This made me laugh :-)

[cally]

One of my guilty pleasures is I sometimes watch Life in the ER on TLC. The doctor was describing that he was a terrible kid in hs. He drank, was a poor student, and chased "Women". So now teenagers are women. LOL

The part that made me smile is that for many/some men, they would never call a woman a girl. It's just not done in many professional and political circles because most around them find it insulting. So, they slip and call girls women. It made me smile because I've heard the same slip from men and women around me.

What so many on DU who complain at how unreasonable we are about not calling women belittling names don't get is in many, many circles it is completely abhorrent to use these terms. If you want to be taken seriously, you have to show respect for all.

I know we have a long way to go in all circles but I just wanted to share something I found humorous.

[BlueIris]

1. That's great.

And thanks for pointing out something I've wanted to SCREAM at the sexist jerks on this board: "IN THE WORLD I WORK/STUDY/OPERATE IN, 'GIRL' WOULD GET YOU FIRED." I just want to ask some of these folks, "where in the HELL are you FROM? You're employed enough to have Internet access, but WHERE? Where do they let you express yourself like this without people calling you on your bullshit?"

[Heddi]

2. Why is it *TOTALLY* unacceptable and demeaning to call a man "boy"?

We saw it done to black men for the largerr part of this country's history. It was demeaning and rude and said to that black man "You are nothing more than a small child to me".

It would be considered unprofessional and TOTALLY unacceptable to refer to a Male over the age of 18 as "boy" or "a boy". I suppose we can cut the rule by referring to someone as our "boyfriend" even if he's 45 (I think "manfriend" sounds creepy and greasy).

I guess I imagine this scenario:

You're in a room full of people. Someone tells you to let Chris know that they've got a phone call. You don't know who Chris is and ask that they be described.

If Chris is a female, most likely she'll be referred to as "the girl wearing the blue dress with a mackerel on her head" whether she's 11 or 62.

If Chris is a male, most likely he'll be reffered to as either "the MAN wearing a blue suit with a mackerel on his head" or "the GUY wearing the blue suit with a mackerel on his head".

Either way, if someone said "the BOY", you would automatically begin looking for small children or teenagers.

If someone said "Girl" though, again, it's not a predisposition of age. It's any female. Any age.

And the hypocracy is that one is seen as demeaning to the age, wisdom, whatever, of a MAN. The other isn't. I don't understand how that could be.

Equally, I know PLENTY Of women who refer to themselves as "girls" but no MEN that refer to themselves as "boys" other than "one of the boys" which usually translates to 'acting like children' or playing sports---things like that.

aye.

---

I read an interesting essay for an English Class a few years ago called "There is No Unmarked Woman" by Deborah Tannen. The gist was that "men" are always the default, and women, just by biology alone even, are the "alternate"

Example:

" tell us that 'he' means 'he or she,' and that 'she' is only used if the referent is specifically female....From at least 1500, the correct sex-indefinite pronoun was 'they' as it still is in casual spoken English. In other words, the female was declared by grammarians to be the marked case"

"Women can't fill out a form without telling stories about themselves. Most forms give four titles to choose from. "Mr" carries no meaning other than the respondent is male. But a woman who checks "Mrs." or "Miss" communicates not only whether she has been married but also whether she has conservative tastes in forms of address--and probably other conservative values as well. Checking "Ms" declines to let on about marriage (checking Mr. declines nothing since nothing was asked), but it also marks her as either liberated or rebellious, depending on the observer's attitudes and assumptions."

It's a great essay if you can get ahold of it. I wish I could retype the whole thing here but obviously can't. It's great reading and I think most people on this forum and on this board in general need to read about these things. I'd never thought of it in THOSE terms, but it makes sense.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. I recall that when Squeaky Fromm tried to assassinate Gerald Ford,

she was pictured on the cover of Time as "the girl who tried to kill President Ford" or something similar.

A letter the next week asked, "If the attempted assassin had been a 27-year-old male, would you have written 'the boy who tried to kill President Ford'?"

By the way, Lee Harvey Oswald was only 24 at the time of JFK's assassination. No one every referred to him as a boy.

[Heddi]

4. That's ridiculous

and completely understandable.

BOY is demeaning to any male over the age of 16.

GIRL is acceptable for ANY female of ANY age of ANY profession.

mind boggling

[cally]

5. Not in some circles

I've posted that I've worked with many female supervisors or in places where women have power. Even if the particular firm is all male in the upper echelons, many interactions and meetings involve senior women. Try referring to women as girls in these environments and you will be shunned. Worse, most will think you are not able to go to many meetings because you may insult clients or others in the meeting. You will not get the necessary experience, exposure, and eventually promotions. The same holds true for racist comments.

I agree with others that it is stunning that's it's never OK to refer to a man as a boy unless you intend to be somewhat insulting. Somehow, in some places, calling women girls is OK. :eyes:

[chicaloca]

7. ...

Where do they let you express yourself like this without people calling you on your bullshit?"

In the bedroom you occupy rent-free and unemployed in your parents' house, of course.

[Nikia]

6. I remember hearing a radio sports announcer

"In women's basketball action, the sixth grade team from..."
I thought that was funny, but perhaps it is better than calling college women girls.
By contrast, when I first started at my current company, the production supervisor called the women in production girls, which I thought was odd considering all of the women were over 30 and the oldest one was in her early 70's.
When I was in my late teens, I had an adjustment period to the term "women", but now at 27, I get offended if someone calls me a girl.

[chicaloca]

8. I remember once when I was about 12....

One of my mom's friends was looking for her at a party or something, and I said, "oh, she's in the corner over there with a few other women." My dad -- who is generally an ignorant dumbass -- pulled me aside and told me not to refer to them as women. I should refer to them as girls, he said, because otherwise they would feel "old." :eyes: Too bad I didn't know about feminism yet, otherwise I would've asked if I could refer to him as a boy, especially since he's seven years older than her and should therefore be more worried about his age. I was also a total grammarian from an early age, and remembered thinking, "well, they're over 18, aren't they? Then they're women." Funny, though, how I've referred to my mom's friends as women many times and my dad calls them girls, yet all my mom's friends like me better than my dad.

One thing I don't like about calling women women is that the word itself is a derivative of the word "men." I've never been able to embrace alternatives like "womyn" (though I don't object to them) partially because I'm a spelling freak and partially because it seems like a reaction to something rather than a complete break from it -- I would like to see a completely different word for women emerge and become accepted, although I know that's not likely to happen in my lifetime.

[eridani]

9. The original Anglo-Saxon, I think--

---had wifman for adult female householder and carlman for adult male householder. The latter got shortened and made generic human over time. If we had has enough social and economic power, we'fe be men, and they'd be carlmen.