Those are hardcore weirdo incels. I find that the people who use "females" are the soft incels: they don't use the terminology or make 4chan posts about how they saw a woman and got SO ANGRY, but you can frequently tell there's a bit of a tilt in the way they view gender equality.
Maybe it's more accurate to say "alpha males" say females. I think of 4chan incels as all in balls to walls haters/sad sacks who would use more aggressively mean words
Cus it kinda dehumanise the woman you are talking about, reducing her into her reproductive organ and making her seem like an animal (cus we usually say female when describing other animal species). It also implies that her thoughts and emotions are animalistic, so her opinion doesn't matter as much
The issue is when you use the word female or male as a noun it can be demeaning or dehumanizing. Like referring to someone as it.
The confusion is that using the word female or male as an adjective is totally fine and people who get upset about this are either confused or are just looking for rage bait.
Consider:
Look at that female over there, by the males.
Sounds like you are talking about a bunch of animals or something. But if you change it to an adjective instead:
Look at that female lumberjack over there, by the male dancers.
I don’t use male and female in dehumanizing ways, and I still also use man or woman and girl and boy. Whenever I use one, I use the other, I don’t go “man and female” or something like that.
But I do now understand how it can in fact sound bad
Yeah, male and female are fine in the way they've always been used. It's mostly using 'female' when people would generally use woman.
So something like
I met Ashley today, he's nice.
Oh, I assumed Ashley was a woman vs Oh, I assumed Ashley was female vs Oh, I assumed Ashley was a female. The first two is fine. The latter sounds dehumanizing.
Or: If you sound like a Ferengi, you're doing it wrong.
It’s because some people use female in a casual context but not male, which is a pretty good sign of the person being sexist. But if you use both, then that’s fine, though a bit unusual language-wise
Since when was female considered sexist? If I told somebody I had a lot of girl friends growing up they would assume romantic relationships. But if I told them I had a lot of female friends it paints the picture more clear especially because the term "girlfriend" is a romantic title. And girl friends could easily be mistaken as such.
"I was out with my female friends" is fine. "I was out with some females" sounds dehumanizing. Just stick to using it as an adjective, which it sounds like you already do, and you're fine
If you say "I had a lot of female friends growing up" it sounds a little clinical, not necessarily sexist, but at least slightly off-putting. If you say "I was friends with lots of girls as a kid" that's explicitly using English language that describes them as human people, not "the female of the species." The difference is small in this particular context but meaningful.
Language is strange and ambiguous, and words often carry much more meaning than any strict dictionary definition. Ask any philologist to give an absolute definition of a word.
And before you say "maybe I'm just old," I'm in my mid-40s, and casually referring to girls and women as "females" outside of a study or medical context still sounds off.
I mean, I guess. I'm not arguing for, or against it. My whole point was basically why does it matter?
I don't feel bad for saying I had female friends growing up because I did. It's a fact. Nothing about that statement is negative or should be taken in a negative way.
If you see a group of girls at the mall, I wouldn't refer to them as a group of females. But that doesn't mean the word females is never proper or grammatically incorrect either.
This just sounds like a personal problem thing. Either that, or dialects and speech patterns based on where people grew up. You say saying females sounds weird, but based on the context I disagree. My previous example being my context about past female friends.
It's not a personal problem thing, it's just a language thing. You acknowledge that saying "I had female friends" is taken weirdly. And it is taken that way because it's a weird way to phrase it.
Proper is subjective, grammatically correct is true, and still, subjectively, slightly off and that's why people take it as weird. You saying "I'm objectively correct!" about your choice of vocabulary that is off-putting does not change peoples' minds about what words you use.
I'm more concerned with the fact that there's worse things to be upset about. Especially over the use of when to properly use the words girl, women, and female... Like, who cares? Shouldn't people be more concerned with stuff that actually matters? But sure, I guess?
It's possible to care about more than one thing at a time. You don't care how your language comes across, so you assume nobody else should care. They do though, and you just dismiss that by saying there are more important things to care about. And yeah, there are more important things, but that's true about everything. Who cares if I don't ever take a shower and offend every person around me with my body odor, it's my body, and there's a war with Iran!
