nathan@orstcs.UUCP (11/29/83)
#N:orstcs:15700006:000:672 orstcs!nathan Nov 26 15:24:00 1983 Regarding "girls" as pejorative: I am a member of the local Oregon State University chapter of the Society of Women Engineers chapter; I do the newsletter. I have noticed that other members invariably refer to female students as "girls", and I seem to get strange looks when I say "women" in similar contexts. In other organizations, male students are invariable called "men". Is it that the women here don't feel grown-up, or is it that they are less pretentious than the men? I have tried asking and have not yet received a coherent reply. To forestall questions about what I, a man, am doing in the Society of Women Engineers: "no comment". Nathan C. Myers
walsh@ihuxi.UUCP (B. Walsh) (12/01/83)
Are the strange looks you're getting from women, men or both? I'm surprised that women would think it strange to be called 'women' rather than 'girls'. I think the term girls is insulting to a woman over 18 years of age. Same goes for boys vs. men. I think, however, the term 'girls' has been so ingrained in people to describe groups of women that it may sound strange, but I think that that should and probably is changing. Think of the strange looks you'd get if you were to address a group of men as 'boys'! All adult women I know describe their female friends as 'girlfriends', but all adult men I know NEVER describe male friends as 'boyfriends'. That's another interesting difference in our use of language. B. Walsh
llf@houxz.UUCP (L.FENG) (12/01/83)
That's because "hey girls! What'cha doing?" sounds more natural than "hey women! What'cha doing?"
seifert@ihuxl.UUCP (12/02/83)
Ladies, gentlemen, persons, boys, girls, men, women,
AI projects, guys, gals, babes, old geezers, and anyone
else that reads this newsgroup,
Why all the fuss over what people call you? What counts is how they
mean it. If a friend of mine walks in the office and says, "Hey,
wierdo, doing anything for lunch?" I wouldn't take it as an insult,
but as a compliment. A complement that (s)he likes me and wants
to have lunch together. If a MOTOS calls me "babe", I don't assume
that she has mistaken me for a two-month-old infant. If I am
refered to as "boy", I don't automatically take it as an insult.
If someone is actually insulting me, they generally use somewhat
stronger language than "boy". If I refer to an adult female human
as "girl", it's not meant as an insult, and not because I didn't
notice that she is past puberty. (It's usually *quite* obvious.)
Snoopy ("Here's the WW1 flying ace in no-man's land.")
--
)
(
) from the mildly opinionated keyboard of
_)__________________
|OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO| Dave Seifert
|OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO| ihnp4!ihuxl!seifert
|OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO|
|------------------|riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle) (12/02/83)
I tend to refer to a female student as a "girl" (as in, "There's
this girl in my class...") not in order to belittle her, but because
that's the female equivalent of the word I tend to use to refer to a
male student: "guy". I seem to have the following semantic categories:
(abstract) male female
(mature) man woman
(youthful) guy girl
(young) boy girl
Maybe there are deep sexist undercurrents in my mind which make the
last two categories collapse into the word "girl" while leaving "guy"
and "boy" distinct, but I really doubt it. I can't imagine myself
referring to anyone much older than typical college age as a "girl",
though, and if I heard someone refer to a group of older women as "the
girls" (other than in jest), then I imagine that my feminist hackles
would rise.
----
Prentiss Riddle
{ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle
riddle@ut-sally.UUCPwaltt@tekecs.UUCP (Walt Tucker) (12/03/83)
------------------
Sure, "boys" is used informally (I'll admit, though, that I've heard
it mostly used by WOMEN). Such as:
"The boys went fishing this morning" i.e. -- Father and sons, or
husband/boyfriend and friends.
"The boys went down to the tavern for a beer".
etc.
