

Language isn’t always about logic. Discussing things in terms of male/female is fine in many contexts but is often done when discussing science or medical topics. Ex: the male pelvis has a different, narrower shape than the female pelvis. It’s also used in situations where people are deliberately ‘othering’ people. Watch any police bodycam footage and you’ll see that cops frequently say “male/female” when discussing non-police individuals.
In daily life, most people use men/women for non-scientific discourse. The women’s restroom. A group of men at the restaurant. Etc.
But here’s the thing. Male/female are used for any species (a male beetle), but man/woman are only used for humans.
Assholes like Tate push a twist in this dynamic so that men are called men but women are called females because it can be dehumanizing to women. When you say female you could be talking about an insect, but a man is human. It’s a succinct example of their philosophy. That’s why people consider it derogatory.
I’ve played it for about 6 hours and so far it’s kind of meh. I’ll admit I’ve not made it to the full in deep desert with PVP and so forth so my opinion still might change. But the early game is kind of slow for my tastes and the script writing / story is just senseless video game tripe.
Also a side note is that so far the voice acting for the story stuff is pretty bad overall. My favorite so far was when you’re exploring a shipwreck and find a voice log from the crash and the speaker identifies herself as Ensign whoever. But she mispronounces ensign as “en-sine” which made me do this: