Opinion: The term “female” may be derogatory due to layers of sociological and historical context
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Throughout history, society has created labels to refer to women in a derogatory way. Being called a female dog was a longtime classic. Yet the cycle repeats: society comes up with the latest slur and the women-identifying community takes them back.
This past decade has brought along a new one: female. Referring to women as “females” is nothing new. However, debates about its appropriate usage began in the last few years. What conclusion have they come to?
If you aren’t talking in a scientific sense, don’t call a woman a “female.”
There will be the counter side arguing, “Well that’s what they are, right?” Yes, but also no. Men are never referred to as males. “Female” is not only inconsistent with the language used for men, but it brings in multiple layers of sociological and historical commentary.
In the dictionary, these two words hold different meanings. A female can be defined as, “of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) that be fertilized by male gametes.”
In contrast, Google defines a woman as “an adult female human being.” Female can describe any species, but a woman is only a human being. Additionally, it’s grammatically incorrect to use female, as it is an adjective.
Many people have taken to social media to further discuss the issue. TikTok user @tblizzy said, “It is dehumanizing to refer to women exclusively as females. It reduces us to our reproductive parts and we are more than that.”
Reducing a woman to her sex and genitals is not only inappropriate but may also be incorrect. Not every person who identifies as a woman has the assigned genitals.
“The concept of calling a woman a female is a very historical practice that happens in all oppressive systems where we look at these other persons as some other thing that is not the same as us and thus inherently less than us,” said TikTok user @wearemanenough.
Historically, the term was never employed as a positive denomination. The Oxford English Dictionary notes that since 1400, “female” has been used to describe one’s mistress, moreover seen as a sex object.
Katherine Martin, head of U.S. dictionaries at Oxford University Press, went on about the negative connotations. Martin brought up the OED’s original entry of “female” from 1895, which said it’s “now commonly avoided by good writers, exc. with contemptuous implication.”
The backstory of how “female” gained traction goes further. Andrea Long Chu discusses the racial history of the word in her book “Females.” In the 1940s, James Marion Sims, known as the father of gynecology, operated on enslaved Black women in his backyard of the antebellum South. His research birthed the distinction between “woman” and “female.”
“The distinction between biological females and women as a social category … developed precisely in order for the captive black woman to be recognized as female — making Sims’s research applicable to his women patients in polite white society — without being granted the status of social and legal personhood,” Chu wrote.
Categorizing women as “females” has long existed as a form of discrimination — misogyny and racism.
“In this sense, a female has always been less than a person,” Chu wrote.
For a long time, I struggled to put my finger on why the word bothered me. Yet when a man referred to me or another woman as a “female,” it was the ultimate red flag. It told me everything I needed to know about how they view women: that my only value is my ovaries.
Unlike other slurs, “female” doesn’t necessarily need to be written off. In a scientific atmosphere, it’s appropriate. But in a social sense, stick with “woman.” There’s more to observe about humanity than just their genitals.