I’m pretty hard to offend, I guess; none of these words gets me worked up.
The female as a noun thing is used commonly by military people, and I always find it amusing. It just sounds odd to me. But offensive? No.
I hate to be called Ma’am because it makes me feel old. It isn’t exactly offensive, though it takes a LOT to offend me. It’s all in how the words are used.
What if someone referred to any of these people (not in connection to their job duties) by saying, “She’s a terrific gal!”?
The only people I’ve heard using female as a noun have been Black men, as in “There were so many females at that party.” It always sounds very odd because I *never *hear them saying “So I was with some males…”
I don’t like grown women referred to as “girls”. Girls, to me, are young females under the age of, say, 18. When you are a female over the age of 18, you really aren’t a girl any more.
I can co-sign this. Maybe it’s because I once knew this freakshow who would always refer to women (this is the preferred term, folks) as “females” in this sort of leering, off-putting way. Perhaps it’s unfair, but ever since, people who use it in non-clinical (or non-clinical-like) settings always strike me as Mayor-of-Creepsville, I-am-a-scientist-of-the-wimmins type lecher.
I’m okay with “ma’am,” “miss,” or whatever. I’ve heard many women in the north get offended at “ma’am,” but I’m as northern as they get and it doesn’t bother me at all.
What I hate is “broad.” As in “boy, that broad’s sure fine-looking, ain’t she?” Don’t really hear it too much anymore, though, so that’s good.
I have a coworker who is somewhere around sixty, and she sometimes refers to us in the office as “the girls.” It irritates the hell out of me. It’s so old-fashioned! Somehow “the girls” makes me feel like we are all there simply to be decorative and to fetch coffee for the men (whose offices are in a different part of the building, but whatever).
If I call you ma’am when I am working with you on the phone, I am trying to be extra-polite (perhaps you come across as really formal to me or something), or I have noticed you are from the South and that’s where my first customer service jobs were so I by Og ma’am and sir Southerners because it’s expected. No sarcasm ever intended.
Hey **Guinastasia **can you help me out here? I try hard to be polite. I say sir to all men from 18 on up, my waiter, a clerk at the grocery store, whoever. I was taught to say Ma’am to ladies. How should I address you (I’m 41)? If I say Miss, I’m afraid of sounding condescending, something like “little missy” in my mind. Ms. only works if you know the last name, as in Ms. Jones. “Lady” sounds even ruder. This has been bugging me for some time now. I can probably still use Ma’am for ladies that are clearly older than me, but, alarmingly, there seems to be more and more fully adult women that are younger than me. What would work in the following sentences:
“Pardon me [________] your car’s left brake light is burned out.”
or
“Yes, [_________], you are going the right way to get to the food court”
None of the words exemplified in the OP offend me, but I wonder: don’t those people who see “female” as objectifying complain about “woman,” too?
The only times I’ve heard “male” and “female” as nouns they were in stuff along the lines of official documents, cop reports etc. Since the two terms are being used equally, I don’t find it offensive.
In a technical or clinical paper or presentation (e.g., “In our experimental trial, 40% of the female patients responded positively…”), female seems appropriate. In casual conversation, it can sometimes, not always, strike me as an odd construction, especially when it’s spoken with a certain tone.
To Nava, a “woman” is human. A “female” may not be, it isn’t even necessarily alive.
Yeah, but a “woman” is defined by her position in reference to a man. Like I said, the times I’ve encountered “female” as a noun, “male” was being used in the same fashion; last I checked, “male” doesn’t imply “human” either - it’s the context that does.
I had no idea that anyone found ma’am offensive until I saw an episode of The West Wing where Allison Janey’s character CJ gets annoyed at it: “Did he just ma’am me?” It was silly, as (if I recall correctly) she had just become White House Chief of Staff, a very powerful position.
I was raised to use it as the female equal to “sir”. If you are going to take offense at an honest effort to be polite and respectful, that is your own problem.
By that rationale, a woman or man isn’t necessarily even alive, though. I also don’t get all this “a female isn’t necessarily human/alive”–like just because this word can describe things that are dead or animals, does that make it an offensive word?
Not the person the question was addressed to, but:
“Miss” is fine for your example #1, esp. if you use the exact same tone of voice that you’d use to say it to a guy with the word “Sir.”
#2 – why do you need anything in that blank? (Seriously.)
In my first post, I said not offensive, so that question is not relevant.
How so?
I have slowly gotten used to ma’am, but up here in the north, there definitely is a time when you feel the switch from “miss” to “ma’am” and it means you are now old to the people calling you it. Mature, as they say. Mine came right around 30 and I clearly remember the feeling.
Hysterical, well people do get hysterical, but I hate when people call a woman hysterical just because she is a woman, when no doubt a man would be freaking out in a similar situation.
Female? This bothers people?
Hon - I hate hon. As in the condescending “you got that ok hon?” gggrrrrrrr. husband does this just cause it makes me mad. I don’t even like it when its said by other women.
No problem with “female”, “woman”, “lady”, “ma’am” (though I agree that it makes me feel old), “miss” (borderline, I am too old to be a miss unfortunately). Anaamika explained the issue between Ma’am and Miss exactly right.
Don’t really care for: “girls” (unless its said in terms of a “girls nite out” and not in a condescending way, context and tone mean a lot on this one), “broad”, “chick”, and the “c” word makes me see red. Bitch is ok if the person in question (including myself) is acting like a bitch (its fun to call men bitches, they don’t like that at all). Its not cool if its just about someone’s gender.
I can see why some people don’t like “hysterical”, but the word itself doesn’t bother me. Ma’am is tricky - it’s not impolite by any means, I think it’s an age thing - ma’am seems like a word you use when you’re talking to a woman sigificantly older than yourself, so I think it makes people feel old when it’s used towards them. I don’t think it’s offensive though.
Female, the word, is fine. But some men use it oddly - “I can’t relate to females”, that sort of thing. It does make them seem like they think women are some sort of whole other species, and that women are basically all the same. You don’t really hear people use the word male in the same way.