No.
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I understand your pain. My home language doesn't even have separate words for woman and female, or male and man.
What language, if you don’t mind me asking? I’m interested in linguistics and this seems like an interesting tangent.
not OP but in Polish there is no word for boyfriend or girlfriend, you just say boy or girl which is kinda funny. however because Polish has grammatical gender, you can say boy friend/girl friend and even enby friend, thanks to neoforms! (przyjaciel, przyjaciółka, przyjacioło)
though note that partner is also gendered (partner, partnerka, partnerze)
How do you refer to a female animal?
I've switched to Lady for a lot of descriptors that I used to use Female. And a lot more They. Or just a physical description, like the person with the dark hair.
Edit: I'm probably trying harder than I need to. I just want to accommodate people.
Friend, people will get offended by anything and everything. Didn't worry about it. You just be you.
How about: "The weaker sex" instead?
How about "the fairer sex"?
Let me break down the explanations given, because most of them boil down to this:
As a noun, yes, because it's mainly used in biology like that ("A hawk female") and thus can come off as dehumanizing. As an adjective: No ("A female cashier", "A male cashier")
People that say 'females' out loud in public are quickly assumed to never get laid. It's okay to use when talking or writing about science topics and such.