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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

So... if I drink from a mug with a dinosaur on it at work, or have a dinosaur emoji on my status etc etc

238 replies

MsFogi · 09/10/2021 20:23

Will that now be a subtle signal to my fellow GC sisters? I do hope so, I can't wait to see lots of dinosaurs being sported by women out and about - anyone complaining about a woman with a dinosaur is simply going to look batshit crazy Grin. (Although just to be clear I do talk about this a lot in rl but not so much at work but generally think that the more women who don't yet speak out about this can see how many others are GC the better and I suspect that the "GC Dinosaur" may just be our Bat Signal")

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snekkes · 09/10/2021 22:11
  • male cats felis and females felicia
MsFogi · 09/10/2021 22:37

@helpforayounggirl

Oooh! I have loads of dinosaur stuff already!

But I don't cet the reference.

Will google.

It all started with the labour rubbish about GC women being dinosaurs as someone else has said and recently Standing for Women got a load of dinosaurs out (take a look on Twitter hashtag HearMeRoar)
OP posts:
RainbowCrossing · 09/10/2021 22:42
Grin
So... if I drink from a mug with a dinosaur on it at work, or have a dinosaur emoji on my status etc etc
NotImpossible · 09/10/2021 22:42

I've been wondering what the dinosaur thing was all about but kept forgetting to look it up. I'm off to find something dinosaur-y...

Voice0fReason · 09/10/2021 23:04

I think this will be a useful signal.

rabbitwoman · 09/10/2021 23:23

@Alekto

What channel was that on rabbitwoman? Sounds good
I hope this link works (it's on channel 4/ all 4)

www.channel4.com/programmes/britains-most-historic-towns

Alekto · 09/10/2021 23:51

Brilliant, thank you

DoesHePlayTheFiddle · 09/10/2021 23:56

The dinosaur pin - suppliers are wondering why so many orders...

MsFogi · 09/10/2021 23:58

Rather handily WhatsApp has Dinosaur emojis, one of which now happens to appear next to my profile name.

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bellinisurge · 10/10/2021 00:02

Dinosaur face mask. Really cuddly looking ones in bright colours. It's my fuck you to some woke-y colleagues

bellinisurge · 10/10/2021 00:03

I will also be playing some fabulous gender non-conforming T-Rex when I can.

PurgatoryOfPotholes · 10/10/2021 03:44

@snekkes

Isn't T-rex the genus? We don't call female cats felis and felicia.
It was a joke about missing words, and the difference between grammatical gender and sex, and so on.

First of all, in the binomial classification system, the first word denotes the genus, and the second word is the species.

Let's take cats: Felis catus. Felis, variant nominative singular spelling of feles, -is, feminine third declension noun, Latin word for cat. All of the small ones (e.g. the black-footed cat, Scottish wildcats) are the genus Felis, but only the domesticated species is catus (catus= Latin adjective- clever; cattus=late Latin noun for cat).

No-one's worrying over the grammatical gender of either Felis or catus, because
a) there is nothing that sex-specific about any of the words used for its binomial classification and;
b) crucially no-one is going around talking about how their female Felis catus will only eat Sheba food. Grin Cats are found the world over so every culture that values cats will have local words for them that predate Linnaeus's classification system, and local words for male cats, female cats and cute little baby cats.

I would say the English tend to call male cats boy cats or tomcats, especially unneutered males, and unneutered females are girl cats, or queens. And babies are kittens! There's simply no frustrating or amusing gap in vocabulary.

Now let's go back to the tyrannosaurs.

Tyrannosaurus is the genus (it's Greek origin and formulated to express tyrant lizard or terrible lizard, IIRC - I don't have a Greek dictionary or any knowledge of Greek beyond what I've picked up from children's books on paleontology!), and the species name is rex. But rex is Latin for king! (Rex, regis, third declension masculine noun)

And what with tyrannosaurs not being an everyday pet (thank the Maker!), we don't have a lay term for the species, never mind words for male tyrannosaurs, female tyrannosaurs or baby tyrannosaurs. So we're having to use the scientific term to talk about them. That's not necessarily a problem, because it's quite a fun word to say, but it does mean we are explicitly referring to all of this thankfully extinct species as male! Which seems somewhat implausible. Then again, maybe that's why they're all extinct... (Hmm, can I get a grant to investigate this?)

