on language and calling women “girls.”
About a year ago, I realized that I often use the word “girl” when I really mean “woman.” Ever since I realized I was doing that, I’ve recognized it every where I go. Everyone, it seems does this and I’m curious as to what that means.
Once upon a time, men were boys and women were girls. Once I reached a certain age, I wasn’t a boy, but a man—or more regularly, a “guy.” But in the way we continued to speak of the opposite sex, the girls stayed “girls.”
What is the female equivalent to “guy?” Lady? Who says that? “Lady” goes with “gentleman” and nobody says that unless they’re addressing a crowd. And even then, nobody really means it. I’m 27; the girls my age aren’t girls, they’re women. Still, they’re referred to as girls, even though I’m referred to as a man or a guy. Nobody would call me a boy, so I don’t understand why, in the great age of equality (at least ideologically) and political correctness, we still call women, girls.
I’ve been interested in dating again, but I don’t want to date a girl, I want to date a woman. If someone asks me if I’m dating a girl, it makes me feel creepy, like I’m trying to be with a 14 year old or something.
This might seem like I’m making a big deal out of nothing, at first I thought I was doing just that. But language is important and meaningful and the impact of language is always underestimated. Our world is shaped by the language we use to describe it. Our identities are shaped around the words we use to describe ourselves and what we do.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a student say, “That’s gay” in class, to which I always immediately address: “is that an appropriate way to describe this topic? What is homosexual about the issue of water usage in Arizona?” They always say that they didn’t mean “gay” literally and of course they didn’t.
Our culture is notorious for using language in a way that produces a disconnect between what we say and what we actually mean. This also helps to produce a similar disconnection between our ideologies and our actions. We’re not deforesting, of course (who wants that?), instead we’re “developing natural resources.” We can buy all the “green” products we want, but that doesn’t realistically mean we’re doing anything positive for our environment. The Bush Admin is fantastic at this. Lets forget that the “clear skies act” allows for more air pollution, that the “healthy forests initiative” results in increased deforestation, that the “no child left behind act” does nothing to address individual needs, cuts funding from schools that need it the most, and that every teacher I know hates this with a passion.
So if we use the word “girl” to describe women, what are the implications of this? Why do we do it? What are we hiding?
Explore posts in the same categories: feminist, language, identity
October 18th, 2007 at 11:32 am
Nice post. The practice of calling women “girls” is quite disturbing to me, especially in the setting where I see it most commonly; business professionals (men and women alike) referring to their female colleagues as girls (and, as you pointed out, calling all of the male colleagues “men” or “guys,” not boys.).
I appreciate your attention to language.
Chris
October 18th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Girls, women, hoes, snatch baby, common guys, ya know its all about the booty! Cowboy up and start acting like real men and not a bunch of hotos.
October 19th, 2007 at 9:06 am
whatever a “hoto” is…..I’d rather be myself than “act” like anything. Besides, if being a “real man” means I have to act like an insecure homophobe who doesn’t see half of the population as real people, count me out.
I’m glad you’re so comfortable being a stereotype.
October 21st, 2007 at 9:28 pm
i’m a girl. in my opinion, “girl” is not offensive; it’s just an informal way to refer to a female. oftentimes it carries the same weight as “guy.” i’m aware of the negative connotations, but i feel like with this example we need to be aware of the way our language grows and reshapes itself to fit our needs. being a 20-something is strange. i know i am a woman, but the word “woman” feels a little too adult (and formal/academic) for my taste. i feel that “girl” is appropriate for this transitional period…in most cases. of course, depending on the context/speaker/tone, the word may take on an entirely different meaning. i am, of course, only advocating the more loving, empowering use of the word. it does exist.
we can’t sweepingly say that “girl” is offensive in all cases. i call my female friends girls/girlfriends. i’m not going to veto the use of “girlfriend” and “boyfriend,” as these words now apply to 80-year-olds just as they do to 11-year-olds. the word “girl,” i feel, has evolved in much the same way as the word “dude”…it’s a word that works fluidly in the informal, conversational context we usually use it in. “woman” sounds a little too legal or professional or older or mechanical in a lot of the situations where i would usually use “girl.”
in a nutshell, language evolves - the meaning of a word evolves - over time. “girl” carries with it many semantic layers, and when i use it to refer to my friends or acquaintances or love interests or females in general, it is used as a term of endearment and respect; the informal creates a loving collective.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:46 am
language informs our understanding of the world; it reflects issues, problems, & sentiments that lie under the surface. isn’t it true that once society’s views on women change, so, too, will our language? isn’t it artificial to expect our language to change before our values/etc. change? doesn’t that work to silence and/or block our expression (even if it’s an expression that may offend us and/or shock us)? that’s what i see as being defective with the whole pc movement…while our language might change (and, at times, become sterile to the point of computer-speak), i am not quite so sure that our worldviews are changing. or maybe they are…who’s to say. i am NOT promoting racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. language - i, myself, do not use such language - but i am not so sure that the suppression of words necessarily eradicates the reality that those words attempt to express (if that makes sense). sometimes when those words are not blanketedly suppressed (i’m thinking of girl, bitch, gay, etc.), they come to take on new meanings which have little or nothing to do with the meanings we had previously attached to those words. can’t we now use the word “gay” to mean happy, homosexual, lame, and proud? doesn’t this word carry all of those meanings, with any one of those meanings rising to the surface depending on the context we are using it in? do we have to assume that using the word “gay” in the context of “that is sooo gay” may no longer have anything to do, whatsoever, with homosexuality? aren’t we choosing to be victims when we assume that?
