Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 SMI; site sun.uucp Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!hpda!fortune!amd!decwrl!sunny From: sunny@sun.uucp (Sunny Kirsten) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re: On the Interpretation of "girl" Message-ID: <1699@sun.uucp> Date: Thu, 20-Sep-84 23:01:22 EDT Article-I.D.: sun.1699 Posted: Thu Sep 20 23:01:22 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 26-Sep-84 03:36:29 EDT References: <212@gitpyr.UUCP> <318@hou2g.UUCP> Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. Lines: 35 Greetings: I use a very simple criteria for calling someone a girl versus calling her a woman. If she constantly refers to her mother, she's a girl. If she evidences independent decision making, she's a woman. Likewise boys versus men. Adulthood is the issue. The titles reflect which side of that fence a person occupies. All of the above relates directly to a one-to-one personal interaction. Many of the interpersonal interactions which occur in our everyday real life world, relate to positions rather than to people. Presumably, at work, you should be relating to the position of the person you address, or refer to. Thus, when the President calls a female secretary a girl, or a male secretary a boy, he or she is indicating his or her power or authority over the lesser *position*. On the other hand, at the company's Friday night beer bash, when people are presumably interacting on a personal level rather than on a positional level, (well, this particular example is purposely the most ambiguous situation), then we should all be equal *people*, as opposed to heirarchial positions, and the use of boy or girl becomes personally offensive, rather than a reflection of positional power. All of the above is complicated by the *traditional* and typical social structure whereby men in general have more *power* than women, and often abuse it when they needn't, asserting that power thru the use of derogatory terms, such as "girl", indicating a lack of adulthood in the object. The last word carefully chosen to imply the associated "objectification". -- {ucbvax,decvax,ihnp4}!sun!sunny (Sunny :-> Kirsten of Sun Microsystems Inc.)