Girl

[prog]

Already rethinking earlier statement about the word "girl". To go against college-indoctrinated language lessons feels like a tiny act of sacrilege, and invites a deal of internal debate. Here is an excerpt:

jmac: After all, there are plenty of contexts where I could legitimately use "boy" in reference to an adult male.

strange interlocutor: Fair enough, but what about that context in the cafe? if you'd been served your coffee by a man, would you have written "the boy who..."? No, you'd have written "the guy who...", and I resist your sexist equivalence of the ambiguous "guy" with the diminutive "girl". Shame shame shame on you.

jmac: [Mumbles, shuffles feet.]

This is an old argument and I back away from having an official opinion on it for today.

Comments

[dougo.livejournal.com]

You could have called her "gal" and claimed you were being ironic and/or retro.

Or given that it's the Diesel, "grrl" might have been the best word.

[(Anonymous)]

And yet so many vaginally-equipped members of the human species are so uptight about 'not appearing old' that the use of the 'younger' thought of expression of 'girl' would be complimenting. But, as with much said by men to women, if there's a negative side to the comment, the negative will be the foremost part of the comment discussed.

Switching to anonymous mode for this comment. Oh yes. Definately.

[cnoocy]

That's much less likely to be true of women who are young and/or in a non-social field (that is, anyone who's not an aging debutante.) When one is respected based on something other than apparent age, "girl" is more a disrespectful or at least informal appellation. I don't think it's a matter of tanking the most negative interpretation, but more a matter of taking the interpretation appropriate to the setting. There's a big difference between referring to the woman serving you coffee as a girl and carding the 55-year old woman to whom you're serving dinner.
For that matter, power dynamics come into the equation as well.

[cortezopossum.livejournal.com]

I'm still griping over how my mom still refers to a friend of mine as my 'boyfriend' which (to me at least) implies that we're gay and dating each other.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's rather bizarre, if she's saying it with a straight face (as opposed to saying it to tease you for some reason).

[cortezopossum.livejournal.com]

Nope -- straight face. Apparently to her the phrase is ment literally as 'a friend who is male' with no sexual context. I mentioned my concern about it from time to time but occasionally she'll be talking on the phone while I'm there and she'll say something along the lines of, "He's here but will be going to his boyfriend's place later".

Maybe it's a generational thing -- e.g. in the 50's the term 'gay' didn't have the homosexual inferences as it does now.

She even considered changing this to 'manfriend' or 'guyfriend' both of which sound even more homosexual -- I tell her just say 'friend' without implying any gender at all.

[daerr.livejournal.com]

I was raised such that it really doesn't usually occur to me to use "girl" for anyone older then a teenager. Though, given common language ususage I've probably done so at times.

I remember all of my mother's battles to get her co-worker's to stop them from referring to each other as "girl". Mind you, this was more of self image thing...

[daerr.livejournal.com]

The more I think about it... I think that I normally only use girl in compounds. (For instance, "fangirl" which is the natural opposite of "fanboy".)

[mrmorse.livejournal.com]

This is evidence of my own programming more than anything else, but the use of "boy" to refer to an adult sets off possible racism flags in my head. There are obvious power and race issues in the historical use of "boy" when speaking to black men.

Of course, it depends on usage. There are certainly cases where "boy" isn't racist and there are probably cases where "girl" isn't sexist, but both words set off all sorts of warnings in my head.

Then again, I do sometimes use "girl" to refer to an adult woman. But it almost always makes me uncomfortable when I do.

I'm with you on the mumbling and lack of official opinions.

[lyricon.livejournal.com]

Always a strange, awkward discussion. I also have somewhat ambiguous opinions about it. I'm not sure I really mind being referred to as a "girl" but then again, I'm not sure I really like it either. Perhaps it depends almost entirely on the context of the situation for me. Hmm.

However, when I refer to other people I have found a way to avoid the connotations of "girl" or "guy" or whatnot, by adopting the habit of using the vaguely archaic words of "lady" and "gentleman" in most situations. For example, when I am speaking to several male-oriented persons at work, I might address them with, "Good morning, gentlemen. How are you doing today?" Or when describing an female acquaintance say, "Dana is a lady with a wonderful sense of humor blahblahblah..."

Of course, this works for me also because I like to be a little outside of the norm in terms of my speech patterns. Somewhere between old fashioned and sophisticated. I'm not recommending it for everyone, but I personally find it quite enjoyable.

[mrmorse.livejournal.com]

I have encountered people who object to "lady" on the basis that it's sexist. "Lady" carries an implied gender role which makes it inappropriate for referring to women in general.

I'm not sure if I believe that, but I do know that it's made me paranoid.

[keimel.livejournal.com]

My mother absolutely hated being called "Lady" by my father. However, in this instance, I'm pretty sure that it's entirely due to the context. My father wasn't always the friendliest of persons in how he behaved towards my mother. It became an instance of "Don't call me lady..." being proffered as the instance of a challenge, or the stopping of a threat from the other side.

Well, that's likely TMI, but it doesn't show the point that more important than most individual words is any context in which they're used, in each individual case. So....

To be safe, there's no way to be safe. One word that I am greatly offended by would be acceptable to everyone else. To go around and not offend anyone means to live in a very closed place and not converse with people. So, live a life with contact and occasionally offend or sit in a closed room for the rest of your life.

Oh, and please, when referring to buzzing insects, let's check and make sure that when you see an insect with two pairs of membranous wings and an ovipositor specialized for stinging or piercing you might want to consider calling it a hymenoptera rather than the most vulgar expression of 'wasp'.

(see what I mean? ;)

[keimel.livejournal.com]

prowler1971, meet prog, prog meet prowler1971.

you're blogging about the same thing this week.

clickie