Any wedding where the bride is allowed to speak, and wear clothes, is doomed to fail.
Kinda got one built-in.
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!!!
In my native language it’s highly offensive to call a woman a female. Didn’t know that’s the thing in English.
At the same time we call children “human larve” and everyone is ok with that
At the same time we call children “human larve” and everyone is ok with that
In Low Saxon (and Northern German) there’s “Schietbüddel”. Depending on how you translate it it could mean “chaotic/sticky minion” or “bundle of excrement”.
“Bundle of excrement”. Wow I like it
It really really rubs most of us the wrong way. Yet, for whatever reason, stupid men are taught that it is ok to call us “females”. It is like we are corpses. Things. Not even people.
Even if someone called me a “male” constantly it would kind of freak me out. They are theoretically interchangeable, but male or female just comes off less “human” I guess. If they choose to only ever say male or female then it makes you wonder if they literally perceive you as inhuman.
I mean I used to do it tons in the army, that was the accepted way to refer to the women. Like “hey where is the females bunk I need to drop something off to sgt jones”
I never meant it disrespectfully, can’t speak for anyone else though.
It’s not so much that the word itself is offensive it’s just that using it as a noun instead of an adjective to refer to a person carries with it connotations and implies you’re referring to a person as if they’re a subject or an animal or something below human.
Crotch goblins
Here’s a hint, guys: Bitches don’t like being called “females”.
Femoids don’t like being called “females”.
FTFY
“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
It’s not really a joke, that’s just two paragraphs from the article copy/pasted.
of a real alpha male like me
Clinical nomenclature has a place but social interactions aint it
It’s not even clinical, it’s used as a shortening of “female patient” or “female subject” or whatever, especially when lady or woman (which refer only to adult female humans) aren’t universally clear, but people who use it as a noun outside of those contexts are just using nonstandard English, and generally socially inacceptable nonstandard English at that.
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.
You’ve been told (probably at length) what women in general prefer to be called. It’s probably even been explained to you. Your feigning ignorance about why is just saying that you don’t find those answers satisfactory.
You’re free to call women “females” and you can justify it however you want, just like I’m free to allow absolutely zero people who refer to me as “female” (outside of very limited clinical circumstances) to touch my tits.
Would you say ‘women doctor’ in this scenario?
You do you, and you may have any preferences to words you like and people who are allowed to touch your tits.
I’m personally out of the loop on the entire “female debate”. Please do not assume everyone in the world knows everything about it perfectly well. (I’m not original commenter though, can’t comment on that).
Do women find this term objectifying, like a female animal seen in biology primarily from a reproductive side or something? Does it feel like you’re not treated as a deep and complex human and minimized to a sex object?
That’s what I can probably come up with as a first thought.
Personally, I just use terms “male” and “female” where they normally traditionally fit within the language, and I use them for both men and women. I have never seen males reacting negatively to be called that, but I’ve seen many females triggered, which is curious to me.
Maybe women are responding “triggered” because you sound like a fucking dick?
“I refer to women in a demeaning and shitty way. In a way that makes them seem like they are below me. And they tend to be so triggered by it. Hmmm so curious. 🧐”
Does that not trigger something in your tiny brain? Do you not think “Hmmm… Maybe they don’t like it. I should stop doing it as to not be a piece of shit.”
OR you enjoy it when are a bully and enjoy it when people get upset at you for being shitty to them.
So it’s either you have the intelligence of a tennis ball, or you’re a fucking dick.
You should reflect on that.
Nah, you (and apparently a shitton of people who disliked the previous comment into oblivion) made a lot of assumptions about me, and the only reason I’m having this tone is exactly in response to such aggressive actions.
I must assume this is due to the use of the words “curious” and “females” in the last sentence - first means I actually am curious to why is that and what stands behind it and want to better understand people, and second I had to use in contrast to males to demonstrate the similar situation causing two different reactions.
I am genuinely out of the loop, and it’s just recently that I found a lot of opposition to the use of the word “female”. I want to know what is standing behind that, as I didn’t see the same reaction to the word “male”, which is constantly used, even once, nor do I personally see any problem with it as a male.
I want people to stop assuming everyone is trying to hurt them and go on a full on crusade against people who are genuinely curious on what’s behind it or are unknowingly doing something offensive.
Instead, I get yet another attack. If you are truly enlightened on the source of such reactions, I’d rather have you explain it to me, so I would know more on why is it exactly such a problem, and how massive it is.
