Bitches 22 73.33%
Females 7 23.33%
neither are offensive to me. 1 3.33
Clearly, the general consensus is that women prefer to be referred to as bitches.
I had never in a million years thought of female as being offensive and I am one. On the other hand, bitch can bother me, depending on why it’s said. If it’s a joke, then we’re cool. If the person is an idiot, I consider the source. If I’m unfairly mischaracterized, I hate it and sometimes it hurts my feelings, leading to me trying to change their opinion. And if it’s accurate, I step back (usually) and apologize, then proceed on in a less bitchy manner.
I think I prefer bitch frankly - at least it seems sort of honest. Bitch is straight up insulting, whereas “female” just seems sort of dehumanising. I would talk about a female dog, or a female cat but if we’re talking about a person the accepted term is woman.
I think it does depend on context however; it grates more in the context where men are talking about someone they’d like to have a relationship with, because it seems like rather than talking about a specific person, as a human with interests and feelings, they just referring to a being whose only interesting characteristic is being female.
In certain contexts, I think it does. Like don’t get me wrong, it’s not an issue I exactly spend sleepless nights over, but if you’re referring to a woman as a female in a situation where you wouldn’t refer to a man as a male, it’s just a bit …odd? grating? I’m not sure how to characterise it really.
Like, if you’re filling out a census form and the options are male and female, I don’t think anyone has a problem with that. But female as a generic term where ordinarily woman would be used always seems to argue a certain disconnect away from thinking of a woman as a person and rather than as a generic thing under the umbrella term female.
Both are bad, but I do hate the word bitch more.
I have wondered about the use of the word “females.” Two of my former colleagues used it fairly frequently. Both were southern, black professionals. One was a college president, in fact. I have only encountered this here (south Florida), so I assumed it was a regionalism. Has anyone else heard this usage? Or was it just those two people?
I’ve definitely heard it more from Black men than from anyone else. And yes, in that context it’s usually dehumanizing as if they are talking about chattel, i.e. “I was dating this female and she…” “Let’s go to the club to meet some females.”
For the record, in the military, the proper polite term for a woman is “female.” There are female barracks, female uniforms, and female latrines. “Woman” is a forbidden word. In fact, when two people in the same unit share a last name, you’ll often here someone call out something like “Someone go get Johnson Female.”
So if you hear a soldier refer to a female, don’t take offense. He’s being polite.
Re-read the poll question.
I’m imagining some scumbag bro uttering either of these terms, for a little perspective. I feel what several respondents are missing here is that among a certain subset of our population (ie: bros), “female” is used as a negative way to refer to women, not gender specific adjective used on government forms. Imagine some guy in a club with an Ed Hardy shirt on, nursing his vodka and Redbull, lamenting to his buddy, “That fucking female wouldn’t take my number!” I mean, I suppose it can be used positively (“Look at the ass on that female over there!”), but it’s usually a negative thing in my experience.
My vote was to “females.” “Female” seems far more dehumanizing than bitch— bitches are still people, just jerks. Men can be- and are- bitches, too.
My coworkers were definitely not using it that way. It was more like a synonym for woman. This was in a professional setting, and one of my coworkers was a woman. I found it odd.
Too late to edit:
For what it’s worth, I frequently here it in this context from younger African American guys too. If I had to guess, the preppy white bros probably picked it up in an attempt to be urban and hip— hence my example of popped collar frat boy.
Christ, female is out of bounds now to?
I can’t use lady, can’t use girl, can’t use woman(well I can, depending on the inflection), can’t use gal, and now I can’t use female. I suppose I’ll try not-male or not-man until all of the over-sensitive not-males that outlawed the other words catch on. Which will no doubt be the next post in this thread. I’m screwed.
Meanwhile, it’s still perfectly acceptable to call us men, dudes, guys, males, assholes, and “hey dumb-ass”.
I need to start dating men. I’ll have to get over the not being gay hurdle, but other than that there should be nothing to it.
I voted the third option, but I am a male.
However, if you were to ask me if I would accept either other choice as a word used to describe my friends who are female, then ‘female’ is less heinous than ‘bitch’.
Come on now, this is <checks his watch and atomic clock> 2012-09-25. Not 1370-05-01.
Do you know the etymology of the word ‘bitch’?
I genuinely don’t get what you’re saying, that’s how everyone says woman usn’t it?
This is an audio clip I just made of how I say woman. Can you create one of how you should or shouldn’t be doing it?
I stand corrected . . . and I forgot:
The pan-fried semen thread.
The semen as fish food thread.
Opal’s buckeyes rant.
[DEL]Bitches[/del] Females be crazy man…
The C word is way off limits, FYI.
Bitches is better, obviously, because you can make it biznitches. Fiznemales? Doesn’t work.
I thought it stood for Beautiful Intelligent Temptress Causing Hard-ons.