kind of on par with each other. I’d say those two are considered worse because of what they literally mean, but then that brings up the hypocrisy of people considering “crap” worse than “shit” so, like I said, the only consistent way to handle this stuff is to either say they’re all okay, or they all aren’t. OR even better, you take it on a case by case basis. Did the person saying it use it in a way that made him asshole? If no, then move on. If yes, then, well, move on but remember that that guy is an asshole.
You’re looking at it as if it’s cut and dry. Gendered insults like pussy might seem like they’re harmless ultimately harmless, like you don’t really mean it in that way and that should be obvious. But the truth is that when a culture has an insult that’s irrevocably to a stereotype, whether you believe that stereotype or not, using the insult promotes it. It’s not like if you hear the word pussy enough you will suddenly come to the conclusion that women are gutless. It’s more subversive than that. It’s the kind of thing that feeds unconscious biases. Same thing with the other f-word and etc.
Fuck is definitely worse than shit. Which gets you an R-rating?
The rating system is awful and arbitrary, who cares what words they don’t like? Actually, the rating system legitimately is sexist. Exposed breasts of a woman will get you an R these days while the exposed chest of a man wouldn’t even push it to PG.
Won’t find me disagreeing with any of this.