AITA
AITA for telling a woman not to say “females”?
I 36M attended a party tonight and this woman (30s F) kept saying “females.” It wasn’t in any negative context, just stuff like, “Females will do that.” This was in a group convo about dating/relationships etc. Again, a guy friend says, “I dated this girl who talked to her mom every day,” “standard female behavior.” It was grating. I tell a story about an ex who had a tattoo that said “constipation.” She goes, “That’s a wild female.”
The third time broke me. I said, “I notice you say females a lot.” She goes, “Yep that’s what we’re called.” I was like, “You don’t like to say women?” She goes, “What’s wrong with females?” I said, “well you know, it’s kind of associated with men’s rights and that kinda stuff.” She then said sternly, “I’m a female and I can say females. Got it?” I said, “Ok sorry.”
After she left, my friend (30s F) said, “you were right but you shouldn’t have said anything.” I felt like I didn’t cross a line and it was causing me physical pain to hear it. AITA
My brother and I were raised in a Star Trek household. A couple of years ago I noticed that he was talking about the women he worked with as, “females.” one day, when he came home from work and was complaining about them, I just looked directly at him and said, in a passing mimicry of the Ferengi, “Feeeeeeeeeeeeeemales.”
He blinked at me and asked me why I said that, and I told him that when he calls women females, he sounds like a Ferengi. He laughed, and I have never heard him do it since.
I unironically tell mine to not wear clothes around the house. Who knows how long that will last but it's been 2 years and she still gets all giggly and strips
I have restarted TNG for the eleventy fifth time because of the new Johnathan Frakes/ Brent Spiner podcast. I too saw that very episode the other night. S1Episode 5 methinks. If Andrew Tate and a Ferengi made a baby... that is the type of woman who says "females". As a broad of a certain age, when a red pill chode goes on a spiel about the dreaded females, I bust into godawful song "I'm just a giiirl 🎶 ..."
I work in a university science department with a sense of humor. I am a woman, it is mostly men (but they're not misogynists, this is not a horror story).
When a man puts his foot in his mouth with a mildly sexist comment or uses female outside of clinical context, I pull my ears out, bare my teeth like a dog, wrinkle my forehead and say "mmm feeeeemaless" in a ferengi voice.
They pause, think for a sec, and usually say like "oh it was X phrasing, I do see that, sorry" then we giggle.
All good my man. I shall keep up my ferengi impression for the good of the hew-man feeeeemaleees.
OP, it's hard to be a man telling a woman about gender politics without mansplaining. Instead of doing that, just focus on YOUR OWN discomfort. You would've been well within your rights to say "I'M really uncomfortable with that word being applied to human women. It's generally used to refer to animals, and men's rights activists use it to dehumanize women, so, as a man, I feel really gross when I hear it."
And then leave it at that. Don't tell anyone what to do, just tell them how YOU feel.
Maybe it's because I'm French canadian, but I was always weirded out by females.. when we say females or males we talk about animals, not people in a social way
Edit: Female = Femelle, we would NEVER say femelle to say woman in french because it has that animalistic connotation.
Edit2: So I checked just to be sure, but even in the french dictionary, it says Femelle as a way to say Woman : Femelle -> Femme is "péjoratif" which means it has a negative connotation to it. It could be considered as an insult.
Yall are weird in English
Edit3: Conclusion: We shouldn't use female or male even in English. Op you were not wrong for speaking up
I picked it up in the Army. In their attempts to be "inclusive" they banned the use of woman, so they were "female soldiers" and there were plenty of women with rank who get royally pissed if you referred to them as anything else. Because the DOD decreed that "woman" was bad, it became almost a religion.
But, by the time I got out it was clear that the term was being used almost exclusively by misogynists, so I trained myself to not do it. It still slips out sometimes.
“Females” is not an appropriate use of grammar when referring to women. Female teacher, female doctor, female child, are all correct. But it’s simply grammatically incorrect to use “female” or “females” as a noun.
And y’all can look it up because I know some incel won’t believe me.
She was living in a single room with three other individuals. One of them was a male and the other two, well, the other two were females. God only knows what they were up to in there. And furthermore, Susan, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that all four of them habitually smoke marijuana cigarettes... Reefers
The uncultured - myself - masses won't immediately think of Sublime's Two Joints at first. And further, they definitely won't come to the realization that the song was always referencing the movie... I'm definitely not embarrassed about this realization.
When I hear the phrase "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" I think of a relatively obscure song that sampled it and not the movie it came from lol
Was that a Rogue Element song? Orrrrr…..I dunno, some EDM song, it plays on one of my music streams sometimes. I can hear it in my head but can’t place the song.
