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Is "female" offensive?

I am not a native English speaker and I have sometimes referred to people as male and female (as that is what I have been taught) but I have received some backlash in some cases, especially for the word “female”, is there some negative thought in the word which I am unaware of?

I don’t know if this is the best place to ask, if it’s not appropriate I have no problem to delete it ^^

Lath ,

Anything can be offensive in the corresponding context.

I mean, I didn't know "orange" could be offensive, but then Trump showed up.

Colour_me_triggered ,

My daughter can be pretty offensive. Quite the potty mouth for an 8 year old.

imkali ,

This explains it pretty well callmebymygender.top

snooggums ,
@snooggums@midwest.social avatar

Explains it well for adults, but it doesn’t give cover children or groups that include children and adults.

Norgur ,

Let me break down the explanations given, because most of them boil down to this:

As a noun, yes, because it's mainly used in biology like that ("A hawk female") and thus can come off as dehumanizing. As an adjective: No ("A female cashier", "A male cashier")

amio ,

Male and female are biological terms. Mostly "man/woman" are more appropriate unless you're specifically talking about biological sex. Particularly since a certain bunch of people is now using "females" with a bit of underlying vitriol, it'd be a good idea to stay away from it.

snooggums , (edited )
@snooggums@midwest.social avatar

What is a good term when you don’t want to exclude minors who are not yet women, like six year olds?

‘Women and girls’ seems awkward when talking about sports leagues for people of all ages who are female. “_______ sports are treated as second class by being given the additional description of girl’s or women’s when the sports played by men and boys is just the name of the sport.” is pretty clunky, especially if there are multiple examples that need clarity on which gender’s sport is being described.

amio ,

I'd sneak a peek at some other league and do whatever they did.

When I say "avoid using 'female'" (specifically as a noun to mean "woman") it's not an absolute. The gist is just to not come off like a fedora-tipping twat. Sometimes it's used intentionally to objectify or demean "females" in general, or using the "woman/female" distinction as some sort of pointed transphobic shtick.

It's still a perfectly cromulent word as long as it doesn't get neckbeardy.

snooggums ,
@snooggums@midwest.social avatar

You’d think so, but I have seen the opposite when discussing topics that were true for all ages.

Maybe I just tripped over the most vocal people who don’t understand nuance, since one person actually said to use ‘woman’ to describe a six year old.

otp ,

The biggest rule of thumb is to be consistent between the genders.

So if you say “men’s and boys’ leagues”, then say “women’s and girls’ leagues”, not “females’ leagues”.

The problem is the “Men and females” phenomenon (even when implied), not the word itself.

snooggums ,
@snooggums@midwest.social avatar

Yes, it would be weird to use that combination. I can’t think of why anyone would other than overt sexism. That doesn’t answer the question of what term would work for across ages for either gender though.

It is also weird to see bathrooms labeled as men and ladies instead of men and women. Another example of inconsistency in how society sees women compared to men.

otp ,

I think the important part is to be consistent. “Female sports leagues don’t get the same attention as male sports leagues”. Of course, that particular sentence sounds weird, but I’m sure it could be made to work. Personally, I’d use “women’s and men’s” and hope that it’s implied that the same is true to girls’ and boys’ leagues.

As for bathrooms, now that I think about it, most are only marked with the signs/images. No words. But “men/women” and “ladies/gents” seems common for places that bother putting words.

Of course, the most common bathroom I see is “CUSTOMERS ONLY” (or sometimes COSTUMERS, lol).

TGhost , (edited )
@TGhost@lemmy.ml avatar

For me, As non native English speaker too, its aggressive .

BruceTwarzen ,

Lol what the fuck?

TGhost ,
@TGhost@lemmy.ml avatar

You don’t accept that we are not animals ? Female is offensive and used by sigmas and incels 💁

Diotima ,
@Diotima@kbin.social avatar

Incels using a word offensively does not make the word inherently offensive, and by letting them reframe the word in their favor you're giving them power they do not deserve.

When using male/female to denote biological sex, the words should not be offensive. "Were you born malr or female" in a medical settting can be vital to treatments, for example.

Generally, though, people ought to be using gender.

TGhost ,
@TGhost@lemmy.ml avatar

Yeah agree. Its relative to my feelings

idiomaddict ,

I interpreted your initial comment as calling OP’s English out, tbh.

TGhost ,
@TGhost@lemmy.ml avatar

Thanks, did an edit.

idiomaddict ,

I’m sorry English is awful, but it’s much clearer now :)

PonyOfWar , (edited )

Depends entirely on how you use it. There are many perfectly valid uses for the word, like in science or on a checkbox where you select your gender. The point where it can get offensive is when referring to individuals or groups of women as “females” where you could instead just use “women”. It’s language often used by incels and the like.

idiomaddict ,

It’s potentially offensive when people say men and females, which is often why it comes up online. Using either male or female as a noun is dehumanizing, in that it’s not commonly used to refer to people, but mostly animals (law enforcement and military use them as nouns, but they’re also intentionally distancing themselves from the people in reports).

Basically, “women” feels weird for a lot of English speakers, but “girls” sounds creepy, so they try for something else. Just go with women, 99% of the time, it’s perfectly fine

r00ty Admin ,
r00ty avatar

It's mostly this, I would say. But in general there's a valid context to use male/female and another valid context to use man/woman or girl/boy or lady/gentleman.

Most people are not going to hold someone speaking English as a second language to task over it. But if you're speaking natively, there's no real excuse not to know when it is right to use the correct term.

But that's just my own opinion.

Sibbo ,

Just say ladies. That’s polite.

snooggums ,
@snooggums@midwest.social avatar

While generally true, there are some people from older generations that associate ladies with prostitution as in ‘ladies of the night’ and find it offensive.

Yes, I have known quite a few and they are in their 60s to 80s right now.

idiomaddict , (edited )

I’m torn here. It’s a good way for me to talk about my peers (early thirties) in the third person, but it doesn’t quite fit for second person for me. (Edit: ”guy” is also not great for second person, now that I think about it, so maybe it’s more equivalent than I realized. Though for plural third person, it still isn’t 1:1, imo. “Two guys in my class” has a different connotation from “two ladies in my class,” but I can’t put my finger on why.)

“Ladies” feels formal/salesy (if someone addresses a group of women I’m in as “ladies,” it feels like they’re either a server for our group dinner or trying to quickly build rapport) to me, whereas “lady” can often feel straight up rude ( “hey, lady!” sounds like Bart Simpson said it vs. “hey, ladies!” which could mean so many different things depending on the context, but seems less annoyed at least).

homoludens ,

“women” feels weird for a lot of English speakers

Why does it feel weird? (not a native speaker here)

Lath ,

woman reads as "wo-man"
women reads as "we-men"

English is weird. I blame the British.

Zagorath ,
@Zagorath@aussie.zone avatar

While we’re at it, loose and lose. Somehow taking away an o makes the vowel sound longer and makes the consonant voiced?

Lath ,

Contextual irregularities.

There's a loss connection in there that ties into it.

Very mish-mash sort of stuff, eh?

idiomaddict ,

Because there’s no good equivalent to “guys” for women, and women often feels too old/formal. If I’m talking about a group of 19 year olds, then they are women and men (and there’s no good word for NB adults, other than “adults,” that I can think of, either), but 19 year olds still feel younger than women and men. “Guy” is any age and denotes a peer or relaxed relationship, but “woman” and “man” don’t have those connotations. I would talk about the man who works at the bank and the guy who works at the coffee shop, as an indicator of familiarity, if that helps. If you speak a language with a formal you and an informal you, it feels like a similar distinction to me, though those are also all different.

“Guys” can refer to groups of women, and I definitely call my sisters guys, but if you talk about “a guy,” it isn’t gender neutral where I’m from.

“Lady” singular denotes age, but not formality, though the formality difference between “lady” and “ladies” is hard (I could absolutely see someone saying “some lady was an absolute asshole at the gas station today,” but “two ladies were absolute assholes at the gas station,” is weird).

snooggums ,
@snooggums@midwest.social avatar

Gals is the term that matches guys, but it seems like it fell out of favor when women was promoted as a response to the use of girls in a negative way to describe women (adults) in an infantilizing way. Like it was common to say men’s sports and girls sports in the same way that incels use men and females.