October 28th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
That last comment was so Gay!
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:32 am
language and culture are constantly informing one another. even if it seems artificial, consciously changing our language allows for new cultural and personal mindsets.
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:40 am
Thank you for this great discussion. Me, Sara, Anna, I think you all make great points about language. It’s a bit like that old chicken or the egg question. Does language influence culture or does culture influence language. Anna, I think you’re right on in claiming that it’s a touch of both. That the one sustains the other and that understanding of one is incomplete without the other.
In our culture, I think we have a hard time using language that means exactly what it is we’re trying to say. Language helps to reinforce a disconnect between action and ideology. We’re not deforesting, we’re developing natural resources. We have “eco-friendly” products that aren’t GOOD for the environment at all. We live in a rape culture, so women—as James so aptly put it—are “hoes” or “snatch” and therefore objectification is fully rationalized through language. But of course this mindset exists within a patriarchal society first.
Of course context, as Me mentioned, is an important variable. I might refer to a “girlfriend” or I might use the word girl to describe a friend of mine whom I’m comfortable with, but I would never address a room full of strangers my age as “girls.” We can see a touch of misogyny come through among many uses of the word “girl” as in “some stupid girl” or “that girl is too loud” or other examples like that. It complicated, but behind the words we use holds a great deal of meaning.
November 4th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
This is an excerpt of a non-fiction piece I’ve been working on, if you’re interested.
My friends and I still talk about the process of achieving womanhood. When we were in our twenties, we guessed that the transformation from girlhood to womanhood would happen either when we had children or when we turned 30. Whatever the hype is about becoming a woman somewhere around twelve or thirteen with the onset of boobage and bloody underwear never persuaded us. After Nikki had a child, she said that it hadn’t happened. Heidi had two and still hadn’t felt the shift we looked so forward to. So we waited, instead, for 30.
There is a myth among women, you know, about women in their thirties. It’s presumed that suddenly the clouds will part, and the confusion of our twenties will evaporate, and we will have confidence and strength that will be borne out of very idea of the new decade. We’ll dress better and have better hair and manage to juggle relationships and careers and the management of at least one household. We’ll know what we want out of life and out of men, or at least more than we knew we wanted in our twenties, which was to be loved by them. We will love harder and more honestly because we’ll know ourselves. We’ll finally be at peace with our bodies and the perception of our bodies, and we will finally see other women as allies.
When I turned 30, I proclaimed myself a woman. “I am a woman now,” I wrote and said a million times to anyone even remotely aware that it was my birthday. Being a woman, finally after years of waiting for it, meant that I had to take control over my life and suddenly be responsible for its direction. I quit smoking, and I pursued a meaningful relationship with an actual future for the first time since I was seventeen. In the end, saying it did not make it so, and that peace continues to elude me. I’m not that far into the decade. I still have high hopes.
The men that I know, who might not yet consider themselves men, have a different myth about women in their thirties: the biological clock is ticking so loudly that it’s audible states away, so it’s better not to fuck around. They tell me that even when they themselves are in their thirties that it’s better to sleep with a woman in her early to mid-twenties because those women are a.) more easily manipulated and b.) not nearly ready for anything serious. In this way, womanhood seems to frighten men who do not consider themselves men. Presumably then, a man is a man when he embraces womanhood. A woman is a woman when she embraces womanhood, too.
November 5th, 2007 at 12:06 am
thank you!
November 5th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
The feminine (since we’re talking gender and not sex) equivalent to “guy” is “gal”.
The reason most folks say and accept “girl” is because that is how we are trained. We live in a society and culture that teaches us to devalue females in favor of males.
Language is extremely important as through it we define our world(s), as you stated. Those who hold power, or those who attempt to exert power, attempt to name the other, just as James demonstrated for us.
I have been thinking on the topic of “empowerment” for some time, and I still have not come to a conclusion as to whether or not a word or any word can be “empowerful”.
Take the grrl power/riot grrrl movement(s) of the 90s. From my vantage point, while females may have tip-toed over the feminine gender line in some respects, they still remained within the confines of the gender ascribed to them at birth.
Embracing a stereotype (such as “girl” or “woman” or “man”) is not empowering.
I also disagree with the use of the word “gay” as a stand-in for words such as “dumb” or “stupid” or “lame” as being acceptable. Obviously the connotation of the word has changed within the last century, from meaning “happy/joyous” to “homosexual”; however, it has not yet fully evolved to meaning “dumb” et al. It still refers to the queer community and still implies a degradation of that community.
Language is power.
I believe that when we change our language we change our worldview. You said, Kyle, that when you noticed you were using the word ‘girl’ to refer to otherwise would-be-”women”, you started to notice it everywhere. You became more conscious of your language and therefore of your interaction(s) with others.
If I see someone as a ‘girl’, then I will treat them as such. If I view them as a ‘person’, well, that opens the door a little wider for more possibilities of meaningful engagement and interaction with that being.
One of my favorite quotes:
-Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us (1994; emphasis mine)