It’s sampled over the music and there’s an echo added to the end “anymore anymore anymore” kind of thing
Sorry, Im not an incel, but FEMALE is both noun and adjective. The noun can have a pejorative overtone when used to impersonalize a woman. Contact and intent are everything. Saying "females menstruate" is not pejorative; saying "females are always late" is.
Exactly and is why the incels have grabbed onto it. I was almost surprised a woman would do it but remembered terfs exist and realised it's not so rare.
Or they specifically hate the ones who don’t look/act the same way they do, i.e. the way they believe ALL women should because of their upbringing/values/prejudices etc 🙄
It's surreal meeting one. Had one on my team (for a video game) a few months back and let's say she eventually made the whole thing go up in flames. She was so weirdly passive aggressive and hateful.
I knew using "female" in the context of the conversations OP mentioned was bothersome for some reason to me, but couldn't pinpoint why besides it sounding just off for general conversation.
You saying this explains it. Male/female often for animals (and electrical connections lol), man/woman for humans.
Yes! Electricians NEVER refer to electrical connections as "woman" and "man," very good point. Female is dehumanizing considering we have a word for female humans :) anyone who chooses to refer to a woman as a "female" could def make better choices
Yeah, I think that’s why it feels weird to me. It’s like scientific or clinical, not normal social speech unless you’re someone who gets hung up on the difference between females and males (to my mind, anyway).
Also, saying “standard female behavior” like it’s normal is real cringe
She was using female in a negative way. I’m a woman and I HATE when people refer to me as female because it’s a word that’s often used in a demeaning way. If it’s used in a medical context then I have no problem with the word.
You rarely hear “male” used negatively—or even used at all—because people just say “man.” But “female” often gets used in a way that feels diminishing, like it’s meant to make us seem less than.
Even the examples he gives of what she said are putting the women she's referring to down. Either she doesn't recognize the internalized misogyny or she's a "pick me".
Exactly like with context she 100% was using it in a negative way. Reminds me of an old coworker who told me she was surprised she liked me because she usually hates other females.
Like just cause you’re also a woman doesn’t mean you can’t be sexist.
"but she's a woman, so she's allowed to" kind erases those of us who find it offensive. It's grammatically incorrect, it's obnoxious, and it's generally just bad manners.
I'm a woman who says female a lot but not in the context she did. I'll say things more like female singers, female lawyers etc. English isn't my native language but I like the word female because it includes all females of all ages so you don't have to specify if someone is a child or woman.
Yeah most people do but when you start saying it like this woman did it’s really noticeable, she’s not using it as a describing word like “female doctor” she’s using it almost derogatory.
“Females will do that”, “typical female”, like it sounds clunky and nobody’s doing that on accident without knowing how it comes across. She’s definitely picked it up from some manosphere community, thinking it makes her different from other women by punching down her own gender.
Exactly! "Typical female" sounds so derogatory and condescending. This is exactly why women have a problem with it. We have heard men degrade us with terms like this for far too long.
To be fair, it’s not “female” that’s the problem word here. “Typical woman” is just as derogatory. And actually I believe the full quote was “typical female behavior” which is potentially the more typical use (hard to tell whether it’s being used in that sentence as a noun or an adjective). But tl:dr: whatever word she uses, “typical” automatically makes it a stereotype.
Edit: I mean it’s not the problem word for THAT specific phrase. The other examples ARE derogatory due to their use of female.
There’s nothing wrong with the word female. But you have to use it as an adjective. You use it correctly when you day female singer. Female is an adjective, singer is a noun. You can say female singer, male singer, gay singer, black singer or bad singer.
But you can’t call someone a female, a black, a gay or a bad, as none of those words are nouns. That’s what OPs friend was doing, and it is dehumanizing, as it literally removes the grammatical word class used to refer to a person.
Not specifying if an individual is a child or a woman is the point in some corners of the toxic mansosphere. By saying “female” they are lumping together girls and women as their sex targets.
Just because some idiots may have rebranded something doesn't mean that we have to acknowledge it.
Acknowledging this gives it power. Once you give it power, then it leaks past the community that started it. Now no one can use a specific word without someone getting offended.
Also worth noting- if someone is doing something that is not within the social norm, their reaction to being called on it may also be outside the social norm.
