I disagree and agree with both you H.N. here.

Women are females too. Women are also animals because we belong to phylogenic Kingdom of Animalia, the same as human males. We’re not plants.

So, it’s not always incorrect to use the term female in reference to women.

That said, I agree with her that this particular instance was an incorrect usage of the term, regardless of the biological nature of the rest of the paragraph. When the direct object of a sentence is a person, use a term of personhood, as she said.

The sentence said, "I was talking to females". Would you/could you replace "I" in that sentence with "Males" without it diminishing the subject, shifting the meaning of the sentence, or disrupting the flow/impact of what you’re trying to say?

No. You can’t. It follows that "women" is the correct term to use here. While you can "talk to" females of any kind in the sense of talking in their presence, or talking at them, you were using the phrase to mean converse with. You can only do that with women.