Referencing my tiny brain or my character isn’t gonna cut it, and by that you’ll keep people out of the loop and radicalized by such an attitude, which commonly leads to the effect opposite to what you’re trying to have.
I will not suddenly change my understanding of the situation by people yelling and downvoting. I can come at the issue with empathy if people could explain the situation.
I truly want to build bridges here and get to the bottom of the issue that started the conflict around the word in the first place.
I’m not reading all of that. Stop being a baby and listen to people when they say they don’t like you calling them something. I very much doubt this is the first time you were asked to not use the word “female” when talking to a woman.
If you’re not signing some important document or in a medical setting, don’t talk to women and use the word female on them. It makes you sound like a demeaning dick.
“I just don’t understand why females do this” “Please stop calling us females. It makes it sound like we are less than men. Just call us women.” “Oh okay, no problem.”
Tadaaa. Problem fixed. Not that big of a deal.
“I’m not reading all of that”
Could have stopped there. Ignorance is bliss, huh? Allows you to rage on someone who literally explained they didn’t mean any offensive behavior and were genuinely asking.
But you do you, even if you rage first and read later.
You’re incredibly patient. I commend you, really.
No idea what’s going on as well, by the way.
Thanks :)
You’re just choosing to be outraged for the sake of drama. I’m sorry if one person in your past has called you a “female” offensively, but lets consider moving on from it.
It’s just a word. It’s not a slur.
The word “woman” is not any better, and even has its own issues with preconceptions. Every time you come across someone who is trying to be stereotypically traditional and enforce any idea of classic societal gender roles, they refer to themselves as a MAN or a WOMAN.
Because I generally interact with people who are uncomfortable being assigned traditional gender roles, it’s more comfortable to think of them as their biological sex–male or female, so that I am not projecting gender stereotypes on them
Now why don’t you chill out?
Lmfao. Dude, calling me offended and telling me to chill out doesn’t work anymore. Trolling has evolved.
I explained to you patiently where your mistake is, and you sent me a wall of text about why you should be allowed to refer to a whole group of people by a word they don’t like.
Because I generally interact with people who are uncomfortable being assigned traditional gender roles, it’s more comfortable to think of them as their biological sex–male or female, so that I am not projecting gender stereotypes on them
That happened lmao. You just made this the fuck up
Dude, I’m a furry. Most of my friends are gay, trans, or some form of LGBTQ+ or non-binary who do not conform to typical gender or societal stereotypes.
Stop being a piece of shit lmao
There’s a difference between using it as an adjective and a noun.
Requesting “a female doctor” is not as bad as requesting “a female.”
I also couldn’t think of a more clinical setting than a doctor’s clinic
Silly comment. I prefer female doctors because I like their personalies better, and I believe that their medical knowledge is equal to a male doctor’s knowledge. It’s also less weird to me to be touched by a member my preferred gender. My reasons are absolutely not related to any clinical reasoning.
You literally used the example of a doctor to disagree with someone saying it’s clinical, I just thought it was funny so made a joke.
And why so serious? Reply to the other person who was actually making a serious point if you want that
Adjective vs noun. Noun-izing some adjectives makes them sound like a slur
A black doctor vs a black.
A Jewish doctor vs a jew.
A female doctor vs a female.
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.
Wait, where’s the part where he calls a woman a *fat whore who can keep chasing Chad but she better not come crying to him when she turns 30 and hits the wall?
*about 75% of this is just a reworded comment I saw today on an article about dating in my city.
Those guys are the rapiest ones. It’s disingenuous to act like the types of men who call women ‘females’ aren’t the same guys who neg, space invade and spike drinks.
It’s fairly common where I live, of both genders.
Do people commonly say “men and females” where you live?
Men/males.
Image of the introductory coursework for people wanting to learn English.
It’s crazy how the eldritch amalgamation that is the English language can have zero rules, yet a dozen unwritten ones of what you can and can’t say. Good luck threading the needle if you aren’t up to date with the latest cultural evolution in America. Add on top that the kids keep inventing sentences worth of new acronyms.
I get what group of people the article is poking fun at, one of them is on proud display in the comment section. Though I still feel people should have a better understanding that as the Internet’s lingua franca you’ll encounter people from a wide range of backgrounds, and their grasp of the language and culture will vary.
This, so much. In my language, even as little kids, they called us “males and females”, very rarely “boys and girls”.
Native speakers need to understand that not everyone knows all the connotations that come from every english word. Especially considering some of them are vastly different based on whether it’s used in USA, UK or Australia.
