I have such a weird take on this, due to being in the military for so long. We absolutely do refer to one another as “males” and “females”.
Ie. “There was a female SSgt that was really helpful in customer service” or “I had to remind a male Soldier to put on his cover when he left the building” or “I had a female troop once”.
However, I try really hard when I’m speaking to a non-military member to switch up my phrasing. Sometimes I still slip up, and I gotta be like “shit, sorry, I mean that woman cashier over there” or whatever it is that I’m talking about.
I will say though, I do distinctly remember having that conversation during basic training, and fucking hating being referred to as “female” in the beginning, and that thought being shared amongst my flightmates. I can still hear the TIs shouting from across the parking lot: “GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW, FE-MALE!” Ugh.
It was just 16 years ago now, so “female” has become normalized.
In your first examples, you are using female as an adjective. A female troop, a female Sargent, a male soldier. That’s usually fine. Even “that female cashier over there” is probably fine. However if you say “that female over there” or like you pointed out, “get over here right now, female” or really any other instance where female is used as a noun instead of an adjective, that’s where it becomes gross. It’s all about adjective vs noun. Adjective: usually fine. Noun: usually not.
Yeah after I posted the comment, I was reading through other people’s, and someone pointed this exact difference out. This take makes full sense to me!!!
Any wedding where the bride is allowed to speak, and wear clothes, is doomed to fail.
Back on reddit I remember getting downvoted a lot for that time I suggested a guy referring to women as “females” was a red flag. Glad I’m not alone in thinking that.
Clinical nomenclature has a place but social interactions aint it
I will never understand the drama over the word “female”.
I set up a doctor’s appointment the other day, and I was asked if I had a doctor preference. I responded and said “I’d prefer a female doctor.” According to the internet, apparently I should have asked for a “woman doctor”.
Reversing the gender, I’d be asking for either a “male doctor” or a “man doctor”. I will literally never use the phrase “I’d prefer a man doctor, please.” Because it has weird connotations, and doesn’t even roll off the tongue as well.
So because I believe in male/female equality, I am necessarily required to treat them the same, with similar varieties of words.
So what’s the problem? Give me a reason why I should use the less technical versions of words that invoke social-gender-stereotypes when I want to avoid all of that entirely.
My understanding is that its less about the word itself and more about the usage in contrast to how the same person refers to men. Males will be men, dudes, bros, etc. but they’ll only refer to women as females. Usually with a thinly veiled distain. “All these dudes just hanging out but the FEMALES are fighting.” or some shit.
“It is unfair how I am treated,” he said, “the moment I see a female and say ‘hello there female’ they always leave after saying something. I don’t know what they said because I wasn’t listening but they are being very rude.”
“I don’t understand what it is that makes women seem uncomfortable around me… likely they are just intimidated to be in the presence of a real alpha man like me. I don’t blame them for that.”
I know you’re joking but that last paragraph made me throw up in my mouth a little bit
I don’t understand. My girlfriend calls women “females”.
So long as you’re not using it in a disrespectful way, there’s no reason why women can’t be called what they are. What’s next? Getting upset because I call it a vagina instead of a “pussy”?
I’ve never read any internet comment using “female” as a noun for human women that wasn’t problematic.
It’s generally the difference between using it as a descriptor, and a noun. Noun bad.
Compare “I really like watching the female football game” and “I really like watching the women’s football game”
“Female” isn’t trans-inclusive, but people aren’t going to look at you weird either way you say it.Now compare that to:
“I really like watching the females play football.” and “I really like watching the women play football.”
“Females” here makes you sound like you’re getting sexual gratification from watching the players, or that you see them as nothing more than a vagina, “women” sounds like you might like the game.And/or it makes you sound like a zoologist
But what if I am a zoologist?
I use to call to females woman
I write it females because I don’t like the look of the word woman, it’s not a sexist thing it just never looks right to me and I always worry I did it wrong.
In general, female is an adjective. It can be used as a noun, but generally shouldn’t be, at least when talking about humans. So you can say “my female colleague” or “a woman I work with”. You can say “the female mind” or “a woman’s brain.” You can say “a panel of female postal workers” or “a panel of women who work for the post office.” If you stick to the adjective/noun rule, you’ll come off far less offensive/gross sounding. Hope this helps.
I just avoid it altogether and rephrase my use of “females” to be inoffensive but to be honest I don’t particularly get why it’s so offensive.
I want to start by saying this is an attempt at an explanation not just for you, but anyone who stumbles upon this thread, and is not making any assumptions of anyone’s character.
