Was using female as a noun considered normal at some point? I genuinely do not know.

But if it was, it might not be a case of a euphemism treadmill, but a phenomenon related to the struggle for social recognition. When an identity goes from recognition from an outside perspective to recognition from an inside perspective, the name for it often changes. A similar thing happened/is happening with homosexual -> gay and transsexual -> transgender. The takeaway in the context of this conversation is that, unlike the treadmill, it might not be a repeating process.

Explain to me how this isn't a dunk tank post and why it isn't in the dunk tank you have ten seconds

My opinion: people need to chill. and also to understand that English is used by different people in various contexts. Not everybody grasps the subtleties of the language. For instance, if discussing something like "a product highly recommended for our discreet female audience" or stating "no problems have been encountered in the department for female prisoners" is considered appropriate, somebody might feel that writing "To look at a female's behind" (as seen in the original r/therewasanattempt post) is also acceptable. And it's no big deal.

Also, it's a typical Anglo-Saxon harry potteresque magical thinking, and obsession, with language, magic words and formulations. Censoring words just make them stronger. Stop being fucking puritains stupid ameriremoved. Scarlet letters never work. Changing words doesn't change the world, activism about language is just slacktivism to feel smug and superior, and ultimately keeping the status quo as it is.

The "you sound like a ferengi" insult in response to people saying Feeeeeeeeeeeemale has brought us to this point. It has singlehandedly been a phenomenally effective tool in pushing people into seeing negativity in the word and has done most of the heavy lifting.

“the future is female”

its not incels my parents did that, and only when talking about women they dont like. Female is just what you say when you cant say bitch. also women do this too, women can also be misogynistic. my mom only called the women she hated at her job females "those females are always gossiping" "females cant get along, they all love drama" but her friends were girls or ladies.

My mom says females and males a lot and is a feminist. It can be a little grating but I think allowances have to be made for older generations, especially when a lot of the unpleasant connotations are generated online

idk it seems a bit trivial to me, but I'm just removed from actual struggles. So, feel free to dismiss my opinion! (no I am not being ironic)

Where does "girlboss" fall in the struggle session?

There's no slurs for white people?

Those libs beat us to it? I was saving that for a slow day!

I gotta catch myself saying "chicks" sometimes. So like, I got my own linguistic issues to work over.

You could be correct about times changing. A few years ago I was reading research papers on various topics, and words like r#####d and n####o were used with full seriousness. Even if it's silly that it came to this, it's what it is, and there's no point fighting it.

Interestingly, my partner and other friends who are women and whose first language is not english usually use 'female'. It usually rubs me a weird way, since the only other people I interact with who use the word aren't the most respectful towards women.

In my mother tongue, the word for women implies subservience, my mom told me not to use that term when referring to women close to me, instead to use another term which is for endearment (cousins, good friends, etc) or yet another to refer to them respectfully.

I found a thread about this whole thing on r*ddit and the first page of replies were variations of "What? Why would they do this??"
Not one actual answer visible

People just do things for no reason because wokeness or whatever I guess.