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From: hansen@pegasus.att.COM (Tony L Hansen)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: "Woman" or "Girl"?
Summary: nascent men feel uncomfortable too
Message-ID: <1991May22.130112.24504@cbnewsk.att.com>
Date: 22 May 91 20:57:55 GMT
References: <1991May13.223727.8721@aero.org> <14909@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> <1991May17.180807.20501@psych.toronto.edu>
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< I can understand some of the ambivalent feelings young women have in
< being called "women", since as a teenager I felt much the same way
< (After all, being teenaged means you are sitting on the border btwn
< adulthood and childhood).
<
< However, have you *ever* heard similar thoughts being expressed by
< young men who are referred to as "men" immediately upon entering the
< workforce? I haven't.
<
< I find this discrepancy (which I observe in myself, too) very
< disturbing.

I was in my mid to late twenties before I finally felt really
comfortable with being called a "man". True, I was married and had a
young child, but I still didn't feel much different from being a
teenager. In fact, I was particularly fond of the term from Tolkien's
Hobbit: "tweenager". And being called "Mr. Hansen" by kids with whom
I'm aquainted, and who know my first name, still doesn't feel right.

In conversations with my office mate, who is in his late twenties, he
too only started feeling comfortable with the term in the last few
years.

So, it seems that at least some nascent men also feel as uncomfortable
with the term as some nascent women feel uncomfortable with that term.

					Tony Hansen
			    hansen@pegasus.att.com, tony@attmail.com
				att!pegasus!hansen, attmail!tony