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Is "female" offensive? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 9 months ago by Trincapinones to c/[email protected]

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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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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Not English native here, please don't be too harsh for asking this.

I've heard male very often as noun, and doesn't seem to have a negative reaction. Is one "generally" considered worse to use than the other?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Yeah it's tricky. Using "female" as a noun in a non-biological context is often used by incels and misogynists in order to dehumanise women. Whereas there isn't the same trend of certain groups using "male" to dehumanise men, or at least I've never heard of it happening in real life.

In a vacuum, both would be the same, but because there is a much larger trend of using "female" to dehumanise women than using "male" to dehumanise men, it's not a true double-standard.

And as long as you're not being a dick, especially if English isn't your native language, then people will know what you mean. But if you are consciously trying to make an effort, then don't use "female" and "male" as nouns to refer to someone's gender.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

A lot of the reason why "Female" has a bit of a negative slant, is because of the kinds of people/communities that overused the word.

Those groups used female as a way to say that women are only useful as somewhere to put your dick. There didn't really seem to be a group using male in a dehumanizing way, so it doesn't really have the same negative feeling.

Kinda like how if someone just comments "Jew" on a post it can feel negative, but if they say "Canadian" or "Bulgarian" it feels neutral.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Can you give some examples?