Gender Neutral Language and Forms of Address

I'm hoping to get a little guidance which might help me extract myself from a rather perplexing situation.

If a woman says to me, in an hostile and defiant tone, “I’d thank you to use gender-neutral language!”, is it wrong to respond "Does that mean I shouldn't call you a cunt? Because you are a cunt".

Any advice welcome, especially from "persons" practising law within the jurisdiction of Engand and Wales who are offering their services pro bono. Plain old gratis will suffice.

Toodle pip!

 

Such a response might be ambiguous. "Cunt" is a term of endearment in many parts of the world, so some confusion may ensue.

"Bitch" might get the point across equally well, without any risk of ambiguity.

 

The best terminology? It was one of those 50/50 binary choices.

 

That's a kind of maths I never heard of before.

Just some brainstorming...

1. Call her something which has nothing to do with genitals and is this gender neutral, and then demand the thanks she has promised you. There is nothing more annoying than pedantry!

2. Call her a prick/dick/whatever is currently top of your local-culture penis-insult table just to balance the situation, hopefully leaving her assured that you are not at all sexist.

3. Make matter much worse. Call her Honey, or Dear. Or even Sweatheart. Yes, that's a good one.

4. Make matters infinitely worse by enquiring if it is "that time of the month." "Sweetheart."

 

"Honey", "dear", "sweetie" et al: I wouldn't want to be patronising. One hates to give offence where none is due.

 

What is the required outcome? Do you need to get on with, live with, work with (god forbid work for) this woman in the future?

If a "conversation" has reached a no-holds-barred level of abuse, it is pretty lame to fall back on gender bias: any words are acceptible when you're screaming at each other.

Anyway, hope peace breaks out. Better times, and all that.

 

Just out of curiosity what was the language that you originally used that caused the reaction?

 

No outcome required, just a silly joke. Actually not so silly and for some people not a joke but here we are in a world where some people want to enforce balance (with totalitarian method) despite it being, in fact, not balanced but bipolar.

 

"Socially challenged human" is what people use on me... go with that.

 

Last time someone swore at me they did actually call me a cunt. It's amazing what you can get used to.

 

My ex used to like being called a cunt. I tried it after we broke up and she told me never to say that to her again, which, obviously, was not a wise move on her part... I'll give you her number, you can talk to the cunt about it.

 

Is cunt worse than dick?

 

At those rare, most angry times of my life (the ones, I suppose, when I might have hit someone if I had any muscle) words fail me and all I can do is make weird noises. Come to think of it, that's pretty gender-neutral.

 

Seems like there's more to this story.