this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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When it's used like that it is.
You wouldn't describe a man as "a male", and you wouldn't refer to your mother as "a female".
I certainly would and do describe people by "male" or "female" daily, along with everyone in the military, and anyone else that isn't afraid of words.
"Female" as an adjective isn't the problem. The problem is "female" as a noun.
You can describe a person as being female all you like, but if you start calling them "a female" & defined purely in terms of the existence of their sex organs, you're in the wrong.
Absolutely, just the issue isn't with the word "female" or "male", it's with the objectification and sexualization. We don't have to vilify a word because it describes the subject of undue sexualization. "Person" or "human" could also be used, but I'd bet nobody would raise a stink about that.
If it were a slur or something, that'd be completely different, but this is just a term that people don't use on a normal basis, unless they're part of a smaller group (military, science, maybe ESL) that does use it more than the general populace. Just because you're not used to it, doesn't make it wrong. Vilify the person, not the normal language they use.