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Olga
feminist vs lesbian
What do English speaking people think about two words: feminist an lesbian/homosexual? Do you often see those two words standing together? Do you ever use the first one as an euphemism for the second?
Mar 4, 2016 5:09 PM
Answers · 3
2
No and no.
March 5, 2016
2
The two concepts are completely unrelated. A feminist is a proponent of social and economic equality between the sexes. Therefore, I (a male) am a feminist.
A lesbian is a female whose sexual orientation is toward other females. A male cannot be a lesbian.
A homosexual is either a male or female whose sexual orientation is towards people of their own sex. In common English nowadays, we say "gay" because that's what gay people prefer. It is impolite, but technically not incorrect, to call a gay person a homosexual.
The more scientific-sounding word "homosexual" is a neologism, often used by social conservatives instead of "gay" because it contains the root "-sex-" which (they believe) makes it sound worse than "gay", which of course means "happy" in its plain meaning. It is also irritating to gay people, which is also part of the reason they use the word.
March 4, 2016
1
These are generally not standing together unless both labels apply to a person. Feminism has negative connotations among some very conservative people and is sometimes used as a euphemism, but most English speakers do not equate the two words.
Also, lesbian always refers to a gay female and homosexual is almost always referring to a gay male; it is uncommon to use homosexual to refer to a female who is gay.
March 4, 2016
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Olga
Language Skills
English, Finnish, Russian
Learning Language
English, Finnish
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