Can 「奴」 be used to refer to a female?

Question

Is the word 「奴」/「やつ」 (yatsu) ever used to refer to another female, or to refer to oneself if one is female? Or is it only used to refer to a male?

Answers to this question touched on the word 「奴」, but I'm wondering if a girl can refer to herself like 「嫌なやつ、あたし」 or 「生意気なやつだもん」 or something along those lines.

(I'm not referring to cases in which a young Japanese woman refers to herself as 「僕」 or 「俺」 as an unusual, intentional style, but rather to the case of the average woman or girl in casual speech or inner monologue.)

Answer 1

Yes, I've heard 奴 used to refer to females before. Of course, it is more frequently used to refer to males. But remember that the rules of grammar and convention are not so strict in casual, colloquial conversation (which is typically where 奴 is used to refer to anyone).

Although I've never heard a female refer to herself as 奴 before, I've heard college-age guys call girls 奴 on several occasions. I've also heard it used to refer to animals and inanimate objects.

Answer 2

If somebody calls other one ～～奴, I'll assume the referent is the speaker's close (often the same-sex) friend, or someone has frictions with him/her, or s/he is casually mentioning an unspecified person. There's no gender restrictions anyway.

As an aside, 奴 can colloquially refer things whose names are unclear to the speaker or hearer, in this case it's even not considered pejorative.