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Tuesday, July 31, 2007
I'm just a girl
Posted by Dawn Morgan on Tue, Jul 31, 2007 at 3:36 PM
How old must a female be before she is referred to as a woman and not as a girl? In a story on Chelsea Clinton in today’s New York Times, loyal Clinton supporter John Catsimatidis calls the 27-year old former first daughter a “very talented girl.â€
This caused me to put the paper down, look over to several co-workers, three males and one female in their 20’s and early 30’s, and ask if they think referring to a female adult as a ‘girl’ is as inappropriate as I do.
The other woman in the conversation said it didn’t bother her. The three men in the conversation didn’t get my side at all.
“You mean, if I went up to you at a party and said, ‘Hey girl!’ you’d be offended?†one male coworker asked.
Would you if I called you a boy? What about our 21-year old male intern?
“No way! That’s an insult.â€
Why the difference? The men offered it’s because there’s no female equivalent to the term ‘guy.’ I argued guy could be male or female, but still, what did that have to do with calling a woman a girl?
I also argue that this is not about my being offended or my female coworker being indifferent, rather it’s about society being so unaware of this inequality that ‘girl’ is a mainstay in our acceptable language.
Dictionary.com defines girl as: 1. a female child from birth to full growth and 2. a young, immature woman, esp. formerly, an unmarried one.
For years, I have been a one-woman force trying to even things out. I’ve always used the term ‘boy’ when referring to any man I’m romantically involved with who pisses me off, as in “Boys are dumb.â€
Conversely, I also use ‘boy’ as a term of endearment for guys I like, as in, “Wow, that George Clooney. He’s the cutest boy ever.†That no doubt stems from growing up on Sassy’s Cute Boy Alert.
The deal is, I’ll grow out of my immature teenage ways of referring to men as boys when society grows out of calling women girls.
Comments (35)
Showing 1-35 of 35
Well said! I have fallen in the habit of using "girl" when I should use "woman" and try to correct it when I catch myself using the wrong word. Some women in online communities use "grrl" in an empowering, give-new-meaning-to-an-old-word sort of way, which I like. I've been a one-woman force using "Ms." as my title even though I'm married. But that's a different blog post...
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I beat the "girl" out of my vocabulary (except for the occasional derogatory comment), when my best friend (now my wife) went to Smith College. I think I called the place a "girl's school" a dozen times before it pounded into my head how wrong that was. Referring to Chelsea in the way that Catsimatidis did is patronizing, as is calling any woman out of high school a girl in all but the most cute or familiar usages.
While I get the general discontent with the word "girl" among the belittled female population of the globe, I think it's important to try and figure out whether or not Mr. Catsimatidis was attempting to insult or demean Ms. Clinton. Judging by the words other than "girl" in the Catsimatidis quote, I would guess he meant no offense. I tried to figure out who this Catsimatidis guy was, and I think I've tracked him down. If the quoted John A. Catsimatidis is the same one in this Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Catsimatidis) we could be trying to figure out if a prospective 2009 New York City mayoral candidate just offended 51% of Big Apple voters. At the risk of being berated, I'll add that I don't think this is a big deal. The guy is more than twice Ms. Clinton's age, and probably views her as a young girl … which, from his perspective, she is! Are we really past enjoying our youth, women? And just because Ms. Morgan chooses to use "boy" as a derogatory slur, it doesn't mean that every human being with a penis who uses the word "girl" is trying to crush womankind under his big, sweaty, dominator-of-culture boot heel. Sometimes a word is just a word. And I can hear the anger now: "Well, if someone called you a 'boy' you would be pissed about it!" Actually, no. First off, it would mean you thought I was younger than I actually am. No insult there. Secondly, guys call each other 'boy' all the time, as in "I'm hanging with my boys tonight" or "he's my boy." And third, unless it was an insult ("You're acting like a petulant little boy!"), I probably would just be flattered that someone thought I was "very talented." But I have a penis, so what do I know? Right girls?