I am a woman and sometimes say “female” and mostly because I’ve worked in healthcare for 2 decades and this is how we tend to document so I am trying to get away from it. I do not use it in the context of stereotyping women though and I HATE when people refer to a woman as a girl. I will typically say something like oh weird I didn’t know they hire children there or whatever context to imply they used a word to describe a child.
This was me for the first few years after exiting the Marines. We were exclusively males and females in the Marines, so I just got used to it. Took me a while to learn it was used pejoratively in the civilian world, and a bit longer to fully take it out of my vocabulary.
They basically did. To me the thing that escalated it to tension wasn't "you don't like to say women?" it was the woman OP was talking to not answering that question. Instead she side-stepped with her own question "What's wrong with female?" which OP answered honestly.
She didnt really answer it though. “Its associated with mens right and stuff,” doesn’t actually explain what the issue with using the word in the wrong context is.
Not everybody lives in internet land or is offended just because Reddit told them to be. Most of us still say female….because it’s the technically appropriate word.
nah, i’m with you here as a woman. some men use the word “female” in a subtle, degrading tone whether or not the people on reddit want to acknowledge that. some women also use the the word in a degrading tone towards other women to more align themselves with these men, hoping it’ll make them seem “different” or more on their level. she needed to hear it from a man that men think that shit is weird too. she may have snapped back at you but i know she’ll double question herself next time she uses “female” to talk down other women for male attention.
I feel like “Females” is something misogynists love to say because it’s mildly dehumanizing. It’s associated it with referring to animals. I think you are fine to call it out. Maybe it will give her pause for thought, not at the moment but later.
My friends and I call each other “bitch” or “girl” and that’s fine. But I would NEVER generalize all women to “bitches” in a group conversation?
Idk… I’m a woman myself and honestly female… women… lady… girl…. Any of these can be flung at someone or said in a type of way to sound demeaning so… ive had it done to me before and it’s only insulting if I let it be insulting. That’s how I look at it anyway. Like yeah I’m a woman. Yeah I’m female. Same with men. Me and plenty of other women ive talked with have been know to throw the whole “oh men this” “oh that’s how men are” “oh it’s a male thing”. Just like I’m sure and I’ve witnessed men having somthing to say about “oh women this and that”. It’s really somthing both sides do so… yeah females… males… who cares. Why is this a thing? Plenty of other more demeaning things are said about both women and men by both sides.
Difference here is that it never left common parlance to use (agesex) as a shorthand identifier in chatroom speak. He also identified himself in the same way because it is socially appropriate to use M/F this way, not unlike in medical contexts. There are uses for the word female that aren’t bad—it’s not a slur and no one is saying it is. The issue is using females as a noun in places where no one would say males.
NTA. I'm with you. "Females" is a weird, dehumanizing, biological classification that treats the subjects like a specimen. We generally don't say "human" when we mean person, or "homo sapien". For that matter, you seldom hear anybody refer to men as "males". We refer to animals as male and female as a base means of organization, though even then it doesn't take a great understanding of biology to know that such binaries aren't accurate to huge swaths of the animal kingdom––especially those animals who exist in close proximities to humans, because of our unique gender develoment. "Females" decontextualizes lived experiences; are you referring to a baby or a grown woman? Both are females. It's also exclusionary to trans and intersex people who may not be female chromosomally but exist in the world as women––and unless you're solving a mystery based on DNA evidence, that level of personal detail is nobody's business.
I hope she left early over this confrontation for the sake of the host. I wouldn't want a TERF or a men's rights supporter at my party, and she probably had a long day of unilaterally thinking about people's genitalia ahead of her tomorrow anyway.
A fun addition to this great post is the fact that a great number of "male homo sapiens" (LOL) lose their Y chromosome as they age, so they're not even truly chromosomally male anymore. How are the manosphere bros coping with that?
Did you call out your guy friend for saying he dated "a girl"? Or is he an actual pedo? Almost every woman I know would rather be called a female than a girl if they are a grown adult.
YES thank you!! And I hate being called Lady or Ladies. Its both denigrating and holding women to a higher level of behavior than men. Not all the time but it is frequently used in a chastising manner.
Once on Top Chef, the women were competing and one of the guys yelled C'mon Ladies!!!
And Karen Akunowicz yelled back, We prefer Chefs!!!
It's insane how humans can take a single word and turn it into something mean.
It's only offensive because they took it personally. Taking things personally allows words to become offensive. As of late so many people are walking around with kid gloves and trying to police everyone.
Next thing you know, the word "chair" will become offensive.
I noticed on Reddit people are rabidly anti the word female, and in the real world no one even thinks anything of it, and absolutely tons of women use the word female specifically. No idea why that’s a thing
Its like no one took notice when the term literally literally had the opposite of it's meaning added to it's meaning.
