Hereā€™s my two cents. Itā€™s hard for people to keep up with the euphemism treadmill. There was a time when the word ā€œfemaleā€ didnā€™t have the negative connotation that it does now mostly thanks to co-opting by incels. It should also be stated that the word ā€œmaleā€ doesnā€™t have the same negative connotations and itā€™s similar to how thereā€™s slurs for black people but none for white people.

So why do people find ā€œfemaleā€ offensive? Well for starters itā€™s dehumanizing. Women is a less academic term and female implies some biological essentialism. I think the crux as to why itā€™s a big deal now is that women do not refer to themselves as females in the manner that men do. Men do not think of themselves as males, they do not call other men males, men call themselves men. male and female are simply outdated terms.

I suspect one day as society moves towards a more genderqueer position men and women will become unacceptable to say too. Idk. Like I think we need to acknowledge that there is such thing as a euphemism treadmill, that languages change, words become offensive or nonoffensive over time, and like all we can do in order to be a fucking decent human bean is to conform to societyā€™s standards as to what is acceptable as according to the treadmill. Unless itā€™s some shit like calling the homeless, the unhoused. Then in those specific instances we got to run against the treadmill. But in this specific instance, we need to run with the treadmill on this one. Nothing feels better than conforming with society.