There are few instances in my life where I didn’t use the term “girl” to describe myself or another female. One of those times is during Formal Recruitment, where the term girl was taboo. We are instructed to refer to the girls walking through and touring our house as women or ladies. I always thought this was a weird rule because I consider myself a girl and I couldn’t think of a time when that term would be thought of or perceived as derogatory. In my mind I was referring to gender, not attempting to be disrespectful.
It wasn’t until this spring that I understood how derogatory the term girl can be. I was attending a concert (Queen Bey) to be exact, and a mother of some teenagers referred to me and my friends as girls. This might not seem like a problem, that is because it is all in the tone. When a mother or a woman figure who considers herself more important or mature than you refers to you as a girl, it is meant as an insult. What she is doing is asserting her dominance and letting you know that she recognizes that you are younger and therefore must be inferior to her. Not only did this woman call us girls, but when she was corrected and told that we were women, she retaliated and told us to “start acting like” completely unprovoked.
This situation is just one of the many that point to a gender inequality in our society. The use of the word “girl” automatically personifies females as immature and childlike. I never thought of this word as an insult, but the more I thought about it the more I began to feel. Males are not referred to as boys after they hit a certain age, they become men or guys. Referring to a teenage male as a boy would be insulting, and yet, we refer to female teenagers as girls all the time. I even wanted to refer to myself as a girl as a college student, and it wasn’t until my senior year that I even saw anything wrong with it.
The problem with my personal story was that this woman did not even realize that she was insulting us, nor did she realize that my friend who corrected her was not trying to be rude, but was attempting to correct a problem that we as a society have. I have never loved the word “woman,” it always felt too mature and too loaded to be used to describe me. But males have no problem taking over the title of “men,” so why should females? The use of the word “girl” reinstates every stereotype about females being weaker or more fragile than males.
Campaigns like the throw like a girl campaign demonstrate that the connotations with the word girl are synonymous with words such as: weak, unskilled, slow, childlike and even foolish. The word “girl” though seemingly harmless is even more loaded than the word “woman,” but for different reasons. Girls are dependent on others to complete tasks that women complete every day. Girls are young and immature, women take responsibility. Girls are childish, women are go-getters. Girls don’t have the words to stand up for themselves, women fight for the respect that they deserve. So I challenge you to fight. And for those of you that are reading this thinking, “it’s just a word, what’s the big deal?” If it’s just a word, then change the word, it’s just that simple.
