Ever since I was a teenager, I used to wonder why rappers and classmates (who were boys) would call us girls, “females.” Back then, I didn’t know how to articulate my curiosity, so I just shrugged it off every time I heard it.

Now that I’m older, I cringe every time I hear a grown man refer to women as '“females.” We, as a society, don’t refer to men as MALES, so why call us females in such a wrong context?

Technically, “woman” and “female” mean two different things.

The word, “woman,” is a noun (a noun is a person, place or thing) referring to a human. An example of this would be: “My sister is an amazing woman.”

The word, “female” is a scientific term that refers to the sex of a species that has the capacity to produce eggs or children. Also, important to add that a female can refer to any species, not just human — and it is primarily used as an adjective! An example of this would be: “The highest paid billionaire is a female scientist based out of Los Angeles, California.”

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.