It seems to me it's all about context, "Girls night out" is a well-used term as is "Boys night out." What about "Just me and the boys" or "Good old boys" None mean anything dismissive or derogatory in the words "girls" or "boys." As not being female myself, perhaps it's not my place to say, but I saw no negative intent in the use of girl in the context of the article. Would the term "Gal" have been more acceptable if perhaps a bit dated? Perhaps there's some lingering attachment as a former President's daughter that makes it difficult for people to think of her as anything but the child in the White House. Heck before his death, my Mom always referred to JFK Jr. as John-John and that cute little boy in the photos and he wasn't much younger than she. I'm afraid those who seek hard enough to find outrage are rarely disappointed.
"Woman" makes me think of a big fat earth mother with children springing from her loins; "lady," a genteel with a certain snobby bearing, pressed clothing, and a chilly smile; "female," a generic, skirt-wearing stick person (like the ones on restroom signs); and "girl," a happy, frolicking, anxiety-free nymph. In my mind, "girl" is just a good a noun for an XX-chromosome carrying person as "woman" or "lady" or whatever you choose. Personally, I wanna be called a "girl" until I'm old and gray because I always want to feel young regardless of my age. But just like any word, it CAN be used derogatorily. I think it just depends on the person and context.
I like 'girls night out' and 'boys night out.' Throwing off responsibility and getting to go have fun. I like that the CL dating site has all combinations of girls seeking boys and boys seeking girls. Not only is that equality but anything else would be illegal. And Mr. Catsimatidis obviously was not insulting Ms. Clinton, but the words he chose to say distracted me from his meaning. It breaks down to a businessman quoted in a national newspaper referring to a young professional woman as a girl. How is that okay?! Why can't you call it like you see it, and allow us to be who we are? We've freaking earned it through our own struggles, those of our mothers and their mothers. We are women.
I always use Ma'am to refer to a female in person, no matter what the age, until she tells me to call her something else. Which, if they're under 55 or so, they invariably do. I would stop, but somewhere around age 5 I got backhanded really hard, and ma'am is stuck in my brain. It's considered the proper manner of acknowledging respect for a woman where I come from. See, we had to have a sophisticated system of manners to keep the hierarchy surrounding slavery, Jim Crow, and sharecropping from deteriorating into bloodletting. As for the other usage, "lady" seems appropriate, and I've called addressed my students as "ladies," even though they're twelve. In casual, courtly communication, "girl" seems fine because "ladies" like to be recognized as "youthful," see my previous experience with "ma'am." As for Chelsea, I would address her journalistically as a "young woman," "young lady," or "belle." And the bitch better like it.
Therein lies the rub. The word distracted "you." Most would have likely never even noticed that word had you not brought it into focus with your post. While it may be argued it is subtle but entrenched sexism that allows such acceptance and perpetuation of the term, I'd say that it's more likely the term just has an entirely different connotation for you than others and in itself is no more derogatory than calling a man a fellow, a guy, or a dude. Perhaps not the most professional choice of words, but neither was it in this case or most uses meant to demean or belittle. There is even dissension in the ranks here regarding what you females prefer to be called, so how can we poor boys be expected to know ;-).
Damn, y'all are so wrong. Future mayoral candidate Katmandujammmerspielin didn't mean it to be derogatory, maybe even meant it to be a term of endearment, but it's still patronizing, no matter how old he is. Sometimes, intention doesn't mean anything when determining whether something is offensive -- like someone who grows up in a crappy home not realizing certain racial epithets are mean, or the million clueless teenage boys who toss meaningless "queer" and "fag" back and forth all day without intending to injure any gays that happen to be around. Yeah there are exceptions (you go girl, girl's night out, whatever) but those are colloquial exceptions. Seriously referring to a successful (or any) woman as a "girl", mean-spiritedly or not, demeans her.
