Asklemmy

"Woman" is more appropriate for adults 90% of the time unless you're talking specifically in a scientific context. "Female" feels way too medical, like you're talking about something foreign or of another species. Before incels popularized it, I'd never heard the term used as commonly as it is now. In fact, I'd only ever seen it used the way it is now in media where you're supposed to recognize the character as sexist ("haha, the female sex is a mystery indeed" kinda thing).

It's become oddly normalized in Gen Z, but the question I have is: why aren't men called "males" nearly at the same frequency?

No, it's just an adjective for gender. But if instead of saying something like "my best friend is a woman" you said "my best friend is a female" it sounds like you are an alien talking about some kind of specimen.

I think it's context, really.

If you are given a clinical description of someone:

• blonde
• female
• good at math
• etc..

Then there's nothing negative about it. But if you use it in a way that implies or denotes value - objectifies, then it becomes offensive (i think..)

"What does this female want?" - implies that something about being female changes the speaker's attitude about the request

"You're such a female" - implies femaleness to have expected negative/positive traits that are being used as a blanket assumption for the subject.

"I chose Joey over the female" - implies that "the female" is less appealing than Joey by virtue of femaleness.

There is also something arbitrarily negative about using the clinical "female" over the less clinical "woman" or "girl" in these kinds of instances; although either has the potential be equally objectifying, especially if you consider the more abstract concept of "tone" and history of the speaker...

A lot of it is contextual nuance, and even then not everyone's feelings on it are the same. To be safe though, I would avoid referring to someone as female unless it's factually relevant.

incels occasionally use it to depersonify women. like they'll call men just men, and then call women females. that's a very specific context though, so any sane person will not get offended if you use the word normally

To provide some responses to your extra questions:

I don’t think “female” is offensive.

The frustrating thing about offense is it often relies on people having a different perspective, which sometimes is obvious (especially with terms clearly used as insults) but sometimes is more subtle. I feel that it helps to seek out a properly-explained reason someone is offended, to understand the context rather than just the text.

LGBTQ+ politics is confusing …

It's not even that (those letters stand for things and 'female' isn't one). It's not even feminism either, I've seen "femcel" misandrist groups using 'male' the same way to alienate and objectify. Some other people have already explained, it's a technical biological/medical term that is legitimate, but some people (especially those who don't like women) use it in a context that is dehumanizing and objectifying, by not using adjectives or nouns more casual and specific to people. Context is the big thing with offense and something I think needs to be emphasized.

I understand that the nuance, like most social nuance, my seem silly and a big thing to care about; a woman is literally an adult female person and that isn't in itself an insult, it's a category. But using technical language in a casual context can be interpreted as treating someone like they're an object of study rather than a fellow human, same with referring to people as 'it' (a few people are fine with that for they purpose of explicitly denouncing the concept of gender, but most people would be offended if you referred to them as 'it' instead of (for examples) their name or another gendered pronoun).

I think much of it comes down to how "male/female/intersex" are often used in non-technical language when referring to animals (or flowers or electronic connectors), whereas "boy/girl/kid/man/woman" and others usually refer to humans (although they are regularly used also with pet animals, which people often like to humanize and develop personal bonds). That's why some people are instinctively offended by male/female in a casual non-technical context, like "I find you males interesting" or "It's easy to talk to you guys, but females make me nervous". It's alienating and sexualizing.

It's contextual. "Females" is often a slightly nicer way of saying "removed," but it's also often just a neutral term. I'd say the top comment from /u/frankaiden02 in that thread gets it right.

What is offensive is just a personal perspective so you're gunna get mixed answers. Ultimately it will always come down to what the person meant by it and how the other person perceives it, by default that is a mixed bag of emotions and reactions.

I'll note that I do something I call synonym panic where I get to a keyword in a sentence and I kind of blank, start struggling for words then start cycling through all the possible words I could use it and often land on some pretty odd sentences. Referring to the 'past' as the 'back-timies' as a prime example or more commonly just saying the 'stuff' or 'things' because I'm afraid I'm about to choose the wrong word.

It might be offensive to some people, but even if it doesn't offend it makes you sound like a weirdo. This has nothing to do with LGBTQ+ politics

It's only offensive if it's meant to be offensive

Not to me, but unfortunately I cannot read your full post because I do not use reddit.

There is nothing offensive about it. There are people who will get offended at anything and you can't live your life constantly in fear of such people.