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From: marla@ssc-vax.UUCP (Marla S Baer)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Girl vs Woman
Message-ID: <681@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 14-Dec-83 18:23:38 EST
Article-I.D.: ssc-vax.681
Posted: Wed Dec 14 18:23:38 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 16-Dec-83 03:22:12 EST
Organization: Boeing Aerospace, Seattle
Lines: 47

x
According to my dictionary, the word girl means, a female child; a
young unmarried woman.As to the first definition, I feel I made my
point in a previous article.  As to the second:  In today's society,
a woman's marital status 
is STILL very important, whereas that of a man is not.  The term
girl, is not appropriate if the woman is married. But, why should
anyone in the working environment know, or care what the marital
stats of a particular woman is?  (I'm not talking of personal
conversation/ friends, etc.) 

In common usage, the term girl is used in two different ways.  The
first is said between friends, as in I'm going out with the girls
(which is usually used by older women, who grew up in a different
atmosphere, at least, I've never heard any of my friends refer to
themselves as "the girls"), or as used in songs ,etc.  I'm not
complaining about this usage.  It's the second, the one commonly
heard in the working environment by men when refering to women,
especially those benieth them in the corporate structure.  It
usually is used to indicate that the person in question is not an
equal, is a servant, or is beneith notice.  It is used to indicate
incompetance (as in too young and inexperienced to know better).
Even though most men won't admit to the term being an insuult, or of
meaning it that way, the inference is there.  If you ask a group of
men to describe a girl you will get a completely different answer
than if you ask them to describe a woman.  The description you will
get of a girl is usually that of a young child or teenager.  The
description you will get of a woman is a mature adult.

I'm not saying that the term girl is in itself derogatory, or that
the people using it are being insulting intentionally.  This is an
inherent problem in our language.  People have to be reeducated in
their speech as times change.  This is how language evolves.
Language which was unacceptable in times past is now in common
usage.  And words which were in common usage are now either unused,
or totally unacceptable.

Marla S. Baer
ssc-vax!marla

P.S. Please forgive my ramblings/typos.  I still haven't figured out
this editor completely yet (I wish this system had EDT keypad
editing!! :-) )   -MB