I don’t like being referred to as “female” or “girl”. I’m a woman - not a girl. Woman to woman saying “girllllllll” is different, but outside of that I find it to be disrespectful and belittling.

it’s not just in america

it is pejorative

they know this, either consciously or subconsciously

using the adjective ‘female’ as a noun — especially a collective noun — is reductive

like, bro, I learned this at 13 years old. I’m not susceptible to it. and it signals to me what kind of online discourse you read, the spaces you hang out in. Use it in front of me & I will 100% dismiss whatever you’re saying because I know the spaces, narratives, and rhetorics that push it. If you wanna associate yourself with those, that’s up to you. but I’m buying out until you can use nouns properly, with intention, without obfuscating the meaning we all know lies beneath it.

there’s a reason why ‘ugh these MALES’ is so much less common. it’s pejorative, reductive, inherently negative, and has the lovely added effect of ‘I will call this thing, specifically, that is conventionally only otherwise used to describe animals of lesser intelligence and autonomy to humans or in patient files / research wherein establishing sex (& gender) is relevant because other patient info must be anonymised’

Basically…

Yea it’s rude. yeah they know. yea it ticks me off. the first argument I had about this was on a GirlsGoGames game when I was 13 (no idea why so many boys ended up there lol). if 13 year old me gets it more than a grown man, before she even learned the word ‘feminism’, you can learn, you can listen.

Basically…

it’s the same language used for non-human creatures

it’s the same language used in papers where sex/gender is salient but most other information is anonymised

Sooooo it’s either dehumanisation OR obfuscation. They know this, implicitly, because it’s written all over the spaces they learn this lingo — whether they click it or not. it’s deliberate. and the continued insistence that it is ‘harmless’ and you’re ’overreacting’ is… I mean, let’s be blunt: it’s a dog whistle for ‘hysteria is live and well!’

Fuck em.

I absolutely cannot stand when people refer to women as females. It's grating as no one's business. My last ex did that I can curbed that habit out of him REAL quick.

When I hear " females" I immediately think " who let the Ferengi in"

It's incredibly degrading and comes down to a simple fact: There is a term for a female human - Woman. To refer to a woman as a "female" as a noun equates that woman to an animal. There is NO context in which "female" as a noun is necessary for a woman.

Maybe this is made all the more obvious to me by the fact that my mother language is French and referring to a "Femme" as a "Femelle" sounds insane and humiliating, but honestly even in English there's no reason.

There's a subreddit called r/menandfemales

I agree. Men and women is a noun for people, female/male is a biological term more commonly used as adjectives or descriptors.

anyone who uses that word 99% chance is an incel

It'a gross and used wrong. Female what? Oh, female human? That's girl or woman then

Used by conservatives to compare us to livestock.

I grew up with them, that is completely the reason, and it’s always on purpose.

It depends on the context.

I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older that we are often equated to animals a lot in casual conversations, it’s so normalised that people don’t even realise that’s what it is.

If someone used the term female in a casual social setting I would assume they were an incel

I always tell them saying female instead of woman makes them sound like a Ferengi. Fans of Star Trek will get it.

“Female” is disrespectful and belittling EVERY TIME it is used. Don’t let them convince you that’s just how people talk, it is not. I don’t refer to men as “males” because it’s dehumanizing.

The only silver lining here is that they make themselves very easy to spot. Any man that has “female” in his vocabulary is a misogynist. Because those two things go hand in hand.

I concur. I’d also like to add the word “chick” in there 🤢 thankfully it’s not as often, but it always has a negative connotation to it

I don’t like it either. I think it’s belittling. A lot of people who might use the term will use “man” in the same breath. That’s where the issue lies for me. Same with “girl”. With friends, not an issue. It’s when I’m out and about and a man calls me girl. No woman has ever done that.

It is absolutely dehumanizing. Especially when a person says man/female. There’s a reason male/female is used so often in medicine and law enforcement. The whole point is to dehumanize. If a person is happening upon dead bodies or replacing someone’s hip joint, it helps to be able to detach.

There are absolutely people who use “female” IRL.

‘Female’ doesn’t bother me, but being called a girl when I’m in my mid 30s shits me.

It's not even just the term, it's the fact that everyone who refers to women as "females" is just uncomfortable with the concept of women generally, like they don't know how to handle it. You never hear a woman saying "males" it just doesn't happen. Don't boil us down to our reproductive organs like omg 😭😭

So let’s traumatized them back and call every male you meet “son”… even when they are older than you… especially when they are older than you.

Micro aggressions add up to macro aggression!

I just want to make a simple observation about this post and my original one. The difference is absurd!! In my original post I had men calling me insults and arguing how the term female is not a problem at all and here I’ll say that 80% of people are agreeing that this term is awful. This was definitely a small social experiment for me and I can see even more how often men don’t understand women and just assume what they think it’s right. Even how the arguments are written is much more organized and structured, on my other post everyone was insulting everyone.

I always get an image of Gollum crawling around his cave whenever someone uses the word female instead of women. It feels slimy...

Yes I think it’s inappropriate to refer to women as that, but at that point, I just refer to them as males.

I dont have a problem with female as long as male is also used equally. I definitely notice when a man says: Men and 'females' which is a bright red flag to me.

Unless you’re a cop describing a suspect or victim, a biologist, or a medical doctor, the word “female” shouldn’t be used to describe women.

It's always given me the ick. Instant turn-off when men call women "females". It's gross and dehumanizing.

I tried to explain this to a man, but I didn’t have the words. All I could say is… “bc only gross men say that…” but now… I have the words.

Idc tbh

Overall idc about being called a female. I do play close attention tho to make sure they say male too. If they don’t, then yes they’re consciously degrading

The word female isn't awful. It's descriptive and necessary depending on the usage, but crusty little misogynists had to go and make it weird and dehumanizing when they refer woman as females when they're not talking about a sex specific subject.

Female = talking about biology, talking about the functions of the female body in humans and in animals

Woman= a social word used in conversation or politics, a way to mention someone socially who identifies with femininity.

Female ist not a noun, if it's used as a noun for humans, it's an insult. I'll die on that hill.

It is dehumanizing. At least the incels out themselves easily without even realizing it. To make myself feel better I love to turn the tables and just call them "males" and describe their actions in a way that will give them the same distaste. Which is to describe it like they are either a toddler or, in worst cases, like an animal. Same level of degradation they use on us.

Males never use the word males. It is to dehumanize and objectify women. That’s all males ever do.

Anyone born before 2000 uses woman and female quite regularly. Anyone born after 2000 who uses female is often part of a incel echo chamber.

I often use female in my language. It’s when I’m referring to biology or sex based differences. We use it a lot in writing scientific research to describe sex based differences.

I find I use women when I’m describing gender and not sex.

No, I agree with you, I find it dehumanising and it's usually "men and females". It makes us sound like a different species. 🙄

I started correcting people when they use it. I had a very frustrating conversation with my mum about it. 

You are not alone. It sounds unnatural and the way it is used is concerning. I fight back by calling the dudes that do this males. It is obvious they feel similar when it is done back at them.

Being called a "female" makes me feel like an animal. I am a woman, a lady, or a girl. I will never like being called a female.

Ferengi are the ones who use that word like that. If a real life person outside of Star Trek does, it means they are misogynists who took Star Trek a little too seriously.

I hate this usage. And I call it out everywhere I see it. I even call out women for using it. It's fine used as the adjective it actually is. As in; "She was the first female astronaut", or for men, "no I mean the male doctor over there". Used correctly it's just being used to describe a noun. Somehow it's become stylish to use it as a noun.

In fairness I think some of it comes from not having a casual term like we do with using guy for a man. Maybe if we used gal, that would help. But I also think it comes from how close it is to the proper term for a female dog.

I do get pretty snarky with my comments but have not been attacked quite that badly. Hold your ground, you are doing the right thing.

They know exactly what they’re doing when they use that word.

I see it no differently than “male.” There’s a time and a place.

I don’t think it’s dehumanizing, but I also prefer accurate language over the “newer” trend of societal censorship regarding “triggering” words. We’re opting to omit factual descriptors because people have decided feelings trump accuracy. Not my vibe.

I am a female. That's my sex I was born as. I do not get offended at the truth.

