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Is there any way to say a woman is an asshole without a misogynistic word like “connasse” or “garce”?

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    "Connasse" for a woman is the same as "connard" for a men, I can't see anything mysoginistic in that.
    – Laurent S.
    Jun 17, 2019 at 11:36
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    @LaurentS. yes, and I doubt that many people would consider the use of couillon or gland to be misandric.
    – Mogu
    Feb 10, 2021 at 8:05

8 Answers 8

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Garce is explicitely misogynistic as its masculine, gars, has no negative meaning.

C'est une conne is just the feminine of c'est un con so might fit the need, although it might be argued that even con is technically misogynistic too. Conne is however less likely to appear in a misogynistic context than connasse1.

You might also say C'est une trou du cul, somewhat breaking the grammar.

1 Les termes injurieux les plus fréquemment utilisés dans les injures sexistes :

Après lemmatisation, les formes verbales dont la fréquence d’apparition dans le corpus est la plus élevée sont les suivantes: salope, pute, connasse, sale. Hormis sale, ces termes sont explicitement grossiers en plus de contenir une acception sexuelle eu égard à leur définition mais également à leur étymologie.

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    I'd rather go for c'est un trou du cul, the same way we can say of a man c'est une merde.
    – m.raynal
    Jun 18, 2019 at 14:27
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    @m.raynal C'est un merde would not work indeed but C'est une trou du cul doesn't seem to hurt ears, There are many c'est une trou du cul on the web. Feel free to use whatever gender you like anyway ;-)
    – jlliagre
    Jun 18, 2019 at 20:39
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    For what it's worth, I don't think "connasse" is particularly misogynistic in most usages. Certainly not in all those I have encountered. Sounds completely symmetrical to "connard", afaic (native speaker).
    – Mogu
    Feb 9, 2021 at 20:40
  • @Mogu This has already been expressed in Laurent S' comment to the OP question and 19 people agree so far. The study I provided a link to states that connasse appears in 16% of mysogynistic insults. It is also very possible that people using connasse do not realize its mysogynistic nature. It's kind of similar of using nègre to name a ghostwriter. Even if people using it have no racism in mind, the impact is there.
    – jlliagre
    Feb 9, 2021 at 21:09
  • @jlliagre Oops, I missed that first comment. I see your point, although i'd stress that It's only kind of similar of using nègre to name a ghostwriter.
    – Mogu
    Feb 10, 2021 at 7:53
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If you're afraid to hurt anyone's sensibility (including your own), then you should probably not use insults in the first place. The purpose of an insult is to offend, not to make a point.

When you're up to the point that you want to insult someone, there is little need to see how well adapted the insult is, or if the insult is politically correct, accurate, etc ... you insult a person because you want to hurt this person. There is no way to hurt a person 'correctly' or 'accurately', hurting is hurting.
On top of it, it depends a lot of the receiver's sensibility. What would seem too strong for someone would hardly be noticed by someone else. Think of the f word, and on how some people use it in every sentence while others pretend to be shocked when they hear it.

In your particular case, I'd go for, from least to most offensive, ordure, trou du cul, grosse merde. They're gender-neutral, very common and have a broad range of use, unlike more specific insults such as pourri or gros tas which do target some specific qualities of the receiver.

If you want to be refined and original, choose coprolithe or any of the hilarious and subtle insults of the capitaine haddock.

