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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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[–] DerisionConsulting@lemmy.ca 3 points 8 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.