'Females.'

[Toenailz]

Anyone else cringe when people refer to women as 'females' in the context of completely casual conversation? And also wonder where the fuck it started and why it's become so popular?

Usually utilised by men referring to women as 'females' and, on here, usually by scorned women referring to another woman that their DH is being in some way inappropriate with, as 'another female' or 'a female'.

Yeah yeah, the correct biological terms and all, but can't help feeling this has a rather sexist connotation to reduce women to less, as usual?

Trans Activists are pissed off & are trying to eradicate the world female as men can't be female bottom line. This has been going on a while & the pushback has been immense.

If push comes to shove & "an individual with a penis" needs healthcare they will need to access male healthcare as female healthcare will not be able to cater to its needs for obvious reasons!!

I think it's an issue. It's an incel thing. Incels are dangerous.

But if you are born female you are female & always will be so it's the correct title for you based on the sex you were born!

My FiL who's 80 uses it and annoys me. He's an old age (and old school) Daily Mail reader so there's nothing else to say.

Did you even read the article?

This is where I see it more, too. Outside of MN, most trans-related posts I come across are in support of trans people so I rarely see “female” used to differentiate (I’d more likely see words like “ciswoman” over female in these contexts). Unfortunately many incel types do crop up on my feeds, usually from people I follow on X arguing against them, but I definitely see “female” used as a euphemism for “bitches” from those types.

I don't need to! Female is the correct term for biologically born women & girls. Sex cannot be changed.

I also hate "DH is messaging a female at work". As someone said, it's not grammatically correct, and also - just call her a woman. It's dehumanising and half the time the poor woman doesn't want your lecherous husband messaging her in the first place.

"Female" can be a noun or an adjective.

Absolutely. Funnily enough, the article I just linked to suggests doing a search for, "Females" on Twitter to show this. That article was from 2015, so it's not very recent, but it still stands.

You're completely missing my point.

Yes, this. "Female people" is fine. "Females" whiffs of incel.

Makes my skin crawl. Just say women.

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

The article you shared puts it perfectly.

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’ 🤨🤢

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?

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.

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!

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.

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.

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?!

exactly this 👏🏻

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."

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.