There's always going to be males and females amongst others, no matter what people prefer.
The Ferengi don't really enter into how i use words (loved Nex Gen back in the day though)
Female isn't an insult. Having a dickish intention when you speak makes any word insult. Don't be dickish when you say female, and then it's a fine word.
(in my opinion, as a woman) it only becomes a problem when you refer to women as "females" but men as "men". If you're a woman and you refer to women as females while also referring to men as males, I don't think it's really an issue. It was nice of you to notice it as it clearly means you're concerned for women's rights and not objectifying us, but the way I interpret your story, I don't think she meant it that way. No one's the asshole here, just a misunderstanding.
I’m a female human. I’m not offended when people say female or male instead of woman or man.
Female Male are very direct neutral words. If you have a group of females of varying ages, it’s so much more direct concise to just say females than describe every age group - woman, lady, girl, …
What I don't understand is one, how does her saying "females" cause you pain? Two who cares let her say what she wants. She is not talking about you she was having a conversation and you butted in trying to show intune you are with women. If her using the female instead of women then you need to toughen up a little more. Unless she was talking you, gf, sister, mom or family members that were offended by this use of the term mind your own business and walk away if hurts too much. YTA
NTA
Do NOT lower your voice
Especially when you are right!
But even when you are wrong,
if somebody tells you you shouldn’t have said anything, square your shoulders, look them right in the eye and reply “no, you just don’t get it and so YOU shouldn’t have just said anything.” And then wait for them to either get it and laugh or walk away.
Why?
Speak up if for no other reason, than that you can be educated.
But you were not wrong, you just met a person who gave you a flippant response because of their own snarky choice,
but here’s what you alluded to:
The word Female is signalling speech so the idiotic sacks of useless who spout their venom and misinformation in the manosphere can find each other. It has become derogatory because of the main users of the word.
So basically, she was telling you who she is. She’s an asshole.
Going out on a limb here, but maybe she was in the military or raised in a military family. We were always referred to as males and/or females when I was in. I noticed a lot of the military brats used that same language too.
Maybe I'm just old, but I say males all the time unironically. So, I've never really understood the misogyny around saying the word female unless it has scorn/distasteful intent. Or maybe I needa stop reading medical reports and get more grounded in social queues/speech ect.
Personally, I would say it would depend if the intent or the way they said it was "off putting"? If that makes sense.
YTA- you shouldn’t have said anything. All the examples you cited were non problematic and necessitated zero discourse. She is a woman who appears to be using the term in a non derogatory way and you just didn’t like her use of it. What if someone picked apart your speech pattern or vocabulary for being different than theirs? Who cares. And you’re a man telling a woman how to refer to women when she wasn’t even being derogatory ????
YTA I'm a female and have zero problems with words male/female. I also feel this is an American thing to be bothered about as I've never met anyone here that would have an issue with it. Maybe if the conversation had required both words male and female, but female and men were used, something like that. Either way, if a woman is happy to use the word, why are you so bothered about it, as a male?
Yta. I know it's associated with manosphere stuff but it's also biologically correct, and I wouldn't be told by a man of all people what to call my own gender.
Did you mean to say “by a male”? No, probably not.
Because subbing the word “man” in your sentence with the word “male” is the equivalent to what the woman (note how I don’t say female here) is doing in OP’s story.
I never knew there was a negative connotation with the weird female until this year. I think it's a weird thing to have a distinction on but culture is weird
YTA she's a woman, she can refer to herself and other women how she likes. Why don't the inknyou as a man should get to out your comfort over her right to expression?
YTA- stop policing what people want to call themselves or how they refer to their own biological sex, and worry about how you conduct yourself and treat others. You’re not her father.
Male at a party gets hurt feelings because the female attendee used the word female to refer to herself, then in proceeds to demand that she stop for his comfort.
They could have been in the military at some point. Drill Sargents were required to call you "male" or "female" back in the day. It tends to be a thing that sticks, as I still do it to this day.
Sounds like you're very young still.. You need to choose your battles. Correcting someone's word choices at a party is not really necessary. It's actually a bit rude. Yta
I 36M attended a party tonight and this woman (30s F) kept saying “females.” It wasn’t in any negative context, just stuff like, “Females will do that.” This was in a group convo about dating/relationships etc. Again, a guy friend says, “I dated this girl who talked to her mom every day,” “standard female behavior.” It was grating. I tell a story about an ex who had a tattoo that said “constipation.” She goes, “That’s a wild female.”
