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Comment by rando289 | Hacker News Reader

“Every time I see the word ‘Girl’ used in scenarios that are supposed to empower women, it really grates on me,” http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/01/30/girls-lad...

It bothers me too. The article is otherwise great.

google, define: girl "1. a female child. 2. a young or relatively young woman."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl: "A girl is any female human from birth through childhood and adolescence to attainment of adulthood when she becomes a woman."

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/girl: "a : a female child from birth to adulthood

...

d : sometimes offensive : a single or married woman of any age"

In this case, it seems like she is trying to sound cute or informal while unwittingly reinforcing the perception of women as child-like.

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The use of 'girl' to refer to women often bothers me as well, but in this case, it's a reference to a song title: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_Different_for_Girls

There's nothing about that in the post, and I don't think it's relevant. There are many song titles which have a negative connotation towards women (especially in rap). I couldn't name a blog post the same as one of them, then later say, "I understand how you could see this as a bad thing, but I was just thinking of some song title you've never heard of." It doesn't work that way.

And, she does call herself a girl once more, not just in the title. Perhaps someone said that sentence in a movie, so it will somehow not mean what it says either.

And even if it is an unspoken reference, that doesn't explain how the title should be interpreted differently. It's a pop song, and according to wikipedia the lyrics aren't especially relevant to the contents of her post.

I think the usage of girls here is likely intentional and is a very important and much better word choice than "women" IMO - it shows the power differential common in many of these situations.

I've had a 15-year experiment going in relation to this. Some adult females hate being called 'girls', because of the reasons you state. Some adult females hate being called 'women' in a general context, because they feel it brings a whole lot of feminist baggage they don't want to deal with. It didn't matter what word I chose, I'd find someone who was put off by it, and had had clear complaints verbalised about both words (ie: I'm not wrongly picking up on nonverbal cues).

So I started using 'lass' instead (I am not in an area where this is in common use). I haven't yet found anyone who bridles at this, when before I certainly did with 'girl' and 'woman'. No-one seems to particularly care for or against 'lass', with the exception of some elderly women, who seemed to like the suggestion of youth in the word. The experiment part was that I'd stop using 'lass' when someone complained about it, like they did with 'girl' or 'woman', and to see how long that would take.

I'm not particularly suggesting this as a course of action for the general public, it's just a story to relate.

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