“women” is pretty widely accepted, and has been for many, many years. The reason why “females” makes people uncomfortable is because even before it was overused by online misogynists, it had an overly scientific air to it that gives bad vibes, especially if it’s being used as a noun. It’s not unreasonable for women to feel uncomfortable when being referred to using language that would be more appropriate to use for animals. The oddness of this is most stark when you see phrases like “men and females”, rather than “men and women”.
I don’t blame people for not being aware of the connotations of using the word “female” in this way, but it seems fairly straightforward that if there’s a strong consensus that a group of people object to being called something, that it would be courteous to respect that. And even if in a year from now, “women” became as stigmatized as “female” and there was a different preferred term, then using that preferred term would also be courteous. If you don’t want to be courteous, then that’s your prerogative, but given that OP wants to talk to women, then it seems like warning him against the word “female” is useful advice.
Mothra@mander.xyz 8 months ago
Yes this list of synonyms for women that changes every year. So far we got:
Who knows what they were called before
Infrapink@thebrainbin.org 8 months ago
There's also ladies, which has been popular for a while. Chicas has some currency in places with large Hispanic populations.
We also had dames and broads in the 1930s, but those have fallen out of favour.
Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 8 months ago
You typing shit out in list form won’t make it true.
AmbiguousProps@lemmy.today 8 months ago
What isn’t true about it?