FYI: Ladies goes with lords, as in lords and ladies.

idiomaddict ,

I know gal is considered an equivalent, but the only people I’ve ever known to use it were Girl Scout leaders and square dance callers, so it doesn’t feel at all equivalent to me. I don’t know if this is widespread and/or why the word never gained as much traction as “guy,” but I definitely don’t enjoy being called a gal. It feels infantilizing and othering to me, like when people say “and dudettes!”

Interestingly, gal comes from “girl,” whereas guy comes from guy fawkes. I would have made a very unwise bet that “guy” was older.

snooggums ,
@snooggums@midwest.social avatar

Terms for the sexes/genders are treated differently. In the US, the only term I can think of that has been used derogatively for men is ‘boy’, and only in the context of racism for disparaging adult men who are black.

On the other side, most of the terms have been used negatively in different contexts. Women were often called girls to infantilize them. Gals was used to avoid formality. ‘Ladies of the night’ spoiled the term ladies because of the association with prostitution.

On the flip side a boys club isn’t disparagingly to infantilize men, as shown in the song ‘The boys are back in town’. A girls night out is generally not seen as a negative, but calling women’s sports in college girl’s sports is while men’s sports tend to just be called sports.

So while there are exceptions, other terms for men terms tend to not be used negatively like other terms for women do and that is why women’s terms tend to fall out of favor over time while men’s stick around.

magnetosphere ,
@magnetosphere@fedia.io avatar

This is why I love the word “y’all”

homoludens ,

Thanks!

Wanderer ,

This just seems women are more touchy about this stuff then men.

Someone called me out on reddit for using the word girls for women and it was sexist because it is infantising, and it was stupid because they were making out I don’t call men boys. When I absoultely do, in fact I do it more than the alternative. Really the only way I was sexist on that is that I don’t do it as much as I do with men so if anything I should do it more.

But you can’t win, someone’s always going to be offended

dandroid ,

What about when specifying the gender of your friend? “My woman friend” sounds really weird to me. I usually say, “my female friend” because it sounds more natural, but I don’t want to sound like an incel/misogynist.

For what it’s worth, I say “my male friend” as well.

idiomaddict ,

Nonono, it’s always okay to use it as an adjective, so that’s fine!

Lysergid ,

As a non-native speaker I find woman more offensive than female. Noun male/female puts all as equal. Girls, boys, birds, ponies. Woman, though, seems to be de-attached. Especially when talking about humankind it’s common to refer to humans as just „man”. „No man been there”, „for all mankind”, „dog is a man’s best friend”. As it applies to man only and woman doesn’t count

Titou , (edited )

I think it’s because it’s mostly used by “sigma male” seing womens as objects(not sure thought, but that’s what i’ve seen).

neidu2 , (edited )

Not really offensive on its own, but it carries a reductive and dehumanizing vibe, depending on how it’s used. And the ones who use “female” instead of “woman” are often incels and/or misogynists, giving the term a bad conotation.

Also, Ferengis…

unreachable ,
@unreachable@lemmy.world avatar

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/248ac181-6c9a-4bac-ba55-4b797adc5979.webm

LordOfLocksley ,

Jeez, mark that NSFW please

PlainSimpleGarak ,

Episode is so stupid, I can’t not laugh.

bappity ,
@bappity@lemmy.world avatar

this! an example of someone always using it in a such a way is Andrew Tate. watch any of his videos where he mentions girls and you’ll immediately understand

r00ty Admin ,
r00ty avatar

I always think of the ferengis when people use men to describe men, and females to describe women.

TheAnonymouseJoker ,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

Likewise I have seen radical feminists use “male” all the time. Is it okay to classify them as femcels and misandrists?

andrewta ,

As far as I’m concerned. No not a problem.

If someone says they identify as something else then make the correction.

Omega_Haxors ,

Would you prefer I identify you as a nincompoop or a nazi? I won’t respect your choice, and will refer you to the latter.

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