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    I strongly disagree with this sort of analysis. Insulting someone using slurs geared at race, gender, religion or sexual orientation, especially geared at people belonging to minority groups or who have been historically the target of unfair treatment etc. is quite different from insulting someone casually. The fact of leveraging such terms and not caring for these considerations is in my opinion a display of a double-standard. Such insults do make a point beyond offending, that point is History and the impact will be stronger than simply telling someone they're an asshole etc.
    – user19187
    Jun 18, 2019 at 15:40
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    Furthermore I believe it has nothing to do with a receiver's sensibility if but in the most trivial of fashions but rather with a receiver's characteristics, which is quite different. The receiver's characteristics are exactly why such and such an insult is leveraged in context. There is lots of self-entitlement and privilege in the idea that insults are uttered at random and that the receiver's sensibility is what's at stake in terms of impact. Such ideas are those of people belonging to a careless majority intent on disenfranchising specific stakes of minority groups etc. imho.
    – user19187
    Jun 18, 2019 at 15:51
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    In so many words I consider such an analysis to be the closest thing to whitewashing.
    – user19187
    Jun 18, 2019 at 15:58
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    @suiiurisesse I agree with most of your points; nevertheless, I think you misunderstood my answer by quite a big margin. My first point goes toward questioning the fact that insult should be used in the first place and is DEFINITELY NOT encouraging, or even referring to racial or discriminating slurs. I then offer absolutely neutral, non-discriminating insults (they refer to trash or feces, which are pretty universal). Finally I offer a link to a more funny and 'respectful' way to insult a person, though haddock's insults. I agree with you, I just don't see where you can see whitewashing.
    – m.raynal
    Jun 18, 2019 at 18:36
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    I hear you, I'm not a native speaker, I was trying to use whitewash in a figurative sense to mean a revision of a behavior which would favor those who leverage the slurring, for lack of a better word to summarize what I explained above that. Also, I should have said "such a type of analysis", as I don't mean to single out your answer. Cheers.
    – user19187
    Jun 18, 2019 at 19:43
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If you want to use a word that is absolutely gender-neutral and can apply to a man or woman with the same form, you can use the word ordure. It will keep the feminine gender whatever the person it refers to. As often with translations of insults, note it may not match the English word ass hole in all uses: ordure is rather a very negative judgment on the moral values of a person (not on their intellectual abilities).

Je connais cette femme, c'est une ordure.

Ce type est une véritable ordure.

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  • "Ordure" is much too strong from my point of view; it is a term that you use for torturers, people such as those we know from concentration camps, guilty of the worst cruelty, war criminals, wife battering husbands beating their wifet literally to death, people guilty of gratuitous cruelty to animals,… However, the TLFi does not include this extreme vileness in its definition and keeps to a mild caracterisation of the word.
    – LPH
    Jun 17, 2019 at 14:20
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    Possibly... but hey, after all: le père Noël est une ordure !
    – Greg
    Jun 17, 2019 at 15:14
  • I don't follow you on that one, missing out on something !
    – LPH
    Jun 17, 2019 at 15:28
  • I get it now, the film (1982) … Well, not valid, sorry …
    – LPH
    Jun 17, 2019 at 15:43
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    LPH's interpretation of the strength of 'ordure' is way out of bounds. It's more polite than connasse, but not that much stronger.
    – user13512
    Jun 17, 2019 at 19:23
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Pour fins de réflexion et pour appuyer le propos présenté en question, je propose certains extraits du document déniché dans une autre réponse (merci pour la recherche) :

Mais même certains des opposants à l’écriture inclusive reconnaissent le problème : « la langue est machiste » [Alain Rey ds. LeFigaro.fr] (introduction)


C’est ainsi près des deux tiers des victimes d’injures sexistes qui ont été insultées de salope, pute ou connasse. (à la p. 22)


De manière littérale, les formes verbales composant les injures sexistes subies par des victimes se trouvant dans la rue ont une dimension plus grossière que celles ayant eu lieu ailleurs. En effet, parmi les dix termes les plus représentés dans les injures de rue figurent salope, pétasse, pouffiasse, pute, connasse. Comme nous le verrons par la suite, au-de-là de leur caractère grossier, ces mots comportent une connotation sexuelle et présumant de la moralité de la victime à laquelle ils sont adressés. (à la p. 23)


Par contraste [aux formes verbales lorsqu'il y a interconnaissance], lorsque victimes et auteurs ne se connaissent pas, on retrouve, de manière assez logique, des termes sous entendant le contexte de la conduite automobile (conduire, volant, permis, avancer), mais également un quatuor d’insultes sexistes relativement usuelles : connasse, pétasse, pouffiasse, salope. (à la p. 25)


