Women being called girls

dfeo wrote: »

What about clothes shops that politely call the female section "ladies" but the male section gets the lesser title of "men"? Why not gentlemen? Is that sexist too?

Oh sorry, I forgot, you can't be sexist towards men.

Jeez, most clothes shops wouldn't dare call the women's section "ladies"! That means the clothes are for old women!

Anyway, I couldn't care less what you call me. I've been know to call a group of people (including women/girls) "lads" though so maybe I'm the weird one.

gizmo555 wrote: »

Interesting article on a related topic in today's Guardian:

From "Gone Girl" to "The Girl on the Train" to "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", the author Emily St John Mandel has crunched the numbers on books with “girl” in their title and discovered that the girl is “significantly more likely to end up dead”, if the author of the book is male . . .

. . . Working with research assistants, Mandel analysed the 2,000-plus most popular books with “girl” or “girls” in the title on Goodreads, filtering out those books with 250 or fewer ratings, and removing cookbooks and books for children and young adults. She was left with 810 books.

Mandel discovered that the “girl” books were much more likely to be written by a female author – 79% of the titles were by women. But the “girl” of the title was also much more likely to be an adult than a child, with 65% of the “girls” actually women, 28% girls, and 7% “indeterminate”.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/31/what-happens-to-girls-in-book-titles-emily-st-john-mandel-data-analysis

Me thinks Emily and her team of researchers time would be better spent over in Calais sorting the men from the boy's or adults from the children if she fancies herself as an expert on the subject, instead of trawling through thousands of books looking for offence.

I don't think this thread went the way the OP was expecting it to go.

This makes me happy.

My almost 70 year old mother calls her former work mates (all 70 plus) "the girls from work" She briefly called them "the retirement group" but switched back. I think in their heads they are all still in their 20's!

So no I wouldn't be bothered in the slightest being called a girl, even when I am my mam's age

clairewithani wrote: »

I always refer to girls as girls as girls till 18. Then they can buy drink, vote, watch porn and smoke legally. After 18 they are women.

Except my daughters. They are girls always.
Because it is better to be a mother of girls than a mother of women.

But it's better again to be Mother of Dragons

Give me a break
Old women are called old girl by men.
It is loving and affectionate.
Men love women and care about them and call them girls.
We love the femininity of women.

As with many things, context matters, but in certain circumstances, it can be a matter of power and disrespect. "I'm off out with the girls" is different to, say, an employer calling a grown man or woman "boy" or "girl". In the US, black men were degraded with the term "boy", i.e. not an adult, therefore lesser.

You obviously never stopped off in Cork. 'How's it going giiiirl'.

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

We are not in the US.
If any term is delivered in a derogatory way then it can be insulting. It is the faux offence that's grating here.

I am quite aware of that fact.

My point was that it was the context that made it insulting or not. A fully grown woman may not want to be called a girl in a certain setting, because it could be demeaning, just as it would be for a man to be called a boy. In other contexts/social situations it may not be an issue.