After this “fun” little catastrophe of a thread concerning the use of the word “female”, looking at the comment section, it’s painfully obvious that the majority of Lemmy’s userbase are men. That’s not a generalization, that’s a literal fact.
“It’s just a word!”, “Maybe English isn’t their first language!”, and “Overact much?” seem to be the most common replies.
So let’s do what should have been done in the first place and ask women their opinion:
What do you think of the word “female” being used? Especially in the context of the linked post in question? When is the use of the word appropriate vs. not appropriate?
EDIT: I think the post linked got taken down. Good.
In Serbian “woman” would translate to “žena”, and “female” to “ženka”, but that word is used exclusively for animals. Using “ženka” for a human outside of a very strictly zoological context where humans are just another type of animal is unheard of, and would sound very bizarre.
One contribution to this being a thing in English (some people calling women females) might be the fact that the word is both a noun and an adjective. In the case of Serbian, “ženka” as female and “mužjak” as male can only mean animals that are female or male. For the adjective (as in “female and male anatomy”) we have separate words that mean something like “womanly and manly anatomy”, so you could never mix the two because one is specifically reserved for animals.
The more you know.