Les injures subies par les victimes appartenant à cette catégorie [injures sexistes professionnelles] de la typologie ont également pour trait caractéristique le fait d’être pour beaucoup composées du suffixe –asse. Ce « suffixe malsonnant » (Normand, 2009, p. 113) comporte une connotation péjorative, ce que son étymologie confirme puisque la forme acea signifie vulgaire en latin.
[...]
Le suffixe –asse accentue la connotation dépréciative de mots comportant pourtant déjà une dimension insultante, à l’image de connasse. Ce terme, accolant con au suffixe –asse, permet de désigner « de manière péjorative le sexe féminin » à partir du XVIIème siècle mais également au figu-ré une « femme bête » (DHLF, p. 525). Notons que la forme conne, également présente parmi les parangons de cette classe, est la forme féminine du mot con qui en latin (cunnus) désignait le sexe de la femme. Il n’est pas anodin que ce terme en soit venu à acquérir au sens figuré la définition d’imbécillité. (à la p. 32)


Ce glissement de sens de la saleté vers la souillure, que l’on peut relever à travers les évolutions de signification du mot salope, ne lui est pas spécifique. On le relève en effet plus globalement dans la langue française à travers la féminisation de certains termes, dès lors que ceux-ci acquièrent une signification désobligeante (Levy, 2017 ; Lausberg, 2017). Dans le même ordre d’idée, de nombreux termes prennent en français une acception désobligeante dès lors qu’ils sont au féminin. Le terme garce - forme féminine de gars - qui figure dans les parangons de cette classe [les injures sexistes de rue], en fournit un exemple. Ce mot qui désignait originellement une « jeune fille » (XIIème siècle) acquiert progressivement un sens péjoratif de « jeune fille ou femme débauchée » ; dépréciation que son équivalent masculin n’a pas subie (Rey, 2016, p. 977). (à la p. 33)


[ « Les injures sexistes. Exploitation des enquêtes. Cadre de vie et sécurité » (Keltoume LARCHET) de l'Observatoire national de la délinquance et des réponses pénales de l'Institut national des hautes études de la sécurité et de la justice ds. Grand Angle no 47 de mars 2018. ]

On pourra prendre le temps de lire le document en entier si l'on s'intéresse au lexique et aux enjeux sociaux comme l'égalité dans un contexte où « les femmes sont encore plus nettement surexposées aux injures sexistes qu’aux injures en général : leur taux de victimation (3,8 %) est près de 10 fois supérieur à celui des hommes (0,4 %) » (dans le résumé du document). Ou si on a l'humilité de ne pas placer son opinion au centre de l'univers et d'accorder un tant soit peu d'importance aux victimes qui sont les destinataires de la communication injurieuse (voir l'avertissement dans le document). En effet, c'est par le truchement leur perceptions qu'on comprend l'impact des mots qui leur sont destinés il me semble et non par l'entremise des ardents défenseurs du statu quo et des agresseurs qui ne le subissent jamais.


Par ailleurs dépendamment de ce qu'on veut dire par asshole, on pourrait dire idiote, sotte, imbécile, fatigante (surtout Qc ?)., deux de pique (Qc.).

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To complete the answer of @Greg (as I cannot comment yet) you can basically use all synonymous of ordure, such as pourriture, déchet etc.

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  • Nice indeed ! But I think each variation will have its own nuance (pourriture is close to pourri and involves some idea of corruption, déchet can also carry a judgment on someone's external appearance, etc.).
    – Greg
    Jun 17, 2019 at 12:51
  • I'd indeed use pourri to mean a corrupted politician or véreux but would personnally use pourriture in similar case as ordure. Déchet can indeed carry a physical judgment especially about someone that negligeates itself (but it depends on the context, in a familiar context I'd use déchet with a similar meaning as those previously quoted).
    – user20904
    Jun 17, 2019 at 14:09
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There is nothing misogynistic in those two words; the etymology of "con" and "connasse" does not carry over into oral expression: the words, although they find their origin in a name for an organ of the human female, never suggest that organ, except for the more literate speaker, who is thereby more apt to appreciate how much more vulgar than one might presume is the term . The idea is out of the "effective" culture.

