Is "female" offensive?

Trincapinones@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 246 points –

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 ^^

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I don't think the question was about misgendering people but about using "female" instead of "woman".

If that’s the case then I have less of a clue as to where the problem is

Read the other comments in this thread. "female" as an adjective is fine, "female" as a noun is often abused by misogynists to imply women are less human than men.

Living under a rock the last 15 years?

Making fun of someone for not knowing something, are we?

More like implying they do know, actually. It's hard to imagine speaking english as well as they do and somehow not knowing this.