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 ^^

  • DerisionConsulting@lemmy.caEnglish
    3·
    10 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.