I cringe every time I hear another guy refer to women like this
It’s fine if it’s consistent imo.
Men and women - 👍
Males and females - 👍
Boys and girls - 👍
Guys and gals - 👍
Men and females - 👎
Men and girls - 👎
Men and chicks - 👎
males and females is still psychotic if you’re not specifically talking science like biology, statistics, etc. adjectives as nouns are rarely a good sign in general; it’s almost always derogative.
also boys and girls would be fine except most people who use (or claim to use) boys do it in familiar sense only. they’d never call a 40 year old jacked man they don’t know a boy, but they’d easily call a grown ass woman they don’t know a girl. exceptions are some phrases like “big boy” or “my boy” in endearing sense but that’s not how “girl” is generally used, which is a substitute for “woman”.
A lot of prior military folks will use males and females just because that’s how it’s been drilled into them. Male and female latrines, not men and women’s bathrooms. Male and female barracks, not men and women’s dorms. Male and female standards, etc etc.
dehumanization is part of military. that’s not really an argument for it.
adjectives as nouns are rarely a good sign in general
I don’t think that’s true unless you mean within the context of referring to people or something, e.g. the blacks, the poors. But then stuff like “the rich” and “the unemployed” I don’t really take issue with.
yeah, you’re right but they’re two different cases. notice how when it’s right you don’t pluralize it with an -s because some adjectives have a form of a plural noun, so they don’t have a singular form: “a poor” or “a black” is just yikes. you can find words like “rich” as plural nouns apart from the adjective forms in the dictionary. you might find “female” and “black” as a noun for people too, but they should be marked offensive either directly or in usage notes.
so that’s the distinction. “black” or “female” don’t exist as plural nouns like “the rich” or “the blessed”.
interestingly enough there are exceptions. there is no plural noun “the gay” but “gays” usually isn’t offensive as a noun, but also “a gay” is weird and offensive. language is complicated.
Dudes and dudes
The ONLY time it’s fine is if it’s in a medical report or scientific paper. Written by actual doctors or scientists. And it is done to dehumanize the subject to make it easier for, say, a medical examiner to write a report without breaking down.
Using male and female for people is inheritantly dehumanizing, and that’s only ok in very specific circumstances.