Well, she is generally young. Plus, “insidious” is quite melodramatic phrasing. Not near that level of bad at all.
IMO calling an adult woman “girl” is sexist, easy as that.
OR … your just not using your full brain, or being ironic, whatever. There sure are cases where I’d not be as austere as my first sentence shows, but honestly, we (men) should stop doing that.
IMNVHO a 16 year old female human is a young woman.
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OR you are English-as-a-second-language, and were not aware of this nuance, and take steps to correct it quickly when advised.
Thanks for the commentary @Takumi_Go_1 I’m really enjoying it, it’s very clear and insightful.
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Yeah, agreed. It takes time (and willing) to unlearn things one learned.
She is a women not a girl. And well past the grey area around 16-18 between the two. It’s insidious because it may appear minor quibbling over wording, but it contributes to a view of women as lesser than men by making them appear juvenile and weaker. Much like how black men were often called boy in the USA.
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Thanks a lot, I was not feeling great that the wording of the title is being criticized. But on second thought, I did learn something new.
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Huh? What do you know about the US now? It has nothing to do with gender. Calling any male “Boy” when they are still a young adult is widely accepted in the US if you are older than them. She’s still a young adult.
More than you on this matter, evidently.
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I’ll make a separate thread for this discussion, standby
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What I know about the USA is that their culture is partially very fup’d uck, especially with regard to the relation between men and women.
BUT … they don’t have a monopoly on that, for sure. It’s actually a global thing, with only a few countries being a little more progressive in that regard (Scandinavian countries come to mind, and I think also New Zealand).
<edit>
Maybe I should also add that “my” country, Germany, has only in the past ~50 years become more aware of these things.
While we rarely call women older than, say, 18, “girls”, my generation (I’m a “boomer”, born in ’57) still mostly is quite misogynist.
</edit>
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I live in the US. Born and raised Yankee. I see a lot of older people calling younger people boy and girl despite the obvious fact that they aren’t juvenile.
I also didn’t intend to come across as on the offense. My apologies.
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With all that’s going on in the country women are now on a higher pedestal than ever before. Though I have noticed lots of putting down of males in media lately. Idk what that’s all bout. In my eyes people are only higher or lower depending on choices they make that are entirely up to them.
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I find your views somewhat simplistic and insulting. The matter is far more complex than “men bad, women good”
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Whom are you talking to?
You, sorry. I replied to your post directly but discourse doesn’t show that when it was the most recent post.
Ah, OK.
So let me quote again:
Who is being insulted? Why would you feel insulted? Who should feel insulted, in your opinion?
Who insinuated “men bad, women good”?
I guess my post was a little simplistic. Let me try to collect a few thoughts that are hopefuly more helpful to the discussion.
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What would you mean by “privileged”?
In my eyes I am only a bit lucky to be alive. I could be much worse, so I hope that’s what you mean by privileged.
I don’t know from which culture OP is, but there might be a language/cultural barrier here.
For example, in Japanese there is a term “oneesan” which literally means “big sister” and is generally a polite way to adress a young woman in general, perhaps similar to “mademoiselle” in French. I think “oneesan” can be used for unmarried women up until about 30 years old.
In Dutch the similar term might be “jongedame” (young lady), but it’s an archaic term. Nowadays we may use “meisje” (girl) for women until their early 20s. Similarly, I don’t think it’s generally inappropriate to call a young man in their early 20s a “jongen”(boy) in Dutch.
This does depend a bit on context though. It can be disrespectful to call a 24 year old with a higher occupational status a “meisje” or a “jongen” in Dutch.
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