I asked for articles backing up her ridiculous assertion that female as a noun is ungrammatical because it was a cut-and-dried issue and obviously incorrect. She had been returning to that point and doubling down on it over and over again, and I wanted to put that in particular to rest. I notice that you're not speaking to that point at all. Is she correct or incorrect about the grammar issue? What's sad is that you dance around it to avoid hurting her feelings.

That's why my previous response focused on the grammatical issue, because that's all I asked to see citations for. If you bothered to read my previous posts I seperated the grammatical issue from the political issue. I did not ask to see citations that "female" can be problematic. Of course the issue has been spoken to. My point is that it's an incredibly ambiguous and obscure. Anyone can find a host of writings on nearly any obscure subject online.

And the results of Vivien's research are completely unsurprising. I guessed that the word had a history of being problematic reaching back over a century, but I never guessed how actually ambiguous the connotation has always been. It seems to never have been cut and dry. If Austen uses it unreflectively as a synonym for "woman", and people have been split about it for centuries since as to whether it connotes humanity or biology, the connotations are ambiguous enough not to draw general conclusions about it ordinary language. This was my argument originally, remember? Furthermore, the fact that the connotation has been so dynamic is support for my claim that in contemporary America it is currently on one end of an already-established spectrum with next to no connotation of biology currently.

My point was that it never emerged with a consistent connotation of Biology enough for it to effect ordinary language as a whole. So let me say it again, and you can go back and read my arguments: I objected to Vivien's blanket assertions about the connotation, and yours and D0ma's. I also objected to Viivien's completely incorrect grammatical argument, and her framing everything in a very strident imperative. All of these things I've said. I didn't object to the claim that it held that connotation for a small minority of contemporary Americans, or that it did previously at different times. I never doubted it. There is a difference between the following claims:

(1) It is ungrammatical to use "female" as a noun and "female" also carries with it universally a connotation of reproductive biology that is reductive, so therefore you should never use female as a noun.

Versus:

(2) Even though you can use "female" as a noun and the connotation today among American speakers is as an effectively harmless synonym for "woman", the word "female" has a history of being used with reference to a female's biology exclusively and for some today this connotation still holds, so therefore it is advisable and preferable to use "woman" over "female" as a noun, just to be on the safe side, so to speak.

The citations Vivien supplied absolutely support that second claim. I completely agree with it, and will in the future take care to heed this advice. But the second claim was not the original one that Vivien made, the one that she and you still seem to stand by and the one I've been arguing against The two statements make very, very different factual claims and significantly different normative judgments. There are at least three solid points of disagreement that I took up with Vivien and you and others. I can always enumerate them propositionally if you want. In any case, there you have it.