Comment by Raphmedia | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Raphmedia | Hacker News Reader

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> Had she been male my comment would be exactly the same except it would say 'dude' in place of 'chick'.

Dude is gender neutral.

Chick comes from "chica", which by itself comes from the Latin "ciccum" as in pea.

By calling a woman a chick, you are called her a "chick-pea".

There's even some association with "chick bird", as in a bird you hunt.

Modern usage associates the use of "chick" with the beauty of the individual. Calling a woman a "chick" is using her physical appearance to describe her, disregarding her actual skills and achievements.

By calling a woman a chick, you are either:

A) Calling her a young girl (women are not children)

B) Calling her a young bird (women are not prey)

C) Calling her a young plant (women are more than brainless beautiful things)

All of those can offend.

The equivalent would be calling a men "boy toy" or some such slang. Not something you can do without earning a punch in the face.

Derogate: –verb (used with object) 3. to disparage or belittle.

While I'm all for avoiding 'chick' if it offends people, your comment completely sidesteps the fact that the meaning of words change. I don't think you're doing whatever cause you're fighting any good by this kind of pedantry.

I did comment on that fact:

> Modern usage associates the use of "chick" with the beauty of the individual. Calling a woman a "chick" is using her physical appearance to describe her, disregarding her actual skills and achievements.

I'd say that's another issue, namely that most words don't have one single, clear meaning, as is evident from a bunch of other comments. It's equally pedantic and cause-harming to pretend that this is not the case.

I can definitely accept that in many circles 'chick' has this connotation, and, again, I'm happy to be cautious in my use of the word if I don't know for certain whether this is the case or not.

That said, most circles I've been part of would most definitely not agree with your rather narrow and negative interpretation of the word, and its use is perfectly okay and similar to 'dude'.

Again, I don't see what you're trying to achieve with this kind of pedantry. If you actually care about these I do hope you find a better way to communicate about it.

> Again, I don't see what you're trying to achieve with this kind of pedantry. If you actually care about these I do hope you find a better way to communicate about it.

We are arguing under a [flagged] [dead] comment, so there's not much to achieve here.

My last opinion on the subject has been said here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16587100

Fair enough.

FWIW my apologies for being a bit too antagonistic. Personal frustrations getting the best of me. I do generally avoid using 'chick' unless I know it's okay, and I do think that's a sensible approach. And in hindsight I wish I hadn't gotten into a discussion about it.

I think your analysis is a bit heavy-handed. Most people have a common understanding of this word. Referring to a woman as "this chick" is obviously a tone that lacks respect and most American males understand the subtle differences in connotation between "chick" and "dude". Yes, they are mostly interchangeable but in certain contexts the word "chick" can carry a somewhat dismissive tone with a little more intensity than the word "dude" and this is just a subtlety of the language that is not easy to articulate.

Women in positions of authority or power are generally not referred to as chicks, it's hard to come up with a universal rule, but if one considers female authority figures throughout one's life it becomes easier to see where "chick" is usually not acceptable term for a woman you respect whereas "dude" has a more neutral connotation for male authority figures, e.g. in reference to a strict male authority figure "that dude is a hardass" or "that dude will knock you out".

It is not about respecting authority. It is about respecting strangers and using the proper words to describe them.

Since that person is not present, it is best to be as formal as possible.

Call men "a man", call women "a woman", boys "a boy" and girls "a girl". Using words like "babe", "chick", "kiddo" for people you don't know is a blatant lack of respect.

Using "a chick" in the current context is plain wrong to me. It's fine if you know her, but talking about a third-party this way is disrespectful from my point of view.

My issue with this comment has nothing to do with gender or feminism. It is all about the correct use of words when addressing strangers.

It's not "about" any one particular thing, my comments about authority were only meant as a thought experiment to suss out the difficult-to-articulate subtlety of the word's connotation. I don't have a strong opinion regarding the general use of "dude" and "chick" to refer to people one is not personally familiar with.

"Dude is gender neutral."

When everyone you've ever known, and all media you've ever seen, for 30 years, has exclusively used "dude" for males only, is it really "gender neutral"?

It is generally accepted as gender neutral. Lately, I've seen a lot of LGBT communities encouraging its use.

Googling "Is dude gender neutral?" results in a lot of sites telling you that it is.

"In the early 1960s, dude became prominent in surfer culture as a synonym of guy or fella. The female equivalent was "dudette" or "dudess," but these have both fallen into disuse, and "dude" is now also used as a unisex term." Dude - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dude

"slang for an individual, typically male" is in the first sentence. I would assume that's the more prominent intent.

Googling "Is dude gender neutral?".... why would I even have that question if my entire community has never called that in to question in the first place?

why would I even have that question if my entire community has never called that in to question in the first place?

To understand and see how communities that aren't yours act, and interact with vernacular versus shuttering one's self behind the assumption that because your group sees x in a certain way, other groups must by default see it similarly.

I promise I'm not being antagonistic just because I disagree with you (a qualifier that shouldn't even be necessary but eggshells are abundant in this thread right now), it's weird to me to hear this because I grew up in a time in a culture where dude 100% was gender neutral and it was celebrated[1] as such

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqMODweN8lQ

"just because I disagree with you"

I asked a question. I'm not sure what there is to disagree about.

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