'Females.'

I remember my fellow high school boys calling girls females >50 years ago. They thought it was clever in some way.

And I suppose we were incels!

Not if you have a reasonable command of the English language. Using an adjective to describe a group of people is dehumanising.

Have a little think of how language has changed around (for example) race and disability and you will see what I mean.

Yes, this. “Woman” is a noun, and “female”, is an adjective.

When David Attenborough says “the female”, the noun “lion” (or whatever) is omitted and understood.

Hence “adult female human” would be the correct construction of the term used to differentiate actual female women from people who claim to be women, but aren’t.

Me too! It's a great word! There is a general election in Ireland this week & this is the only party opposing gender ideology. They use the word female a lot

I think it hugely depends on the context and the way in which it's framed.

A bit like the words 'love' and 'mate' when used as terms of address - they can be said kindly to convey your genuine respect and warm feelings towards somebody; or otherwise potentially in a really threatening, aggressive way.

It’s definitely not a new thing because my dad said it in the eighties and it made me cringe then. It was like he couldn’t bring himself to say ‘woman’ or ‘women’ as those word were a bit scary. He would often say ‘girl’ instead of woman as well.

I'm not forced to use it, I've always used it.

We've been forced to use the word female a lot more because of the crazies who insist that the word woman includes males with gender identity issues.

Yes, but it's all about context.

Presumably, you have friends of the same species as you, but would you ever refer to them in - passing or directly - as 'humans'?! Surely you would say 'people' or 'folks' or similar? Even though describing them as 'humans' is 100% technically correct?

At the end of the day the whole gender ideology trend is rapidly losing steam.. Look at the backlash in the USA alone. They are trying all they can to stay relevant.
Young teens and adults no longer use pronouns as it's "cringe" & "embarrassing". My teen said only middle aged politicians use pronouns now!

I’ve also never liked it but couldn’t put my finger on why. @IsANameImportant and @Jasmine82 sum it up perfectly for me.

I call other animals male or female, humans men and women

What did he say when you corrected him?

I hate it, YANBU! Female what?

Maybe the men who use it in dating terms aren't fussy about species as long as it is the opposite sex.

"Oh you mean female human, I'm sure there's a word for that, I wondered what you meant for a minute." 🙄

Male humans are often referred to as males.
Female humans are often referred to as females.
The rest of the sentence normally indicates whether it is humans, or indeed another species, which we are referring to.
Just because some people are using the word in a derogarory way does not mean the rest of us should stop using it in an appropriate way.

Also, I don't think it's a cut-and-dried way of reclaiming the word female (as a noun) to clearly distinguish that you mean an actual biological female person.

Many TRAs have worked it backwards and simply said "I am [identify as] a woman. Female is the adjective that is used to refer to a woman (or girl) - so, therefore, I am obviously also female."

exactly this 👏🏻

But don’t you think it’s important to indicate that you’re talking about female humans?

It should tell us something that it’s incredibly rare to see men referred to as males. They’re always called men, i.e. identified as human. Calling women females doesn’t indicate that you’re talking about humans, it could be any female living thing. Surely being recognised as human is a fundamental right and we shouldn’t be letting some basement dwelling incel convince us that it’s ok for us to accept being called females as though we’re a totally different species to men?!

The word definitely has associations with incels and it feels off because it's dehumanising.

Woman = adult female human

Female = sex capable of bearing offspring

One term acknowledges that a woman is an actual person, the other reduces her to a non-specific term solely defined by her ability to reproduce.

Not to derail, but the word woman is also frequently used in a sexist, possibly misogynistic way - when certain people use it as an adjective.

Woman driver, woman doctor, woman prime minister etc. etc.

Usually, it's unnecessary to point out and just shorthand for assuming a man as the default and/or amazement that a woman could actually do it too.

Nobody ever uses man as an adjective. Even with professions that are female-dominated and/or stereotypically 'women's jobs', people will still say male nurse, male model, male hairdresser if they feel the need to mention it.

Just say it out loud: "My brother is a man accountant"; "My new sofa was delivered by a man lorry driver"; "I have a man boss at work". It sounds so clearly ridiculous; yet "Kamala was hoping to become the first woman president" is so normalised, albeit no less mad-sounding.

As a side-note, I don't know where it cones from - just a common typo, ingrained mental process viewing women as one homogenous group, or something else? - but I see the word 'women' typed very frequently indeed when clearly only one woman is being referred to e.g. "AIBU to find this women infuriating?". I can't ever recall seeing somebody typing 'men' when they're talking about only one man.

I was watching Until I Kill You recently and noticed that Delia Balmer pointedly referred to 'females' instead women, and i thought it was very odd. I agree, op. 'Female' when talking scientifically about biology, but 'women' in all other situations. Indeed, the term 'females' was used by Martin in Friday Night Dinner, about which his sons cringed and teased him - so I don't think we're alone in finding it dehumanising!

Absolutely. Whenever I see ‘female’ as a stand-alone I’m always thinking ‘a female what? A female dog? A female shark?’. It specifically removes the ‘human’ aspect, that’s why it’s dehumanising!

Its interesting to see from this thread that so many people either don’t know or don’t care about the long history of men deliberately using ‘female’ to dehumanise women. It’s deeply associated with the incel / alpha male / andrew Tate movement.

No offence meant to anyone re my current user name... it's from a film, so it's not necessarily my way of addressing more than one person at a time.
Am I forgiven?

My dad‘s not even 60 and used it the other day - he wanted to take a photo of my new DS and ‘the females’ - me, my gran, my mum and my sister. So he’d refer to his own wife and children (and MIL) as ‘females’ 🤨🤢

The article you shared puts it perfectly.

At the end of the day there are two sex Male & Female. It is absolutely correct to use the terms.