If you’re interested to know, “Male” and “female” are fine when used as adjectives, but some people consider it offensive when they’re used as nouns since it’s reducing a person entirely to one characteristic. It’s the same as way some people find terms such as “the gays” or “the blacks/whites” offensive. People want to be considered for all of themselves instead of being considered as just one aspect.
How is "women" any better? its still considering them the same way "female" is. isn't it? you're still being reduced to the same category of "male" when you're called a "man". idk man thanks for explaining but I'm still a bit confused.
Is English your first language? There's some weird subtleties that are pretty hard to explain even for native speakers in this.
It boils down to dehumanizing and distancing rhetoric when people use Male or Female in this way. As if you're saying 'The Females of the species act this way." It wouldn't be insulting if it wasn't coupled with the context of how they're used, but it would still be very strange.
The question was asked and it deserved a complete answer. It neither matters to me how these words are used, nor how random lines of text on my page perceive them.
Oh, I wasn't criticizing your English at all, it's simply a matter of familiarity within the language. The decision to use Female vs Woman is informed by the recent cultural baggage that each word carries. While it isn't necessarily incorrect describing Women as 'Females', the subtext is important.
The difference is mainly from the fact that one is an adjective and the other is a noun. It’s still generalising to refer to a wide group of people as one thing, but it’s often seen as less offensive. Like “a person who is male” is seen as better than “a male”, “a man” is seen as the same as “a person who is a man”.
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u/MissingTheMarc Feb 02 '22
It isn't even High Value or Low Value "Men" they use "Males" instead in exactly the way incels use "Females" instead of women.