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Is "female" offensive? (lemmy.world)

submitted 8 months ago by Trincapinones@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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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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[–] Sibbo@sopuli.xyz 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Just say ladies. That's polite.

[–] idiomaddict@feddit.de 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I’m torn here. It’s a good way for me to talk about my peers (early thirties) in the third person, but it doesn’t quite fit for second person for me. (Edit: ”guy” is also not great for second person, now that I think about it, so maybe it’s more equivalent than I realized. Though for plural third person, it still isn’t 1:1, imo. “Two guys in my class” has a different connotation from “two ladies in my class,” but I can’t put my finger on why.)

“Ladies” feels formal/salesy (if someone addresses a group of women I’m in as “ladies,” it feels like they’re either a server for our group dinner or trying to quickly build rapport) to me, whereas “lady” can often feel straight up rude ( “hey, lady!” sounds like Bart Simpson said it vs. “hey, ladies!” which could mean so many different things depending on the context, but seems less annoyed at least).

[–] snooggums@midwest.social 1 points 8 months ago

While generally true, there are some people from older generations that associate ladies with prostitution as in 'ladies of the night' and find it offensive.

Yes, I have known quite a few and they are in their 60s to 80s right now.