To have noticed that men who refer to women as 'females'

[applemac]

Usually turn out to be losers. And why is this?

I hate grown women who talk about their friends as girlfriends. Weirdos

As a leftover from his police days, DH does sometimes refer to women as 'female', but equally also refers to men as males. I understood them to be identification terms to ensure everyone is consistent when sharing information.

PS he is not a loser imo and indeed has no time for sexist attitudes

DP works in a boys' school and he says he addresses them collectively as "gentlemen" sometimes. But he would never say "ladies" in the same way and he feels it would be patronising. Interesting.

I frequently address groups who are 2/3 male, 1/3 female, and about 50-50 adults and children. I usually use "ladies" and "gentlemen".

I don't think using the term "male" or "female" is derogatory. Shrug.

Some people feel that 'woman' is derogatory somehow. I read an interview once with a victim of a crime who described the perpetrator as a 'lady' as she didn't like to use 'woman' even though this person had harmed her. The interviewer was impressed and thought it showed her good breeding. (This was probably the daily mail or something)

I think 'woman' is a word that makes certain people feel uncomfortable because it's a bit earthy, a bit too close to 'women's parts' and 'women's issues' and reminds them about vaginas and childbirth and stuff. 'Lady' is a word that separates naice women from common women who have sex and babies and the rest. Probably goes back to the olden days when women were definitely stratified in that way based on class.

I know a few teenage girls who use it. Pixie Lott used it in one of her songs 'I got your emails, you just don't get females now do you?'.

Same girls also bizarrely use 'lay with' to mean shagging. Saw something on FB recently along the lines of 'Dave is so dumped, he tried to lay with Tash right and she said no cos I know Georgia is ur missus and shes my BFF and so then he tried to lay with Charlotte and she hates me anyway cos shes well jel of me so she lay with him'.

WTF?.

thats very Biblical. Wonder if it is patois? Most teen speak seems to be

yes i thought biblical too

good article! one of the commenters challenged her. He really made her point. He argued that female is handy for when you don't know the age of the girl/woman. right so.............

"lay with"? I love the young people and their efforts to speak like farmers from the 1850s. I'm a big of "oh my days" too.

v susanna and the elders

at farmers from the 1850s! 'Oh my days' makes me cringe

I thought it was very Biblical too which made it even more strange when applied to what seemed to be a Jeremy Kyle episode in the making.

Lots of comments followed with them all using the same term 'OMG he lay with Charlotte?' etc etc.

I REALLY wanted to add 'OMG! I hope they used a condom or they may begat a son and Dave already got one babymother lolz'.

OP yes! So glad you posted this.

My sexist FIL uses it in context of wanting to meet a female, wanting female company. It makes me cringe because it sounds entitled and dehumanising. He just wants a woman to have sex with basically, and it strips potential women of their personhood.

Reading this thread had made me realise I say 'lady' if talking about a woman (eg if I was posting about a stranger, even if they really pissed me off). What is that about? I think I've been socialised to hear 'woman' as rude or impolite. Like 'this woman' has a strong tone of insult / exasperation! As a feminist I clearly need to cut that out pronto. I'd never say 'gentleman' in an anecdote about a male stranger. I'd probably say 'this guy' because it sounds more neutral.

Wow! the word 'females' is only used by rape apologists and people should say 'Barak Obama is a man president'. Saying female president or female members should.. is a bit distancing perhaps as in a lot of formal and pseudo formal language... I think the you have to take your hearing filter out of the equation before assuming what you hear is intended by what the sayer says

"I don't recall any "females' magazines" like Female's Own, Females' World or Female. Websites don't invite me to browse Females' Clothing. My doctor doesn't give me leaflets on Females' Health.

Point made yet...?"

Point completely missed, I think.

"Women" is used in those contexts because they are intended specifically for adult females.

If you think there's a better word to use to refer to females of all ages from birth to extremely elderly, I'd love to know what it is. Same for males, which gets used in exactly the same contexts that females does.

yeah, everyone here is just overthinking, right sparkle?

or you could take your seeing filter out of the equation and actually read what people are saying

Sparkle, its already been explained that using male and female as descriptive terms is acceptable e.g. a male president, a female body. Its using males instead of men/boys and females instead of women/girls which people are objecting to. There is a difference

That's right Petula - us females are always overthinking every little thing, eh?

"actually read what people are saying"

What, you mean "because sometimes people use 'females' in a derogatory way it must be a derogatory word for gender, even though there's an exact equivalent for men of all ages which is used in the exact same contexts"?

er what I'm trying to say is that if you think all posh older men are sexist woman haters and a posh ollder man says 'ladies can use the bathroom on the left' you might hear a sneer in the word ladies when one wasn't there or intended. . and the opposite is true. I sent an email tp someone recently at work to someome who is part of a slightly anti sparklecrate team and who also unquestioningly doesn't like me being in charge of what they see as their territory, and all sorts of outrage and projection was put onto the email that was then used to form a little bitching club where they got all riled and told me the email was 'slagging everyone off' ( these are adults by the way..but politicians) all I had said was ' you've left x out of the combined publicity and I've heard some people saying it and its indanger of looking like you've avoided her because of her race.. so could you put her back into the ad and perhaps rerun a few more times'

What people are generally saying here is that 'females' as a noun tends to be associated with a derogatory attitude, not that every person who ever says it is a misogynist dinosaur.

I was thinking about it this morning, and I think for me the problem is that it uses one single facet to define a whole group of people, as though they didn't any longer have to be thought of as 'people' or 'customers' or 'employees', because their femaleness was the only thing that was important about defining them.

That's why I have a problem with it being used as a noun. I don't define myself primarily by my gender - I am a person, a parent, an employee, a customer, a reader, a viewer. I am a female person but I am not 'a female'.

I'm also not 'a white' or 'a middle aged' or 'an educated', though those are all adjectives that you might use when describing me.

The people who use this term may be doing it without thinking, because it's just not something they have considered. But others do it, deliberately or subconsciously, because it sums up their attitude to the whole female gender. That they are defined, and dismissed, because they are female, not considered as in any way equal or equivalent to men.

'I REALLY wanted to add 'OMG! I hope they used a condom or they may begat a son and Dave already got one babymother lolz'.'

I do remember noticing the owl mask lorry driver bloke on that Channel 4 documentary about dogging saying 'females' a lot. Definitely derogatory in the context he was using it...

It's made me a bit twitchy about it as a noun since, tbh. Dehumanising.