Both the beauty and bane of our language is the flexibility of meaning based on many things like context, inflection and even posture. While many contextual clues are absent in the written form, we still have the ability to sculpt poetry, song and vivid prose by utilizing this maleability. So, intent and context most certainly must be weighed as to meaning. Many of those racial ephithets you referenced are still perfectly acceptable in some contexts. I remember a brief time in my youth where it seemed there was a push to stop using Black, and replace it with African-American. I'm not as plugged-in as I once was, but I think both are equally accepted now. What about Queer Eye for the Straight Guy? The thing is, many women find it perfectly acceptable, and even, as in the case of Leilani prefer the term, so why are they wrong and the outraged one's right? Shall we, as a culture, define at what age or level of success that one automatically outgrows the moniker, or just accept that, as successful adults, we should have the capacity to know the difference based on intent and context and question when there is doubt? A term such as young lady or even young woman, while on the surface sounds more proper, still keeps the focus on youth and lack of experience, the very thing that Dawn was bemoaning in her post. So, it's hardly an advance in her championing of recognition as an empowered woman regardless of age.
Aaah, but there is a simple cure for any potential confusion of intent and context: say woman instead of girl. It's respectful and accurate. Then we won't have to decode whether the speaker is actually trying to be patronizing and derogatory, or is just acting a bit too familiar. Truthfully, I think that this applies mostly to public forums, especially in print, where meaning has to be crystal clear.
I like Leilani's take on it. I am just a stupid ass with a horribly vulgar tongue. So for me, "girl" is a very safe generality... but perhaps that is what is offensive about the word. It marginalizes the person by attributing youth and anonymity. Besides, anyone who takes offense with what comes out of my mouth has too much time on their hands.
Ah, but Brian, as Leilani said: "“Woman†makes me think of a big fat earth mother with children springing from her loins." Doesn't that make "woman" offensive as well, at least to Leilani? And why does her opinion count less than Dawn's, anyway? With all these differing opinions, it seems like we'll have to consider more than just the word when deciding on offensive content. … And here we are back at context and intent. If we eliminated every word that someone found offensive, human language would be reduced to a series of monosyllabic grunts. For the moment, I prefer the current system. I'm open to suggestions for a new genderless language, however.
Joe -- You silly boy. (I'm going to withhold "man" until you beat me at Street Fighter.)
Is that after you sack up, "find" the handsets and actually dare to face me? Just like silly boys to turn a discussion of sexism in language into a bunch of smack talk over a video game. You will be defeated.
By the way: the most fascinating thing about this selection of comments: The number of women who have responded. Apparently, women find this to be no big deal and not worthy of comment. Or am I generalizing?
What about young go-getting women who refer to their female friends as "girlfriends"?
How about calling Clinton a very talented "person"? The girl-woman-grrl-chick-beeotch debate doesn't so much bother me as does the media's recent obsession with Miss New Jersey's PG-13 photos, especially when during the same newsweek it was revealed that Sen. David Vitter was what,? No. 1 on the DC Madam's booty call speed dial? I turned to several newscasts a couple weeks ago and it was all, "Miss NJ addresses racy photos," "Should Miss NJ give up her crown?" Miss NJ apologizing to Matt Lauer. Please. All of this hullabaloo over pictures so ordinary they would've run in my high school yearbook, while during the same week pitiful Sen. David Vitter made one public apology for whoring around on his wife w/ tax payer money. And that, THAT aired so briefly I missed the segment when I opened the freezer door to eat Haagen Dazs out of the pint. Anyway, it's old news. Just wanted to get it off my chest given the battle of the sexes post here.
I think Dawn Morgan is a very talented woman . . . just look at the enlightening conversation she has sparked. I would like to think that anyone who posted to this (and at least some who just read without posting) are perpetuating the discussion. Whether you agree or disagree, you are thinking about equality and that is definitely a step in the right direction.
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