-- Waltpreece@uicsl.UUCP (12/03/83)
#R:orstcs:15700006:uicsl:16400030:000:309 uicsl!preece Dec 2 11:41:00 1983 'hey men! what'cha doing' doesn't sound natural, either. In fact, I would say that the use of 'boys' or 'guys' is much more common than the original note would indicate. I would also say that certain uses of 'girl' are indeed insulting and to be avoided. The distinction is really in the mind of the speaker.
emjej@uokvax.UUCP (12/05/83)
#R:orstcs:15700006:uokvax:6500002:000:166 uokvax!emjej Dec 3 10:17:00 1983 Do any linguistic revisionists out there know of (or want to invent) an informal-sounding noun that does for women what "guy" seems to do for men? James Jones
sebb@pyuxss.UUCP (12/05/83)
I went to a very small women's college. It is not well known. If a person talking to me did happen to know of Wells they knew of it as a "girl's school." A girl's school is a prep school. It is not the same thing as a women's college. It usually took me a while to get people to call Wells a women's college. I was very insulted by the degradation of a fine in- stitution of higher learning and my alma mater. I'm sure that before some of the men's colleges went co-ed(Hamilton, Harvard) they were not called "boy's schools." Calling women girls is degrading in my opinion and I do not tolerate it. I don't mind being called a 'gal'(I have a very good friend from Texas who refers to most of his women friends this way) because I look upon it as the female equivalent of guy. But girl goes with boy and they both mean children to me. Men don't like being called boys(how would you like it if you were a male secretery and your female boss refered to you as her "boy"???), and women don't like being called girls. Sharon Badian
andyb@dartvax.UUCP (Andy Behrens) (12/07/83)
Isn't "gal" the feminine equivalent of "guy"? Andy Behrens -- Andy Behrens decvax!dartvax!andyb
dnc@dartvax.UUCP (David Crespo) (12/07/83)
m
I always find that it is difficult to refer to women as
a group as girls, though I can't refer to myself as a man without shuddering.
So I7m a boy, and you're women. But, some ladies over 18 are hardly women.
To me there is a definite connotation in hte term as being a good match
for a "man", i.e. holding an equal share of powers (psychic and political).
I think usage varies much more widely, some women are turned off by the
word woma/en since it seems to herald to eve and second-class(third, fourth,
fifth, sixth, behind the journalists.) citizenry. THey "solved" this
problem by inventing "wimmin, woemen, wome, wowmen, ladies," and i'm
sure a host of others (a house without a wome, is a day without funshine)
(huhn?) ....
gals
lasses, lassies (not to be collared)
misses, ms-es, missies, mams and mamsies
chicks, girlchicks,
hens,
sugarlips (oops, I'm sorry honey)
skirt (let's evade the issue)
then there's name calling (eve delilah you're such a thatcher)
damsels, dames, damns
gals galls
girls gulls
fems, (i like the derivative, fembot, for a mindless Marylin, and other
things. )
for the males:
guy
chap
joe
(dear dear)
boychick (definetely a jewish term)
mister(missed her)
fella, feller,fellow
buddy
my man, my right hand man, my left hand man, my man (sigh...)
bloke
hims (hymns)
please submit others, I'm very interested in this ...
and also the subject of maledicta, abusive slang ...what they cant stand
about each other...
senhor, senhorita
hombre, homo (with caution)
(about themselves)
happy valentines day.
dnc @ dc
laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (12/09/83)
About a year ago we decided that 'guy' was what you called a female if you were from the West, and particularily the North West, and 'gal' was for the East and the South. We still didn't know whether North Dakota existed, so we couldn't ask there. :-) I really couldn't care what you called me. Laura Creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura
nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan) (12/10/83)
I believe in the ERA. I believe that women should have equal rights AND responsibilities. I believe that there should be genderless pronouns. But I cannot see how any reasonable person could object to the term girl. I would not be offended if I were called a boy. To me, the term "girl" means "youthful human female". I would much rather have as a friend someone youthful (at least in spirit) than someone who is so self-conscious about their own maturity that they feel insulted if it is implied that they have youthful properties. I guess I like "girls" better than "women" and "boys" better than "men". -Doug Alan decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!nessus Nessus@MIT-MC
jim@ism780.UUCP (12/12/83)
> But I cannot see how any reasonable person could object to the term > girl. But there are rational, mature, secure, capable women who DO object. Therefore YOU are obviously missing something. You and others refuse to accept this and insist upon attributing irrationality, immaturity, insecurity, and/or ineptitude to all such women out of your own arrogance and ignorance. Why can't you simply accept the fact that you are incorrect in the face of claims by women that they object to the term and try to gain deeper understanding, instead of indulging in ad hominem attacks against such women? -- Jim Balter (decvax!yale-co!ima!jim) --------