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Exactly. The use of "female" is clinical in that context. It's meant to be sterile, emotionless, professional, and adequately descriptive.

I would say as a general rule its fine when you aren't talking about people, ex: female body armor, female frog, etc

vanishingly few

As it should be. Equality is crucial, and women's rights generally pave the way for minorities. Uff. I hate that this is usually how it is, but look how far women have come since the turn of the 20th century - hell, even the 21st century

Not that we need to open this can of worms here, but it's a pet peeve of mine that "vanilla" has become a term used to mean plain, boring, sheltered, standard, mediocre, underwhelming, basic, and uninteresting.

Vanilla is an amazing flavor that comes from orchids that must be hand pollinated to cultivate at scale, and has a long and interesting history. It's the second most valuable spice after saffron.

Just feels wrong to use that as a synonym for bland and blah.

Seadogs and wenches - 🏴‍☠️

Comrades - ☭

males and females is still psychotic if you're not specifically talking science like biology, statistics, etc. adjectives as nouns are rarely a good sign in general; it's almost always derogative.

also boys and girls would be fine except most people who use (or claim to use) boys do it in familiar sense only. they'd never call a 40 year old jacked man they don't know a boy, but they'd easily call a grown ass woman they don't know a girl. exceptions are some phrases like "big boy" or "my boy" in endearing sense but that's not how "girl" is generally used, which is a substitute for "woman".

Tamales and females

dudes and dudettes?

The ONLY time it’s fine is if it’s in a medical report or scientific paper. Written by actual doctors or scientists. And it is done to dehumanize the subject to make it easier for, say, a medical examiner to write a report without breaking down.

Using male and female for people is inheritantly dehumanizing, and that’s only ok in very specific circumstances.

Does she pass the Bechdel test?

How I use and it will still catch issues:

Male/Female - Sex

Man/Woman (He/She) - Gender.

Cultural anthropology has recognized gender as being different from sex in textbooks since the 70s from what I remember (so half a century). My minor was in Cultural Anthropology so I remember always seeing it in college (2008-2013)

Science will continue to change as we learn more about the universe, so things are dynamic and ever growing to fuller understanding.

Also language is fluid, and changes over time/ location / culture , really.

One could argue It is inherently sexist to call people using the term female as sexist because you are using the assumption that they believe female is somehow different or lesser... And then agreeing by saying they shouldn't call you that. Instead of empowing the term female to mean something equal to male, we would be changing the term over time to mean less than male, which it should not.

That would be something I would enjoy hearing experts in linguistics and cultural anthropology discuss.

That said I try not to use woman/man or any other identifier outside of they if I can. Terry went to the park. If I have to I will revert back to saying Terry again being redundant rather than saying she/he went to watch the ducks play in the pond, as we have to assume gender to assign that Terry is a she or he unless we know them personally, and the name could be used for either. (In reality all names are void of sex or gender, they are simply a name). If I call a tree an Walnut tree it has done nothing to tell me that it is male/female, man/woman, it has told me it is an entity that we call Walnut.

A bitonist will tell you a Walnut tree is monoecious, meaning that it can produce everything on its own to complete the reproductive process. Hermaphroditic plants do not, they contain part of what is need for reproduction, like humans... Which we also classify as hermopheodites. So if we see a rose, a cherry tree, a chicken, or a human, we split them into a category we label as sex. Male and female are the term we usually see. (Most vegetables fall into this category, but that's unrelated)

In a world where we fight for feminism (equality among sexes) we would say all pieces are equal and should have equal rights. Those pieces are male/female in humans.

Our role in society varies and the way others treat, react, interact, whatever you wish to view it as, is what we label as Gender, and gender roles. Humans for the most part have tried to practice monogamy for various reasons. That isn't something that vegatables have to worry about as much.

So feminism within gender would refer to equality of rights within the construct of those interactions having to do with gender. So we label one part of that group women, and one part men in humans, and there is overlap (in both sex and gender).

Overlap is fine and naturally will exist in both sex and gender. Neither sex nor gender should inherently make one person less than another. That is the full scope of how I view feminism. I feel you cannot choose sex, not even medically at this stage but the future may be different, you CAN choose gender as it is your role in this world and a person should be able to choose how they wish their life to be interacted with. If a male/man wants to be be a mechanic by day and florist by night that is his choice, and nothing should look at them as being any more or less for any of their choices so long as they are not blocking the choice of another person's ability to choose their path. My view on life is about the freedom of choice.

So to say that men, women... Any other identifier someone chooses and aspires towards should have any lesser rights in society I would say is wrong. It is against their freedom to live their life with their choices.

All that said... I feel someone using a name/identifier incorrectly is just ignorant or willfully trying to be against others life choices. Many are ignorant and that is what education is for. I will learn more every day and learn how wrong I have been all my life. Those who are willfully trying to be against others though.. they are the issues we run into. So if Fred says his coworker is a female to his monogamous partner, it doesn't mean Fred is a problem as much as that Fred may not have understood the terminology he was using was different than the expectations of the listeners. Ignorance. You can overcome ignorance through understanding, and education. Calling them an issue, often creates more of a rift.

Don't even get me started on how the average right-wing/incel/pilled male is basically already an honorary ferengi...

Sharpen their teeth and give them some giant lobes and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Some of them even shave their heads already...

It's not even technically correct, you'd have to talk about female humans to be technically correct.

Claims to be fe-male

Isn’t man made out of iron

Disappointment

That’s an adjective, that’s fine. It’s about using “females” as a noun.

Female as the adjectival form of woman is normal and ok. As a noun for a human it tells me you’re on one of a few varieties of bullshit

The most offensive part is using the noun as plural when it's meant to be singular, as in your example

Gaslight Gatekeep Womanboss

As a woman who is bothered by the "females" thing, "female humans" doesn't sound bad to me. It's because "female" is used as an adjective here. It's the same reason "black women" sounds fine, but "blacks" sounds bad. It's reducing someone to their gender only, as if they're not humans, too. It feels otherimg.