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Comment by edblarney | Hacker News Reader

"This is an indicator of the bubble you're living in. It may be common vernacular amongst all or nearly all of the people you interact with, but it is simultaneously highly disrespectful. It might be worth taking a step back and asking yourself what other things you consider normal might actually be disrespect"

You might want to consider that you live in a bubble - and that your finger wagging is condescending.

'Girl' is the feminine of 'Guy' - just as much as it is also the feminine of 'Boy'.

Consider those words for a moment and their common usage.

I'll bet that 'girl' is your vernacular as much as it is mine, because it's universally common.

"That guy/girl is smart" - both acceptable.

"The guys/girls are going out for lunch" - both acceptable.

"Guys/girls, huddle in, let's chat" - both acceptable.

"The guys/girls from marketing are in town this week" - both acceptable.

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There are plenty of examples of OK usage, like calling your daughters 'the girls' or your buddies 'the guys'. but calling a grown woman a girl if you're in a position of power (as a man you may always be perceived as such) can be problematic. In your case, since addressing someone you don't like as a girl (julie horvath) comes off in more a negative light than say your sympathetic tone toward the article's subject ('poor girl'). A female director calling a mother 'girl' could be offensive, but calling her 20 something single female co-workers is more acceptable. A man using the term to refer to a woman who is of considerable age a girl enforces a parent-child authority complex. Not good. However a man calling another man son because of seniority or age is acceptable in most regions that I know of, though not all.

Here are a few other examples:

Being addressed as a boy or a girl by a police officer is really disrespectful. 'Boys will be boys' is really a diminutive phrase when referring to men. 'Boys and their toys' when referring to men purchasing items they like is also dismissive.

Perhaps where you are it is not offensive to list it the way I have, but note that it is not the same everywhere and it's glaring enough that it warranted many people posting it.

Son and boy also have racial implications in the US, particularly the South. It'd be bad form for me to speak to a male, black colleague (given an age difference with me being older) and call him "son". If he were white (as I'm also white) it might be seen as slightly dismissive, but it would hardly be offensive.

In the same sense that we have to be aware of the implications of language and race, we have to do the same with language and gender. Without this, you're not treating other people as peers or equals or legitimate agents (referring to a woman as girl has the implication that she's a child, either needing correction or protection, from you, the big, strong man).

This is, as I noted in another comment, also very regional. I live in the South. I could probably call many women girl here and they'd have no problem with it, without familiarity they call me honey and doll. But I also lived in Raleigh (still the South, but culturally very different thanks to the universities and IBM and others). Girl there would have been seen as offensive or dismissive by many women I knew if the man wasn't someone they knew in a familiar sense.

Well bless your heart. (Sorry, NC Native coming out in me. :P )

Could it be that you are both living in a bubble and both being condescending?

Yeah, we all live in our own bubble. You're right that I was being condescending. My goal was to point out that things that appear indelibly true to you may not be universally true throughout society. Probably not a fight worth having, oops!

To me? Or to the person you were replying to?

In any case - I agree with you that we are at a time when we need to confront the fact that different social points of view can have equal validity and it's not just a matter of one side overpowering the other anymore.

I meant the collective "you". I think this is true of everyone.

True, but the implication is that you are speaking to people who don't know that, when it's only the poster you were replying to who appears not to know.

Boy, you're wrong.

In what way?

You've attacked me twice now with ad-hominem, even worse, not providing any reasonable argument.

In which case above, do you think the interchange of 'guy' or 'girl' would not be acceptable?

Try to take thoughtful position, without trolling ad-hominem.

What ad-hominem, boy?

I really hope you're not trying to suggest the use of the word 'boy' is some kind of ad-hom attack. The irony would be too strong.

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