The answer to why it’s offensive or gross is twofold.
First is that using it as a noun like saying “I went on a date with a female” sounds clinical or sterile. Female as a noun is mostly used in science and medicine, and women don’t want to feel like test subjects. They get objectified enough as it is. Is it technically incorrect? No. But it feels that way to the person being called it.
Which leads to the second, more important reason. They’ve asked. Again, to emphasize the importance: They’ve asked. In general (yes there are exceptions), women have asked people to stop referring to them as females (the noun), and if you respect people, then you call them what they ask. You hopefully don’t call Asians Orientals anymore. And when your friend Stephen says he goes by Steve, hopefully you say Steve the majority of the time. Or if Richard really hates being called Dick, then hopefully you don’t call him Dick. Language is fluid and cultural, and if you want to get along with people (Asians, Steve, Richard, women) then you should learn to use language their way.
I think that is really the more important reason, because it’s totally fair if you don’t understand why someone else finds something offensive. Everyone has had different life experiences and not everything offends everyone. But when a large swath of society says they find it offensive and you continue to do so, then you are being offensive regardless of whether or not you understand why. And in the end, if you choose to continue to be offensive just because you don’t buy the reasoning, then you shouldn’t be surprised when you get bad reactions and find it hard to bond.
Tips for a better life: Call people what they want to be called. Be nice for no reason. If in doubt, ask for advice from someone who doesn’t look like you.
Hope this makes at least some sense.
“Female as a noun is mostly used in science and medicine, and women don’t want to feel like test subjects.”
I was told not to do this in science courses, mostly because it’s not correct rather than notions of creepiness. It applied to any adjective but male and female were called out specifically. This was decades before “woke” was a thing.
I think it’s not really used in the sciences, it’s used by people who want to sound scientific but aren’t.
That’s interesting. In my science classes, and several others past level 12, instructors did and returning for CE, still do use fe/male. I’m wondering if this is regional, because a. there are plenty of military bases in my state and surrounding, b. plenty of medical university hospitals, c. plenty of elderly. What I’m getting at is people get into a habit of speaking a certain way at work, and it does spill over into everyday speech, unconsciously, especially when others speak similarly, and if they don’t, seldom raise an eyebrow, let alone a fuss.
Gotcha.
I don’t think it’s either.
Ok, though I have never heard anyone say that without joking, change that " I went on a date with a male". Offensive? “I went on a date with a dude” Offensive? I don’t think so. Similarly everyone gets objectified, that’s part of being a human unfortunately since everyone uses everyone else as objects.
Asking to stop isn’t a point, I can ask you to stop breathing does that obligate your breathing to be offensive? No, it simply means you feel that way. We don’t call asians oriental anymore because it’s not accurate and comes from a time when the average person if they met an Asian person they had probably met a Chinese person. Fun example being Indians, they’ve asked routinely not to be called that and guess what? They keep getting called Indians. Offensive? No, hilarious because all it points out is white European hubris. Similarly, what Steven wants to be called is irrelevant, what they respond to is if you get my point.
As the supreme court famously said, “one man’s vulgarity is another man’s lyric.” I can’t determine what is going to offend you because there is such a crazy weird amount of shit to be offended about, an accurate title that just makes you feel weird is not something worth worrying about. I avoid it anyway because I don’t like to hear people’s word virtue signaling rants when I don’t.
It’s not not-nice to call a female a female, it might make you feel weird but that’s a you issue not an anyone else issue.
Using “male” and “female” as nouns is offensive because it dehumanizes the subject and reduces them to their gender.
A “woman” is inherently human – specifically an adult female human. By calling that person only “a female” you remove their humanity and maturity, leaving only their sex. This is why it’s so common for creepy types, and why it’s so creepy, because it betrays that only one of those three descriptors is important to them.
It doesn’t dehumanize anyone though, male and female are the two most common sexes in humanity so it being either doesn’t disqualify you for humanity anymore than any other multi hyphenate.
Also no woman isn’t specist in is etymology, its sexist technically we only take it as human because only a human can consent to enter into marriage.
Wif = wife / man = mankind. Literally the wif of men, technically you aren’t even a woman if you aren’t married or at least capable of being married.
Sorry. I didn’t realize I was talking to the man in the article.
That’s a non argument.
“You’re a bad person! How dare you ask a legitimate question in a respectful way!”
Rather than “x is because of y” or “I’m sorry I’m not sure I can answer that” but rather going out of your way to be cruel.
So fun question, how is the way you’re talking to me not dehumanizing.
