In the past year, I’ve heard a lot of discussion about this word. I’m here to give my take on it and also explain both sides of the argument.

First of all, let’s get something straight. The word “female” is an adjective more prominently than a noun. So if you were to use it as such, for example “a female bodybuilder,” there is nothing wrong with it. I doubt anyone would debate that. (If anything, it’s problematic that the sex needs to be specified only for women in bodybuilding… but that’s a whole other conversation.)

However, it gets dicey when the word is used as a noun. The definition only specifies sex, not gender; it is literally only to describe the reproductive organ of a living thing. If you know the difference between gender and sex, you know that sex is not always a defining characteristic of a person’s identity. In fact, it never directly is– although we’ve been accustomed to assuming they are synonymous.

I’ll give an example. I saw on Tik Tok recently a video of a guy, with text reading something like: “Too many females learning how to drink like their dad instead of cook like their mom.” Obviously it’s a bit of an extreme example of misogyny but it’s something that stuck with me and I wanted to use wording I’ve actually seen before. Looking beyond the blatant sexism and gender roles there, let’s talk about how the use of the word “female” is wrong. (And by the way, every time I’ve ever seen a usage of it– always by a man– as a noun, the rest of the sentence has been pretty sexist as well. Not always as bad as this example, but that’s something to think about.) The way he uses it, along with all the other uses I’ve ever heard, is to make a generalization about all women. Well, please enter the 21st century because being biologically “female” does not always equal being a woman. Continuing to use that word excludes trans women, and also technically ties in people of other genders who do not identify with their female biology. Basically, we know that you’re referring to women but it is an ignorant way to word it.

This is another thing I’ve noticed: it seems normal to hear a guy refer to all women as “females,” right? In all honesty, I thought about what makes it not okay for a while. It sounds like something I’ve heard a lot. But now I want you to try to replace “men” in a sentence with the word “males.” I bet you’ve never heard that before. I haven’t! It sounds off, right? That’s because it’s not the right way to address a demographic of people. Maybe when you’re talking about animals, but that’s because animals don’t actually have a construct of gender. So their sex is literally all that rules in to their identity. When you’re talking about a group of people, however, it’s just dehumanizing to reduce them to their sexual organs.

Which brings me to another point!!! This is a feminism issue because diminishing one to their sexuality is something that targets women and girls all the time!!! Why is it ok for people to use a word that groups us together by our sex organs like we’re animals?

With this article, I truly just hope I can educate as many people as possible. There’s often not enough time to explain this whole thing to people on the spot when they misuse the word. I know it’s not the most obvious form of sexism, but hopefully I’ve given an understandable explanation. As always, if I misspoke please let me know. 🙂