Gender words

[lerite]

My mom pointed out recently that women of her generation are frequently annoyed by applying the word "girl" to women my age (who, at least me and some of my friends, apply it to ourselves). I thought about it for a while because I'm certainly not consciously trying to objectify women or anything with my gender words. I said that having trans

Comments

[peojkl]

I give the same connotations to woman and man as you do -- earned maturity. Ditto real man, real woman. But I also remember the politics of girl/woman -- when I was young, women of all ages were called "girl" and it was assumed to be flattering. Black men and women were called boy and girl as part of the manners of segregation. So there was a huge pushback and a very strong sensitivity among both women and men. (I checked with Dad -- he would never use "girl" for a person in her 20s.) BTW I know you don't disagree about this, just continuing the discussion. I agree about the desirability of "guy" or some such for connotations of immaturity outlasting the teens; I personally use the term in a gender neutral way, although I know that for many it is solidly masculine. And I do find that I catch myself using boy/girl for someone of college age when I think of them as a student and am referring to their immature social status. But then other times I instead say young man or young woman

[runthebear]

Ditto the wish for a female or non-gendered equivalent of guy. If there were one, I'd use it to refer to myself most of the time. I don't consider myself a "woman" because to me that carries implications of stolidity, conformity, marriage, children and/or powersuits. I am/want none of these things, but I certainly don't consider myself immature or irresponsible. Lady sounds weird and still has too much feminine baggage, most of which I just don't identify with. I use girl as an acceptable substitute to refer to myself in my head because it seems to carry less cultural baggage (like you said- it's an easy default setting), but I would be insulted if anyone who wasn't close enough to me called me girl. Hmm.

[thegelf]

The hive mind strikes again! And by that I mean I'm in a similar place as you on labeling myself a woman, though not because of its connotations of stolidity etc.

I'm comfortable in being female. I'm comfortable with girl since it (to me) seems to have less other-than-specifying-gender baggage attached to it. I'm exceedingly uncomfortable with calling myself a woman, as I feel that I mentally not conform to societal expectations of woman. I came to this realization when thinking about Beloit's Girls and Women in Science, and started debating with myself over whether I was a woman in science. And came to the conclusion that I'm not a woman in science, I'm a female/tomboy in science. And I sure as hell ain't a lady, or a gal. But I am a she! It's confusing.

There's too much societal gender role tied into the word woman. It doesn't just mean a mature competent female.

[lex_of_green]

Huh. I think this post just made me figure out why I use “lady” the way I do. You might've noticed that I refer to strangers and other female-presenting adults who have not specifically identified as women or girls in my presence as “lady.” Scanning back through my first page of lj posts, I can see that I do this kind of a lot, and it's usually in places where I'd use “guy” if talking about a man.

THIS MAKES NO SENSE.

Except, after reading this post and thinking about it a bit, it kind of does. I think I reflexively avoid using the word “woman” for strangers because “woman” makes me twitch so much when applied to me. Seriously - I remember pretty much every time someone has called me a woman because it feels a bit like being pinched really hard outa nowhere. Surprising, mildly painful, and weirdly inappropriate. I understand that I am unusual in this reaction, but Sam has a point when he says that most people are a lot better at the golden rule of “treat others as you want to be treated” than they are at the much more reasonable “

[lerite]

I approve of your use of lady. Using humor and irony to re-appropriate words is one of the best weapons we have.

[thegelf]

Woman makes me twitch too, and I do identify as female! *points at reply to Sarah W. above*

[batmiles]

Ignoring the fact that I don't think I agree with what makes someone "real"--although it's vague enough that I might--in my mind, at least, "man" has some negative connotations attached to it, such as aggression and crudeness, amongst others, whereas "woman" does not.

I mean, let's say a random passerby is attacked by a male person with a knife in, say, a mall. It would not be odd to hear the victim say "that man came at me!", which is a statement weighted with a whole sack of assumptions.
Now swap the roles. When you hear someone instead saying "that woman came at me!", do you, or more relevantly the average English-speaker, as you are not, assume anything other than the literal meaning? Also, at least the way my head reads it, in the first statement, the stress falls naturally on "man", whereas in the second, it falls on "that" or on nowhere particularly stronger than anywhere else.

There could be and probably are other things at work here, but I need to catch a taxi, so that's where my analysis ends for now.

[lerite]

Another reason that this has come up lately is that a co-worker (with whom I am, in fact, making friends) called me "woman" as a greeting (without other words except maybe a "hello") a couple times and it WEIRDED THE HELL OUT OF ME. I think I struck a too-sexual-for work note, something along the lines of the difference between "my man" and "my woman" (when spoken by members of the opposite sex). Which was not intended that I could tell. Woman has a lot of connotations of being owned that man doesn't. ("Make you his woman," much?)

[batmiles]

True about "woman". "Man", however, may not have those implications in that context for you, but it does for me. Overtones of "protector", too, but definite notes of ownership, of varying strength depending on who's saying it.
Julia uses "woman" too, but I've never been entirely clear on the actual meaning when she uses it like that. I think it's something of a haha-only-joking-not-really term, too, which makes it more confusing. Although... actually, I think Meredith may have originated that, so god only knows.
I think "woman" may have been repossessed by our post-sixties-feminism generation, though, or at least parts of our generation. Its status and implications may be in flux, which is why we're confused by it.

[ilaifire]

Haha,after reading all of this I'm completely confused as to what my usage of boy/girl and man/woman are. I think I have several rule sets that are unrelated but end up overlapping. The obvious one most likely everyone has is the use of boy/girl for prepubescent/early-teens. But I know I definitely use boy/girl man/woman as a form of T-V distinction. So when I meet someone new they will be a man/woman, but after a while I may switch to boy/girl if I get to know them well and like them. But then I will also use boy/girls to distinguish what you probably are referring to as immaturity. I wouldn't call it so much immaturity as forgetting how to enjoy life, the joy of the first snow fall, or of seeing a rainbow, or playing. I wouldn't say the parents who go to the park with their kids and push them on the swings, or play tag or anything else with their kids are immature. Granted I wouldn't call them boy/girl unless I was close in age with them and I knew them, but in the opposite case (parents go to the park with their kids and sit on a