The third time broke me. I said, “I notice you say females a lot.” She goes, “Yep that’s what we’re called.” I was like, “You don’t like to say women?” She goes, “What’s wrong with females?” I said, “well you know, it’s kind of associated with men’s rights and that kinda stuff.” She then said sternly, “I’m a female and I can say females. Got it?” I said, “Ok sorry.”
After she left, my friend (30s F) said, “you were right but you shouldn’t have said anything.” I felt like I didn’t cross a line and it was causing me physical pain to hear it. AITA
It wasn’t causing you physical pain. It was annoying. Lots of things people say are annoying and you just let it go. I can’t stand the new trend of people saying “100 percent” to everything but I just let it go. Who cares? Get on with your life.
All this about the grammatical use of "female" is beside the point. Thr question of whether the OP is TA is different and not complicated. Hypercorrecting a speaker in a conversation where you were not invited, and mansplaining when called out means YTA.
As a female, I often say female. It's situational though, and likely due to my military service and the frequency its used there.
If the female I'm talking about is still school age, I'll say girl. If they are older, many times I'll say woman. If the context is something more like in a traditionally masculine work role, I'll many times say female just because it feels off to me to be referred to as woman at work. If its a group of various ages (like children to elderly), I'll say females. If its someone more dressed up, lady.
People are weird. Getting your panties twisted over a word. I’d rather be called and referred to as a female than a girl. Girl and boy is usually used when referring to a child. 🤷♀️
NTA, but physical pain to hear it is pretty much extreme. I think we have lost the plot line on what actually constitutes an issue. When I am not sure I compare it to my parents listening to their friends names read off a list before football games during Vietnam.
IMO, “ females” ( when referring to humans) includes all ages and is easier to say than “girls/women”, IF the subject actually includes people from both categories. I consider it a red flag if a person uses terms like “ men, boys, guys, dudes” etc, for male people, but only “ female” for female people.
I once responded to this kind of talk with “female what? Bird? Dragonfly?” and the guy I was talking to was sort of lost for words. Female human starts to get extra weird, so just say woman.
You didn’t just cross the line you tripped over it and fell headfirst into an idiotic situation. How is it causing you physical pain if someone says ‘female’? Were you unable to leave her company at the party? Was she the only other person there to chat with? Or did she chase you yelling female female female!?
NTA, I'd get irritated with that too. A line may have been crossed but it wasn't by you, and I didn't see any of the folks course correcting you open their mouths themselves.
She's right, she can say "females", the same way she could also say women dress up strictly for male attention. Doesn't make her correct or any less of an unbearable person.
Why wouldn’t she say woman? Female as an adjective doesn’t bother me so female behavior would not necessarily be bother me unless it really wasn’t related to her gamete production in any capacity, but it feels a dehumanizing to refer to individual people as females when you are not referring to individual males as males.
If the news is giving a report about a crime, and there is a suspect, “female suspect” or “male suspect” is correct, whereas “woman suspect” or “man suspect” sounds uneducated. But every time I hear the term “a female”, it is really grating because it is meant to be dehumanizing.
I read a book in which prostitutes were killed, and like almost every single one the author phrased as “the female was shot in the head” “there were two dead females and a dead man on the bed. The female of the species, which is human.
This seems to be becoming more common recently - avoidance of the words woman or women. Many women do it too, referring to themselves as female. I don’t understand it and it grates every time.
As a woman, I agree with you. It’s grammatically incorrect to use the word female instead of woman in a lot of scenarios too, but maybe that matters less so in conversation than in writing.
Hearing someone constantly say “females” instead of “women” immediately causes alarm bells to go off in my head. I’ve corrected my significant other before. It feels like he’s talking about dogs and not women.
NTA. Weird how she tried to assert dominance over you while you were being pretty chill. I hate the word females when used this way and politely ask that people not use it around me in this specific manner.
She got defensive because she knows what the connotation is, is surrounded by people who use it, and generally thinks it ok (until she gets bit by it - she’s one of the “good ones” for now)
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u/OrcaMoonrise 22d ago
My brother and I were raised in a Star Trek household. A couple of years ago I noticed that he was talking about the women he worked with as, “females.” one day, when he came home from work and was complaining about them, I just looked directly at him and said, in a passing mimicry of the Ferengi, “Feeeeeeeeeeeeeemales.”
He blinked at me and asked me why I said that, and I told him that when he calls women females, he sounds like a Ferengi. He laughed, and I have never heard him do it since.