Okayyyy dude.... You're clearly taking what I said too literally and stretching it. You're putting words in my mouth and turning this into something it's not. You're clearly passionate about this and that's fine, but I was just trying to understand why this even matters.
To me? This is illogical and a non issue. Until today I didn't even know this was an "issue" I'd understand if this was about racial slurs rather than someone's use of the word female. One is intentionally used to insult someone, the other isn't. IF someone is using it as an insult by some community or something, then you've failed to explain that to me. Assuming that's the case then again, I didn't know. My comments weren't coming from a place a malice but a place of just not understanding why this is an issue at all.
One, I specifically mean as a noun. And two, it’s only if you’re not using “male” as a noun. The biased use of it is what makes it sexist. Like, using male and female as nouns in a non-scientific or medical context is kind of unusual, but there’s nothing actually wrong with it.
I am okay with women calling guys as men/man. I don't think they would appear sexist to me. If there is no malice hate using the word, then I think it's fine. I don't see myself as a sexist person either. I'll sometime use the the word female sometimes. I didn't even know there was a scitenfic background to it. I think that is where my disconnection is, so I never saw as using the word as problem. I still don't. And I still rather use it, because that's how I know the word. Females are ladies, I didn't need a scientist to explain that for me.
Okay, but why not just ask suspiciously hateful people what they think? The way I see it this all started because some idiots couldn't be bothered to take the time to talk to females, fomenting narrow resentment into overgeneralized hate. So one group presumptively started labeling a broad group because they might be part of a group that overgeneralizes another group. Isn't that regressive?
Meanwhile, as a biologist who uses male or female whenever it's most correct, I'm catching flak for not dumbing down my language. Shit's nuts.
idiots couldn’t be bothered to take the time to talk to females
Brother…
Also, using “men” and “women” isn’t dumbing down your language. Are you under the impression that “male” and “female” are advanced vocabulary words?
For someone claiming to be so smart and scientific, you’re not really flashing your bona fides here.
The vast majority of women do not appreciate being called females in casual conversation; females being used as a noun to describe women is dehumanizing. If you’re such a sharp person, it should be pretty easy for you to adapt your language.
women do not appreciate being called females in casual conversation
I never said that.
idiots couldn’t be bothered to take the time to talk to females
Females is more correct in this quote since the incel development begins in puberty. They are not resenting the rejection of women, they are boys resenting the rejection of girls. Women come with the transition into ignorance as resentment grows and the maturity gap becomes a canyon.
So females was the correct word here. It's inaccurate to say that boys are frustrated by rejection of women, or men are frustrated by the rejection of girls- that's a different subject entirely.
Ironically, you chose assumptions and overly aggressive word policing over asking questions, precisely the problem I described. e.g.
[would you say that] women do not appreciate being called females in casual conversation[?]
So, boys are frustrated by the perceived rejection of girls.
There's nothing perceived about it. All of the clinical literature is based on deficiencies in puberty, from autistic thinking, delayed development, or emotional injury. Incels are fundamentally adults with the sexual and emotional maturity of children struggling with rejection, who lock-in on online communities (bubbles) that shelter them from beating their own inadequacies. The lock-in is what makes them generationally unique to the internet era. And that pubescent maladaptive experience is what makes them prefer adulthood-agnostic terms like 'female' and 'foid' over 'women'.
you don’t sound smarter for trying to argue it.
No need to be passive aggressive, it just makes you look like you think you're losing and need a defensive leg to prop your ego.
In scientific terms male and female is commonplace. “The male peacock puts on a display for the female.” No problem
But in common parlance it’s not really used. Incels in particular will use “Females” even when they use the term “men” to refer to males in the very same sentence and not use the term women.
To use one but not the other makes outside observers feel like that person is using “females” as a slur almost. like they are less than them so they will not say women.
Same vibe as someone referring to black people as “blacks” like you’re technically not wrong but really feels like there’s another word you would rather be saying…
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u/Quincy_Hater 19h ago
Someone give context please because I use “male” and “female” a lot, why is female specifically bad?