it’s kind of crazy how here on the so-called feminism website you literally can’t say something as simple as “dude is an inherently gendered term” without literally dozens upon dozens of people who consider themselves feminists showing up to say “idk i use it in a gender neutral way”. like idk how to tell you this but the fact that masculine words are considered default/neutral and feminine words are not is, in fact a reflection, of a patriarchal society.
it’s like clothing. have y’all realised that a lot of clothing brands have started referring to the t-shirt on the left as “default” or “gender neutral” when it was obviously designed to be a men’s. note how the “women’s” or “feminine” cut on the right isn’t considered gender neutral — because it’s designed for women.
putting on our feminist thinking caps for a moment, what do we think it might mean that masculinity & manhood is considered interchangeable with a gender neutral default in a patriarchal society, whereas femininity & womanhood is not? perhaps we even have a word for this phenomenon,
