Vindictive is an “unreasonable” desire for revenge, and what makes the desire “unreasonable” is going to depend on every individual situation, so I don’t think you can generalise that women are vindictive.
I would also hesitate to use the term “vengeful” too, due the nuance of vengeful being a perceived injustice over revengeful being for a known injustice. Again that’s always going to depend on the specific situation and context of what has happened.
When you look at being revengeful through a broader lens, I disagree that women are more prone to revengefulness or vindictiveness than men, I think the ways women express their revenge is gender-specific and can draw more attention to itself than masculine approaches to revenge.
So I think it’s fair to generalise that people in general have the capacity to feel revengeful, and as a marginalised class women are often revengeful, and as additional minor injustices are compounded on systemic injustice, the revenge of women is perceived as vindictiveness.
While both vindictive and vengeful are synonyms of revengeful, Cambridge notes that there are different tonal applications (vindictive is a disproving synonym)
So I guess at the end of the day whether you think women are vindictive depends on your definition of vindictive. I can’t break away from the definition I’ve always known, that vindictive is revenge for a perceived injustice and is a disproving judgement. Therefore I don’t think women as a whole are vindictive because I don’t think the injustice is perceived, it’s real and tangible.
I would say women are revengeful.
Vindictive is an “unreasonable” desire for revenge, and what makes the desire “unreasonable” is going to depend on every individual situation, so I don’t think you can generalise that women are vindictive.
I would also hesitate to use the term “vengeful” too, due the nuance of vengeful being a perceived injustice over revengeful being for a known injustice. Again that’s always going to depend on the specific situation and context of what has happened.
When you look at being revengeful through a broader lens, I disagree that women are more prone to revengefulness or vindictiveness than men, I think the ways women express their revenge is gender-specific and can draw more attention to itself than masculine approaches to revenge.
So I think it’s fair to generalise that people in general have the capacity to feel revengeful, and as a marginalised class women are often revengeful, and as additional minor injustices are compounded on systemic injustice, the revenge of women is perceived as vindictiveness.
But that doesn’t mean women are vindictive.
Appreciate the nuanced response, but as far as I can tell, “vindictive” is just a synonym for “vengeful”.
Literally, it’s in the definition:
https://www.wordnik.com/words/vindictive
https://www.wordnik.com/words/vengeful
That’s interesting to see that the words are considered pure synonyms by that reference source.
I’ve always used Oxford or Cambridge for my definitions,
Vindictive
Vengeful
Revengeful
While both vindictive and vengeful are synonyms of revengeful, Cambridge notes that there are different tonal applications (vindictive is a disproving synonym)
So I guess at the end of the day whether you think women are vindictive depends on your definition of vindictive. I can’t break away from the definition I’ve always known, that vindictive is revenge for a perceived injustice and is a disproving judgement. Therefore I don’t think women as a whole are vindictive because I don’t think the injustice is perceived, it’s real and tangible.