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From: chabot@amber.DEC (L S Chabot)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Dividing Line
Message-ID: <1119@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 16-Mar-85 17:30:29 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.1119
Posted: Sat Mar 16 17:30:29 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 18-Mar-85 07:33:31 EST
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Organization: DEC Engineering Network
Lines: 34

Herb Chong
< how come then that almost all my female acquaintances say they are doing
< something "with the girls" regardless of age when they are going somewhere
< with exclusively female company? BTW, the vast majority of my female
< acquaintances are engineers and most of them are extremely sensitive to the
< term "girls" when men use it to refer to them but not when other women do
< except when it is obviously used condescendingly. the corresponding thing
< happens for "boys".

Doing something with "the girls" or with "the boys" will usually refer to an
activity not requiring adult responsibilities or solemnity, such as gossiping
or drinking beer or telling dirty jokes or the traditional prenuptial 
indignities perpetrated on the members of the affianced couple.  (Yes, imbibing
alcohol does, in most states, require proof of some arbitrary age, but who 
here  is going to claim that the resulting activity is mature.) However, such
terms as "boy" and "girl" are usually not used about things involving work,
unless it is used condescendingly, such as "I'll have my girl type this up"
(her or his 13-year-old daughter is an amazingly accurate typist!), or a 
manager saying something about the engineers she or he supervises: "the boys
in the lab" or "the girls in the lab" (we all know engineers are immature
little technobabes who have no idea of the workings of the adult world of 
management or marketing (out where the big kids play)).

If "boy" or "girl" is used when referring to your work, the speaker is stating
that  you're not mature enough to have your work taken seriously. A comment
overheard about an engineer at some other company when speaking about the lack
of merit in her technical expertise: "She's only a twenty-five year-old girl!"
Wouldn't some of you get a little annoyed to hear yourself referred to as a
boy or a girl in reference to your competence?

L S Chabot
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