I can certainly see it being a struggle for non native English speakers or English speakers from other cultures. Referring to women as females is one of those things thats accurate according to the language, but a lot of bigots have figured out that they can use common words as slurs and people are slower to catch on. Female is unfortunately one of those words; it evokes big “I see you as livestock” energy
Yeah. I think a fair few people misunderstand the intent of my comment. I agree that the connotation of “female” makes it a word one should be conscious about its usage.
I was strictly speaking of how non native speakers of English may struggle with keeping up with what’s socially correct English according to the wider Internet culture.
What are you talking about
I feel like the last paragraph made it pretty clear? Most people on the internet doesn’t have English as their native language, expecting all those people to understand the constantly shifting connotation of every word feels rather ignorant/ethnocentric.
But every language has a constant changing lexicon and a difference between offical and actually used.
English certainly feels like a lot more fast moving than Norwegian, can’t really speak for other languages. That wasn’t even really my point though
My point is that a lot of people seems to have rather strong feelings about something that can often simply be an honest mistake from someone who may not even be fluent in English, let alone understanding the finer nuances of the words
In some that’s true for everyone. Even with in the same language milliseconds can change if you’re precived as rude or not. Many people aren’t aware of this. We Just internalize a rythm and a bunch of rules. Then some one breaks them an they come off as rude or mean. Its just something baked into us.
Most language courses will have you learn the word woman before you learn female. Is this really an issue?
What issue? I’m not even directly talking about the usage of the word female. I’m talking about the lack of understanding a lot* of English speakers show when “others” use their language.
To use male/female as an example, my language doesn’t even have direct translation for male and female, we only have the equivalent to man/woman when speaking of humans. I could totally understand that someone who aren’t terminally online may be confused of when to use woman and when to use female, especially as female may seem more formal and thus be confused with being the polite option, just as an example.
*far from all of course
I don’t understand why “gal” isn’t used more. It’s "woman"s single-syllable sister and also isn’t infantilizing like using “girl” can be.
I used to use “guys and gals” in a work setting, but then I hired an employee who identified as non binary (hope I’m using the right word here) and I didnt want them to feel excluded. I started using “all” or “yinz” instead and it stuck. At this point I just don’t assume pronouns unless someone tells me what theirs are.
Still waiting for ‘broad’ to become fashionable again…
In my memory, the term was not used kindly even during its peak.
Eww
But you can be female and not be a woman, and be a woman and not be a female, am I correct? I’ve never used the term “female” to describe anyone, but I kind of thought it might be a bit more politically correct? I suppose not.
I love the scent of a female.
As a humanoid male, i too love the scent of a homo sapien female.
As a sentient homo sapien, I find myself inexorably drawn to the olfactory stimuli emitted by the female of our species, which invoke an unparalleled sensory euphoria within the neural pathways of my encephalon. 🧐
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.
Human women
As opposed to what, robot women?
(All women are human.)
This is interesting to me because, as a dude in his 40s, I grew up with adults (and even cartoons) saying ‘woman xxxx’ being the pejorative (i.e. damn woman drivers!). It’s been weird to seem to see this flip.
Ah! Yes! I’m not the only one.
Lol! I forget I’m older. That may also contribute to my comfortability with it!
In addition to what the other reply to you said, I was talking specifically about “female” as a noun.
“females like xyz” and so on.
That’s true, but the OP’s and my experience is that the adjectival use, like “woman doctor,” was pejorative. I associate it with Greatest and Silent Generation relatives. We changed to say “female doctor,” as it sounded more neutral.
Now, there’s a movement back, and lots of younger folks now say that the latter is demeaning, and that “woman doctor” is the respectful phrasing. I know it’s essentially arbitrary, and defined by usage, it’s just interesting to see the evolution.
IMHO fine:
- female doctor
- woman who is a doctor
IMHO weird:
- woman doctor
- a female who is a doctor
So it’s not a reversal. Using “woman” like an adjective is still weird!
I’m with you, but I’ve been reading online that “woman doctor” is now the preferred form.
I see, that is strange!
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?
Ok I will totally admit that, especially when during DEI discussions or other similar meetings, when my brain is about to say “woman” I can freak out and over-correct and I have absolutely said “females”.
I used to say “boys and girls”, even my female wife says “girls” is fine, but 1 time in 2009 I got yelled at for using “girls” and I have never recovered.
Saying something that may be perceived as offensive and then later realizing you probably should have said it differently is totally different from saying the same thing unabashedly with zero self-awareness