Post memes of Quark saying it to make fun of them.

This post has me confused. To me, it's very context-dependent. I use the word female, as in like, "I'd prefer a female massage therapist".

If someone was saying something derogatory about women by using the word 'females', yeah, I'd think it was gross but I'd also think it was gross if they said 'women'.

Maybe I'm just missing something here.

I don't mind the term female being used as an adjective. Hearing it used as a noun makes me rage.

I mean it depends on how a person is using it. At the end of the day I am a female, girl, woman. If someone is using female to be derogatory of course it’s an issue but some people are just too sensitive and take it like it’s supposed to be this dehumanizing thing. If you are a female youre a female. Stop making it an issue unless they’re using it to dehumanize you.

I’m literally a biological female and I don’t see how someone referring to me as one is offensive? Lol

I don't mind.

I'm outside of US (and lived in US for about 6-7years..). I don't think people would think anything of it where I live. It's really based on context on how it's being used, and I think in most cases it's rarely ever ill-intentioned. As someone who personally doesn't like nor feels comfortable being referred to as "woman" or "girl", female seems accurate or easiest for me.

I don't think the term used for the biological purposes or animals is nor should be seen as belittling/degrading. To me, it's more insulting or upsetting to think that. I don't think any one referring to animals as female/male is intentionally thinking less of them right? I'd certainly hope not.

And I always had the opposite impression where it's mostly Americans who have an issue with the usage of that term.

Eh... i just don't understand why everyone is internalizing these biological descriptions. My boss is probably the most feminine woman i've ever met and she loves that her staff is "all females." In an endearing way. She's about 30.

On the other hand, i have seen the contexts in which people use it as a reductive noun. Those contexts give the word a bitter taste, but honestly, it's the context that is bitter. If they replaced 'female' with 'woman' but the rest of the message is the exact same, it's still a shitty bigoted message

I've never had an opinion on it. Is it a hill worth dying on? I can respect others not liking it.

Oh, and I wouldn't consider it an "awful" word by any stretch.

Using the word “female” instead of “women” in any other language that I know would shock anyone. I remember hearing one guy use the term “female” to describe women in french, and we were all horrified and disgusted. In french, it’s extremely degrading and humiliating, downright insane. In english it’s gross too, but I think it’s getting normalized due to the rise in red pill culture. Also, it’s commonly used in AAVE, so people from non-black communities use this as an excuse to adopt the term, conveniently ignoring that “males” isn’t used half as often in AAVE, and misogyny is a huge issue in black communities too.

Reddit is full of misogynists. I’m not surprised you got that reaction. Just know that you’re right, and using an adjective as a noun is dehumanising (the same way referring to Black people as “the blacks” is gross). It’s particularly bad with “female” because the term is supposed to only be used as a noun when describing animals. “Males” sounds just as bad, but these people conveniently pretend it doesn’t. None of them would use “males” when referring to men at the workplace. They know damn well it’s degrading.

ok, so, as you said yourself, in spanish (the language i talk) female would be "hembra" in which case, yes, we mostly use it for animals BUT i have also seen a big increase of the despective use in transphobic spaces, even some trans excluyent feminists use the term. I personally hate it, it reduces us to being sexual and reproductive organs and not people

is your problem with the fe-"male" part ? not sure i see the issue

Female is a term that is about a grouping of humans with particular organs. Male is in the same sort of category of word. I once used the term female and was attacked by people who didn’t like me using the word. I did not use it with intent to offend. Not everyone, all the time, writes the perfect thought through essay on here. It surely is the nature of social media: to attack and also to be offended.

In my mother tongue, female is used to address women without social connotations. Woman is used for married women and there are a bunch of words for girl depending on their current age or different aspects.

It doesnt have the same dehumanizing meaning as in English. In contrary, its widely used when you want to give her credit without bringing in age and social status. For example, you can say "what a strong woman" but if you want to put emphasis on her achievements you'd say "what a strong female". Funnily enough, if you say male its usually to put an emphasis on the negative aspects of the gender.

It took me a while to understand that since everyone would rather call me a bunch of names than point out that its derogatory in english.

Some cultures like mine, dont use it ill willed.