The word "garce" has been used since very ancient times 1165 (see the etymology) and two categories of meaning have been intertwined on it, simply that of "counterpart of young man or boy" (feminin of "gars") for one and for the other a range of related meanings going from that of "saucy young girl or woman" to that of "prostitute or prostitute like woman", the meaning of "mistress" and "mean woman" being found as intermediaries on the count of their referring to disapprovable behaviour also. It has come to mean no more "girl" or "woman" nor "prostitute" but "mean girl or woman" and the fact that woman do use the word is proof enough that there aren't any misogynistic connotations attached.

If you want an equivalent for "asshole" you can use "chipie" (not vulgar, however it does not mean specifically "stupid"), as "asshole", after all, means "stupid or unpleasant". In the same register nothing is better than "connasse", it implies stupidity and unpleasantness.

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    "chipie" applies principally to a mischievious little girl. To apply it to an adult would be so weird as to be surrealist. And it comes with no hint of implied meaness at all
    – user13512
    Jun 17, 2019 at 19:29
  • @GeorgeM Pas du tout: (TLFi) chipie : Fam. (Vieille) fille, femme méchante, dédaigneuse, désagréable à vivre. Je l'emploie ainsi et continuerai à le faire.
    – LPH
    Jun 17, 2019 at 19:34
  • In the 18th century maybe :-). But please, do go on, it's entirely your choice
    – user13512
    Jun 17, 2019 at 19:36
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    Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. Jun 18, 2019 at 8:13
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I agree that the deeply misogynist origin of con/connasse is now almost entirely lost on its users. And gars vs garce is only one of so many examples in French of a neutral masculine and pejorative feminine.

That said, there are some more neutral alternatives. Apart from the more direct alternative 'biteux', I am fond of 'abruti' for instance, which adds a layer of stupidity to the meanness.

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  • Biteux ? Ça se dit où ? À une femme ??
    – jlliagre
    Jun 18, 2019 at 0:20
  • A tout le monde, exactement comme connard
    – user13512
    Jun 20, 2019 at 23:20
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    Ben non justement. On ne dit pas connard à une femme. Ce serait à la limite biteuse mais je n'ai jamais entendu biteux. C'est pour ça que j'ai demandé où ça se disait, si c'était un régionalisme.
    – jlliagre
    Jun 20, 2019 at 23:59
  • Et comment dit-on "couper les cheveux en quatre"? Au masculin bien sur..
    – user13512
    Jun 21, 2019 at 1:33
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    Jamais entendu "biteux" non plus. Mais c'est du coup bien plus neutre si personne à part George M ne sait que c'est une insulte...
    – Laurent S.
    Jun 26, 2019 at 11:47
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Je pencherais pour c'est un.e enfoiré.e. Le terme est assez proche de asshole (au moins du point de vue sémantique), et s'applique aux deux genres sans distinctions.

Après, dans le domaine des insultes, le genre n'a plus trop d'importance, au contraire, il peut servir à appuyer le propos. On entend souvent cette femme, c'est un (vrai) trou du cul (ce qui serait plutôt de la misandrie d'ailleurs car l'idée sousjacente c'est que seul les hommes peuvent l'être...).

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I would choose c'est un(e) enfoiré(e). The sentence is very close to asshole semantically and does not have any sex distinction.

Honestly, when you trigger insult, gender is not that important, and you can use it as a weapon. We often hear cette femme, c'est un vrai trou du cul. It's has a taste of misandry here, as the unsaid idea is that only men are assholes, and it serves to both insulting the women by comparing her to a body part and to assimilate her to a likely degrading men behavior.

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