I’m glad someone did. (I like you, kid; you’ve got spunk.)
Stephen Colbert said that the female equivalent of “balls” is “Thatchers”.
P.S.: I was going to make a comment about the word testify, but apparently the etymology is the other way around. Good thing I checked first.
Women can definitely have balls as well. I can’t remember who the comedian was, but he remarked that he was amazed that Madonna’s short skirts could hide the massive pair of balls she carries around with her.
I wondered if I was the only one who saw that! Clever, very clever! 
I have to disagree. Having balls used to be an exclusively male term, it’s (relative) acceptability as a crossover term these days is more an indication of decreased stereotypes.
Well, I’ve heard that Mexican woman who *gave herself an emergency caesarian * once described as having “cast iron ovaries”…
Lauren Fleshman after winning the 2010 US 5000 meters claims that her winning move was “just balls.”
No. Slightly crude (much less than it used to be), but not sexist. It has the hallmarks of being sexist, since it implies that only men can be brave, but, for some reason, it isn’t.
I still prefer “guts” myself, however.
SEXIST!
Seriously, I agree with AqualungBats5th. There is a subtext that strength, courage, and boldness are male traits. So technically it’s a bit sexist.
You could just say, “Man, Pat really had some gonads, going up against the boss like that,” but of course it doesn’t have the same impact. Just like you could stage a campaign to change Wednesday to Mittwoch, because you don’t like invoking the name of a Norse god when you make your dentist appointment, but it would be silly and awkward. Language evolves, and you can’t just transfer all the emotional and social baggage to another, more PC term.
That said, I have toyed with trying to avoid calling people dicks, twats, and . . . er, so forth, and take the tack suggested by some gender-equality writers of just saying, “My God, stop being such a crotch!”
Yeah it’s sexist. No I’m not really offended by it. There are far worse examples of sexism in the world today.
Ha. We’ve gone around a strange kind of bend now where people who have gotten fatigued with them have decided that “sexist” and “racist” and things like that only mean “are offensive to me,” so that now we have overwhelming agreement that ascribing a particular positive behavior to literal primary sexual characteristics is not sexist.
It’s sexist. It’s like the least confusing version of sexism you could come up with. What it’s not is offensive to anybody at this point.
How is this not sexist? Apparently it’s not offensive, but it’s clearly sexist. The female equivalent, at least in my social circle, is to comment on the vag - as in “dust that sand out of your vag”.
It goes hand in hand with having your football coach telling you to take your skirt off, calling you girls names, and asking if you forgot to screw in your prosthetic pecker that particular morning when you were playing… ineffectively.
[edit] beaten to it, and more succinctly by Jimmy Chitwood
Thank you for articulating what was puzzling to me in that thread.
Ya’ know, for a very brief period in my life, I tried to take the high road and used ‘moxie’ instead of ‘balls’.
Of those two words, guess which one got more of a WFT reaction?
I’ll give you a hint. It wasn’t balls.
I guess it could more appropiately be called nerve, but the term “balls” just holds more sway. 
I have “balls” and I’m damn proud of it.
This thread is giving me the vapors.
“Having ovaries” doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Of course it is sexist. It’s not offensive (to me).
What baffles me is that having balls means tough, while being a pussy is weak. If you compare the two a vag is a hell of a lot tougher than balls.
I agree that it’s sexist. I don’t find it offensive, but I do find calling someone a “pussy” very offensive.