From: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: girl/woman = guy/man? (WAS: Sexist Incidents)
Date: 3 Sep 92 11:03:47
Organization: Natural Language Incorporated
	<1992Sep2.195050.29837@panix.com>
	<MUFFY.92Sep2161818@remarque.berkeley.edu> <7445@skye.ed.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk's message of 3 Sep 92 17:26:17 GMT

In article <7445@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>In article <MUFFY.92Sep2161818@remarque.berkeley.edu> muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) writes:
>>The word "girl" has a denotation of "child", 

>Connotation, surely.  (If it really were denotation, it we wouldn't
>find it being used for non-children.)

Well, here's my dictionary's definition:

girl n. a female child || a young unmarried woman || (pop.) a single or
married woman at any age || a female servant, maid || a girl friend,
sweetheart || a present or former member of a girls' school or women's
college [M.E. girle, gurle, gerle, youngster, origin unknown]

Heck, let's go for the definiton of "boy," as well:

boy n. a male child, till puberty or young manhood || a son of any
age || a familiar name for any man, old or young

So, yes, both words *do* have denotations of "child."  I was not meaning
to say that that was the *only* meaning, if that's what you mean.
However, that is the first and most common meaning in each case.

>>and when it is used
>>consistently for women, while "man" is used for men, then the suggestion
>>is that women are being equated to children while men are being equated
>>to adults.
>It isn't used consistently for women, and "guy" is often used for men.

Umm...what I was was *when* it is used consistently, not that it always
was used consistently.  Like if I said "when someone hits me over the
head, it hurts" I would not mean that people were always hitting me over
the head.

>Why should this low opinion of children (powerless, not competant)
>have so much influence?  Why should I change my language because of
>an anti-child bias that I don't share?

I'm not saying you (or anyone else) should.  I'm simply explaining a
thought process.  The question was not "should I change what I'm doing"
but "why are people offended."

>Anyway, being called a child is not the same as being called a boy.
>Nor is it very like being called "powerless" or "not competant".  So,
>while it may be that there's something insulting about being called a
>child (and I think there is), it has to be something else.

That could certainly be.  I just gave a summary of what I have heard
from people as to why they object to this usage.  If you have other
information or ideas, please do present them.

>In short, while I can agree that "girl" has its problems, I don't
>think the case against it is as strong and clear-cut as you seem to.
>Some uses of "girl" to refer to an adult female are sexist, others
>are not.

>So what it comes down to is this (IMHO): don't use "girl" when it
>will taken as implying something you don't mean to imply.  I don't
>think many will object to this, because there's so little point in
>saying things you know will be misunderstood.  

Ah, but how do you tell which time/usage is which?  If you believe (I
don't know if you do) that using "woman" to refer to an adult female is
never sexist, but that using "girl" is sometimes sexist, and you don't
want to be sexist, then it would seem to make sense to always use
"woman" and therefore not have a problem.  This is what I have chosen to
do, although I found it very awkward at first.

Muffy
--

Muffy Barkocy | muffy@mica.berkeley.edu | wi.4636@wizvax.methuen.ma.us
~Little round planet/in a big universe/sometimes it looks blessed/
 sometimes it looks cursed/Depends on what you look at, obviously/
 But even more it depends on the way that you see~ - Bruce Cockburn