Which is just a little daft, when you notice it. So yes, why not call any female one Tyrannosaurus regina (regina= Latin for queen), at least in jest? It's a solution to that irksome gap.

sashh · 10/10/2021 04:38

I was looking at advent calendars yesterday and I saw a dinosaur one, now who should I send one to?

trollopolis · 10/10/2021 06:55

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine

How long until dinosaurs are a recognised hate symbol...
Never, because no-one will see it as a thing, because it's in common general use already.

Though if it does catch on and if it is associated with bigotry, then the sooner the better

AsTreesWalking · 10/10/2021 07:28

I've bought a Tea Rex badge, and got a msg from the seller asking if there was a particular reason, as they were selling so many all of a sudden! (I'm afraid I wimped out of answering , as Etsy is in my actual name...) I'll be looking out for all you dinos !

NecessaryScene · 10/10/2021 07:38

Afaik, no set convention about calling the females regina can develop, because at the time of typing, only one female tyrannosaur has ever been found in good enough condition to confirm her sex. I think we would need lots of known females to see that linguistic change happen.

Not even the way it works anyway, afaik. Gender is not sex, as we're so fond of saying. An animal's name (or a human individual's occupation) can be masculine or feminine, independent of their sex. Both in actual Latin, and biological nomenclature.

Rex/regina is a bit different than just gender though, in that they're a sexed pair. Sort of.

"Rex" is not necessarily "king", it can be "ruler". Whereas "regina" is specifically "queen".

It usually gets translated as "king", idiomatically, so "Herodes rex" -> "King Herod", but to always do so is a kind of sexist assumption.

I sense these sort of things are a bit unstable in male-dominated areas. When there's only one word, there's an urge to make a "female" form with a suffix, to escape the male-default assumption. When there's a pair of such words, there's grumbling and an attempt to recombine them to prove equality. And the pendulum swings. Like "actor/actress"; and I think "rex/regina" is similar, and unlike "king/queen".

Deliriumoftheendless · 10/10/2021 07:48

Aw, the only Latin names for animals I know are Accelleratii incredibus and Overconfidentii vulgaris.

partystress · 10/10/2021 07:59

Is there a more neutral Latin word than Rex? Eg an equivalent to ‘monarch’, or is it just that English has gendered some words and not others and Latin doesn’t line up?

Etinox · 10/10/2021 08:02

I’ve ordered this arriving Monday to the office where I will performatively open it.

NecessaryScene · 10/10/2021 08:11

Is there a more neutral Latin word than Rex

As, I said, I think it is neutral. At least as neutral as "actor".

It comes across as male because (a) English speakers associate it with their male-only word "king", and also use "regina" for "queen". Our use of Latin mirrors our language, and (b) most "reges" in history were male.

Another word for "ruler" is "tyrannus", but we just used that, so it would get a bit silly :)

Sproutandcrumpet · 10/10/2021 08:28

I'll be very disappointed if dinosaurs become a symbol of anyone's personal views. I like dinosaurs but don't share your views and would hate for anyone to assume I do just because I have a dinosaur bag.

midgedude · 10/10/2021 08:34

Does it hurt when people take things off you and change the meaning of things ?

TheElementsSong · 10/10/2021 08:37

@midgedude

Does it hurt when people take things off you and change the meaning of things ?
Mic drop!
Cwenthryth · 10/10/2021 08:43

Well, I like rainbows and dyeing my hair blue and purple, and now some people think I must believe that humans can change sex with feelz thanks to “trans rights” activism co-opting of these things. So, you just have to deal with the fact women are running with the dinosaur thing and just you do you.

I may have ordered some dinosaur jewellery and face masks to wear to FiLiA next week Grin

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