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From: chabot@miles.DEC (L S Chabot)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Yet another new reader. Keywd: GIRLS
Message-ID: <1110@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 15-Mar-85 21:19:47 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.1110
Posted: Fri Mar 15 21:19:47 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Mar-85 22:29:07 EST
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Organization: DEC Engineering Network
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Christopher Kay  
< I mean that I feel more comfortable calling them girls. I think it all
< depends on what the people around you are saying when you are growing up
< and entering college. I don't know why so many people on the net are so
< concerned about how to address females or males. People I know don't view
< how they are refered to as a reflection of their masculinity or femininity.

The problem is not how comfortable you feel calling women girls, but how 
comfortable they are about it.  It doesn't matter to them what sort of a hick
town or sophisticated city in which you may have grown up.  College is an
opportunity to learn, and one of things to learn is maturity and responsibility
--not just personal responsibility such as how to do your own laundry or manage
your money without parental intervention, but social responsibilities such
as how to live with people (your roommates or dorm neighbors), how to interact
with other people (your classmates or chums or dates).

No one here is concerned with "girl" or "boy" reflecting negatively on their
feminity or masculinity: the issue is how "child" reflects negatively on
their maturity.  In my experience, males who refer to their dates as girls
are going to treat them as girls: in other words, assume responsibility for
them--take charge of deciding where to go, what to do, when to go, he's going
to drive, and whether or not the whole subject of going out should even be 
broached.  But heavens, if this is the kind of relationship you want, then
you really ought to seek her parent's approval before you do take her for an
afternoon at the zoo (with a special trip to the merry-go-round, and don't
buy her too much cotton candy).

So, yes, the statement "People I know don't..." is true: you know us, and we
don't think of it in terms of feminity or masculinity.  We think of it in
terms of maturity.  And some of us aren't very comfortable with a younster of
merely 24 calling us elders "girls"; we speak up because we think such advice
might help in someone's search for mature and sharing companionship of members
of the desired sex (isn't this how this discussion started?).

L S Chabot
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