Asklemmy

43915 readers

900 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

250

Is "female" offensive? (lemmy.world)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

287 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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 ^^

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Right. This is the best way to figure out if it sounds weird.

If you would use "man" then the word to use is "woman". If you would use "male" then "female".

So if someone asks is the doctor male or female? No problem. Even if they ask "is the doctor a male or a female?" Still no problem. Kinda odd but certainly not offensive.

The problem arises when someone says "men and females" that does sound weird and kinda insulting. As would "women and males".

If you would use the word man, use woman.

If you would use the word male, use female.