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Is "female" offensive? (lemmy.world)

submitted 9 months ago by Trincapinones@lemmy.world 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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[–] Fuckfuckmyfuckingass@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'd say it's a tone and context sorta thing.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Definitely.

[NOT OKAY] "Hey guys, check out those females!"

[Okay.] "There were seventy-five males and sixty females in the study."

[NOT OKAY] "Gonna go out with my favourite females tonight" (unless you're a girl in a girls night out and doing a comedic take on the bro culture)

[Okay] "The shoplifter was ~170cm tall, female, wore large sunglasses and ran surprisingly fast for someone in such high heels smelling so strongly of chardonnay"

[–] spikespaz@programming.dev 1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Why is the third bad

[–] tias@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

It makes them sound like specimens, dehumanizes and objectifies them. Kinda analogous to saying "I'm taking my offspring to the movies" instead of "I'm going with my son to the movies."

[–] spikespaz@programming.dev 1 points 9 months ago

See I don't think that is wrong either. Technically accurate words are valid substitutes for orthodox ones, especially in a comedic sense.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Idk I'm not sure about the rules myself but I imagined it as a man saying that to a bro who would reference the first dude as "a guy" while still referencing women as females.

So essentially it's just about consistency. For me at least. Either "man / woman" or "male / female".

Idk I'm not the language police

[–] tias@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I think the people who "infected" this word just have the general mindset of human relations being no different from any other animals, e.g. they subscribe to how Jordan Peterson explains human behavior by comparing us to lobsters. They tend to take human ideas like trust and altruism (love, if you will) out of the equation and view relationships only as evolutionary transactions. So they probably wouldn't have any problem referring to themselves as males any more than they refer to women as females.