[goodrubyist]

Do you have any evidence that "Most people who word things that way don't use the term "males" in a similar way". I think it's highly likely that you do not have enough (anecdotal) data to legitimately make a claim like that. At most you could make such a claim about "most people in my experience" but then, you wouldn't have monitored them for quite long either, just for an internet convo or so.