Calling grown women "girls", offensive?

Precious flower wrote: »

Yes, but what's important here is context. Those terms have no patronising/demeaning history behind them whereas the term girl or "good girl" can have demeaning/sexist undertones and was often using to dismiss a women's input or opinion by suggesting she was young or naive. While old boys/boy's toys have more comrade undertones and most importantly have been used and created by men as opposed to applied to them.

Wait, are you telling me that "Jobs for the Boys" and "old boys club/ network" have no derogatory or demeaning context? Expressions that are widely used to imply that a group of males only achieved what they did because of some chummy little arrangement to exclude women?

And for every "good girl" I can point you to a "good lad" used in an equally patronising way.

To suggest that these are nice chummy terms created and used by men is quite frankly delusional! Many of them have been openly used to slur men. I'm reminded of the sexist tripe spouted a while back by teachers union leader Sheila Nunan
"Ms Nunan added: “It wasn’t the honours maths that made the Irish women the way they are today, let me tell you. It was the boys who did the honours maths led the country to ruination”."

(of course in her patronising rant she conveniently forgot the Gillian Bowlers and Patricia Quinns/ Gayle Killileas who were 'so influential' when the times were good, but often just poor weak little flowers to transfer assets to when the **** hit the fan)

Precious flower wrote: »

I would agree with this. It doesn't send me into a rage or anything to be told I'm a "good girl" by random strangers and acquaintances, but it still bothers me slightly. I have always felt that you would not say to a man over 18 that he was a "good boy", would you? You'd say he was a "good lad" so "good woman" is on par with that and thus it sounds less demeaning. I will accept the term "good girl" just about from people who are elderly but people who are under 50, or even worse close to my age calling me a "good girl" is bothersome to me. However in a group setting being called "girls" or "the girls" doesn't bother me. Though I can always pick out the charmers in a group when they call a group of women "ladies" It tough to figure out in those contexts of a group setting whether it is better to address a group of women as girls or ladies.

Good lad is not, and will never be on par with good woman. The only on par comment would be good man. A lad is a young male, thus the statement is directly analogous to "good girl". From dictionary.com: