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Is "female" offensive? (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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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 ^^

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[โ€“] 56 points 2 years ago (13 children)

It really depends on the context. When used as an adjective, it's fine. For example, the sentence "My female coworker has brown hair." is correct. However, when it is used as a noun, it can be dehumanising. For example: "A female at my workplace has brown hair" is dehumanising. It can be used as a noun when talking about non-humans ("After mating, the female will lay her eggs.") or in medicinal context when referring to people with uteruses.

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  • [โ€“] 5 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Not English native here, please don't be too harsh for asking this.

    I've heard male very often as noun, and doesn't seem to have a negative reaction. Is one "generally" considered worse to use than the other?

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  • [โ€“] 5 points 2 years ago

    Yeah it's tricky. Using "female" as a noun in a non-biological context is often used by incels and misogynists in order to dehumanise women. Whereas there isn't the same trend of certain groups using "male" to dehumanise men, or at least I've never heard of it happening in real life.

    In a vacuum, both would be the same, but because there is a much larger trend of using "female" to dehumanise women than using "male" to dehumanise men, it's not a true double-standard.

    And as long as you're not being a dick, especially if English isn't your native language, then people will know what you mean. But if you are consciously trying to make an effort, then don't use "female" and "male" as nouns to refer to someone's gender.

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  • [โ€“] 4 points 2 years ago

    A lot of the reason why "Female" has a bit of a negative slant, is because of the kinds of people/communities that overused the word.

    Those groups used female as a way to say that women are only useful as somewhere to put your dick. There didn't really seem to be a group using male in a dehumanizing way, so it doesn't really have the same negative feeling.

    Kinda like how if someone just comments "Jew" on a post it can feel negative, but if they say "Canadian" or "Bulgarian" it feels neutral.

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  • [+] -26 points 2 years ago (8 children)
    [removed by mod]
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  • [โ€“] 9 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    Using human nonspecific terminology to describe women is dehumanizing. They are women, not "females". The only people who use "female" as a noun mean it the same way they might call a woman a "hoe". It's a word you use when you deliberately want to minimize the existence of another person. Literally referring to a woman like she is an object, or livestock...

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  • [+] -14 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Using human nonspecific terminology to describe women is dehumanizing.

    What an oxymoron if I've ever heard one.

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  • [โ€“] 9 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Of course you think "women aren't human" is a funny joke...

    Touch grass, incel.

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  • [+] -6 points 2 years ago (3 children)
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  • [โ€“] 7 points 2 years ago

    I get that you're being practical here. You're not technically wrong, and the people who are disagreeing with you really are arguing points of nuance.

    But they aren't wrong either. That nuance matters in certain contexts.

    You can pick this hill to defend. Or you can learn something that you didn't know about the people in your online community, and probably your IRL community too.

    Embrace learning something new. It will almost never be a waste of your time.

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  • [โ€“] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Ah, I understand now. You think that "human nonspecific terminology" and "dehumanizing terminology" are oxymoronic. Let me help clarify this for you with a lesson in reading comprehension:

    "Human nonspecific terminology" refers to terminology that isn't used specifically to refer to humans. For example, nouns like "male", "female", "subject", or "specimen" can refer to humans, but they can also apply to things like plants and animals. Casually using these terms socially is generally thought of as dehumanizing and disrespectful.

    This is opposed to respectful human terminology like "man", "woman", "participant", or "person" that almost exclusively refer to humans.

    If a man thinks of himself as a man, but refers to women as "females", people tend to assume he has less than an acceptable amount of respect for women, since he uses less human terminology to describe them than he would to describe himself.

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