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From: seifert@ihuxl.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: re: women, men, boys, & girls
Message-ID: <802@ihuxl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-Dec-83 10:10:14 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxl.802
Posted: Fri Dec 16 10:10:14 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Dec-83 08:28:41 EST
References: <419@ihuxq.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, Il
Lines: 60

>>			  It sure is gentlemanly of
>> some big, brave, macho studs on the net not to mind being
>> called "boy".  But then men don't have to mind--
>> we have all the power in this society.   Men who want
>> to work toward a more egalitarian society will have to stop
>> hiding behind their dictionaries.  And that's the truth, Jack.
>>
>>	ken perlow 

I suppose I'm one of the people you're referring to, Ken.

Except that I'm not "big".
I'm not "macho". (yuck)
And I'm not real sure about "brave".
I'm not a "stud".
I certainly _d_o_n_'_t have a lot of power in this society.

If you would *read* the article where I said I didn't care what
you called me (including "boy"), you would know that I care
instead what the _i_n_t_e_n_d_e_d _m_e_a_n_i_n_g is.  This covers the case of
a boss calling his (or her? Do female bosses call their secretaries
"girl"?) secretary "girl".

Once someone told me to "have my girl do such and such".  It took
me quite awhile to figure out who he meant. I didn't have either
a girlfriend or a daughter, and neither of these were applicable
anyway. Finally I figured out that he meant the secretary for my
department.  It struck me as very odd that he would use the word
"girl" when he meant "secretary".  He had no guarentee that "my"
secretary was female.

To me, the word "woman" brings to mind a person my mother's age.
I tend to use the word "girl" to refer to someone of about the
same age as myself.  Once I refered to a colleague as "girl".
I meant no disrespect. She is intellegent, has a Masters 
degree, and is actually a few years older than I am. She is
also a fairly radical 'libber', so naturally I caught quite
a bit of flak for using the word "girl".  In fact she made
such a big deal out of it that I lost a little respect for
her *because* she made such a big deal out of it. -sigh-

Anyway, we still need a suitable word. "woman" often implies
"old", "girl" implies "young", and perhaps "powerless",
"lady" implies "on a pedastal" (see net.singles). Ok,
adult female homo-sapiens of the net, how do you feel about
"gal"? Is there anything "bad" that is implied by the word
"gal"?

	searching for a word that doesn't insult *anybody*,
	(and wearing out my <"> key doing it :-)  )
	Snoopy
-- 
)
(
 )		from the mildly opinionated keyboard of		
_)__________________	
|OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO|		Dave Seifert
|OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO|		ihnp4!ihuxl!seifert
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