Bored Panda got in touch with the netizen who created the “Men and Females” group and they were kind enough to answer some of our questions. First and foremost, we wanted to hear the backstory of the page.

“I started this sub because I had been noticing for years that people would use men and females in the same sentence, and often it was coming from a sexist perspective. "Female" was used to belittle women the poster didn't respect, but because it was a normal word and not a slur no one could say anything about it. This sub started out as just a way for me to screenshot when I found examples while browsing the internet, I never thought the sub would grow to over 73k members.”

Naturally, we wanted to hear their thoughts on why the group got so large. “I think the sub became so popular because it's not just me who noticed this covert sexism happening all over the Internet and in real life. I'd tag the sub every time I saw a comment or post that was relevant and usually get replies saying "Yes! I thought I was the only one who thought this was weirdly sexist, I didn't know there was a sub for it!"” they shared with Bored Panda. 

Given their extensive experience, we wanted the page’s admin to delve a bit deeper into why this phenomenon appeared in the first place. “I think in certain instances people use "female" in an attempt to sound educated or to make their sexist comments sound more formal or logical and therefore have more merit. There are many posts to the sub where men in particular will flat out say that they are using "female" to degrade a woman they don't find desirable in some way, that "they don't deserve to be called a woman."”

“The sexist use of the innocent word has been going on long before women started noticing and speaking up about it. Anti-feminists and incels are just upset that women are calling it out. They don't get what the big deal is because there are no male-specific insults like there are for women for them to compare to,” they shared.

“A lot of men who oppose the sub will brag about how nothing offends them. It's like a white person saying they're not offended by being called a cracker and making fun of black people for being offended at being called the n word, and then they'll derail by saying "how can you compare "female" to the n word?"” 

“It's easy to think something is silly when you've never been oppressed and don't bother to care about or notice the nuances of the culture you're living in. One post on the sub compared using "female" to saying "the blacks" instead of "black people". It's a dog whistle.” For those who are unaware, a dog whistle is a seemingly innocuous phrase that bigots use to communicate with each other. 

“Many users will also defend the use of "men and females" as a way to be transphobic. They're further showing their misogyny by saying "woman can mean anything nowadays, we have to say female if we mean biological women" but somehow the same logic never applies to men or males.”

“I just want to add, using "female" when you mean "woman" is not the end of the world, it's just one of the many annoyances of living in a sexist society. I think anti-feminists, misogynists, incels, etc. just get angry to see how women come together to fight against sexism, whether it be subtle sexist remarks or large-scale oppression.”