Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by edblarney | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

edblarney

"Honest question: what would be the equivalent of "guy"

--> "I don't think there is one."

No - the feminine of 'guy' is 'girl'. Point blank.

"The guys/girls are in town this week"

"Those guys/girls are from Facebook"

This is very common and normal language.

View on HN

Unfortunately, even where it is common and normal language, "girl" to a woman holds implications that "guy" to a man doesn't. Specifically, that the woman is in a lesser position of power, since they're being referred to as a term that is used for young females, while the men are being referred to using a term which affirms their difference from young males.

There's a point in the language that we use where boys with little power become guys with some power, but there isn't a point where girls with little power become [some word we don't really have outside of regional vernacular].

Our language is not perfect (even mine isn't) - the things we say on an everyday basis show all sorts of things we as a society implicitly believe, often without realising it. That our language reflects our society, and vice versa, is a very old idea, and part of modern feminism and the academia which backs it tries to bring that to the forefront.

Girl is a diminutive. Guy is not. When you're familiar with someone it's probably fine to use girl with them. But when you aren't familiar, or are speaking about them to others in a professional sense, it's probably bad form.

On that same note. Girl may be "diminutive" (I don't agree with that), it's not derogatory. (Unless you say a teenage girl for someone who is an adult) Even if used intentionally to putdown your subject, it's not effective. ("You're a girl" .. well yes, the meaning of the word is incredibly flexible and doesn't indicate maturity or explicitly state negative qualities)

I don't think women have the equivalent to "boy." Boy is used by women to adult men to degrade the subject.

Even though we have two similar words which may belittle the person, we have another case where the womens' version is watered down to belittle less.

-----

That being said "dude" is a pretty weird neutral term is odd in use, and formality.

I see now that you're from Canada. Maybe what you are saying is true there. In the US, it is not true. Women don't like to be called girls, just like men don't like to be called boys. That our forebears didn't deign to create a feminine version of "guy" is no excuse.

For anyone wondering why "girls" is a loaded term, think about how it used to be ok in the US for white people to call adult black men "boy". Would you call your coworker or boss "boy"? No, it would feel terribly terribly wrong, especially if they are black. It would be a gross microaggression and bullying behavior.

That's what calling women "girls" is like. It's a pejorative that maintains bias and prevents us from seeing a class of people as active and capable.

Men get tied up and abused as prisoners of war and they're heros. Women get tied up and abused by men, they're victims. Women as "girls" is part of this false socially constructed narrative about female "impotence."

In a similar vein... I'm Canadian and middle aged. I grew up being totally ok calling myself an "Oriental"... until an American relative told me it was incredibly offensive and that we're now called Asians (this was maybe around 1990). I changed my use of that word mainly in case I encountered other American Asians, but to this day, I'm still not offended by the o-word.

> In the US, it is not true. Women don't like to be called girls, just like men don't like to be called boys.

There is rather enormous variation in individuals and, often even for the same individual, context in this, within the US.

Here's the thing I don't get: You have been told repeatedly in this thread that referring to women as "girls" is demeaning and treating them like children. This is fact. A normal person, when told that they are calling someone something that they do not want to be called, will say, "Ok, I'll stop, and use the preferred term." You, however, have doubled down on it, even insisting that treating women like children is the preferred nomenclature.

Tell me, why do you have such an attachment to that word? Why is it so important to you to refer to women as children?

They are not equivalent because they have different connotations. These aren't values in an enum, they are socially constructed symbols.

Actually, it's gal. Point blank. Not used as often, because the diminutive term passes for an alternative among many.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com