We hired a man and a "girl"
A rant honestly, but I thought this might belong in tech since it's a bit more of a tech society thing for me. I'm sure other industries have this issue too, but tech definitely does. If others disagree, please feel free to move it.
So yesterday, we had two new hires show up and we were informed this in our weekly leads meeting, so this is a pretty private setting. When our manager gave a quick blur of one, it was "we expect a lot from him, he's a bit more knowledgeable, did well on our tech test", that kinda thing. And then, when discussing the woman, he kept referring to her as a "girl", so I pointed out that maybe we should use "woman" instead.
I got made fun of - "maybe we can use lady or female or ..." honestly started tuning it out, can't remember the rest. Also accused of nitpicking.
I've been in the industry for a while now and though in general things are good, every now and then something small like this happens and it makes you check the date (yes it's still 2018, I didn't go back 20 years).
To be fair, I know my manager was being funny, but it's easy to joke at someone else's expense.
Wondering, other's experiences on both sides. Have you noticed changes in your workplace, for better hopefully? Maybe other ways you were discriminated against or singled out?
That's really disheartening, but thank you for speaking up.
Edit: You expanded to say he was trying to be funny, and maybe that was the case, but that doesn't justify it. Reinforcing entrenched stereotypes under the guise of joking is still undermining that employee
Edit 2: I'm a white man, so I never have to deal with that sort of thing, but my girlfriend is black and she's also in tech. Long story short, but she had a company literally offer her 70% (technically 71%) of what they offered a white male counterpart after he fucked up and she cleaned up his mess.
I wanted her to sue, but she was concerned about the whole thing getting super messy and her getting blacklisted.
To be honest, I'm not even sure why I added that because it really doesn't justify it! Why am I defending it at all? (But I'm not going to remove it at this point)
It's a common tactic that's used to excuse shitty behavior. That being said, sometimes you can joke about those sort of things in an ironic sense, but that requires that people clearly understand that the joke is a joke. Usually because you have a strong relationship with them. Which wouldn't be the case with a new hire.
I think one of the worst things is having to be the target of "can't you take a joke?" I never know how to respond except that it's not funny, and the typical reply is "well then you don't have a sense of humour."
I am a female in a tech industry, and while the sexism isn't too rampant where I am, I hear it a lot on other teams, and it makes me reflect on how I would deal with it, and then I depressingly realise that I wouldn't have a good way to handle it at all.
ah some of the top tens we get to hear, including but not limited to "but it's a complement", "he's just being endearing", and "I call my daughters this".
To add: I find often it's make one comment and then let it go, or risk becoming that oversensitive person.
Does ~ have the vomit emoji yet?
I hope Tildes never has any emojis built in.
🤮
Beautiful. How did you do that?
Emoji for google chrome extension
alternatively if you were on mobile you could do it the same
Sadly, that's the case. The other party is almost never the side that stops to reflect on what they said, they just get defensive by way of dismissiveness.
That's another aspect, we expect every person discriminated against to be able to eloquently articulate the nuance of issues to a thoroughly uninformed audience. It's ridiculous, you're there to program (I assume, since you said tech), you're likely not trained as a sociologist. Having experienced discrimination does not make a person an expert on discrimination, just on their own experiences.
I'm not an expert either, but I make an effort to learn and try to make an effort to speak out when I can.
All people really need to do is be capable of stopping and being critical of themselves. An unwilling audience is just as bad as not being able to eloquently articulate. My friends in sociology are much better at explaining the phenomenon, the problems, the mindset, and why tolerance of ignorance is "polite" but ultimately just lets the issue keep continue.
And you're quite correct, I am a software developer! As someone who basically grew up in tech, I didn't start really seeing the social issues until my sociology friends pointed them out and making them relevant. It takes both sides to realize something's wrong.
Not exactly. If a certain person is targeted by a joke, they mustn't be a victim of the same abuse, trauma, etc. you're using to make fun of that person.
If you grasped the nature of that rule, you could say there are no exceptions to it. For instance, a comedian is demeaning an audience member for get laughs for his show. That is fine as long as degradation of other people in general, not a particular, handicapped group or a concrete person, is what that comedian does.
Among friends, it is not a setting of a particular event (a comedy show) but there is usually a lot of context to the relationship and group dynamics which justify pretty harsh language. Nonetheless, repetitive victimization still crosses the line; it's just that everyone tends to tolerate a lot more due to peer pressure.
I'm not entirely sure what you're saying. It seems like your second point contradicts your first.
In my earlier post I wasn't intending to say it's alright to make fun of people with jokes. But that context and understanding are important when determining whether a joke is appropriate.
Well, I was just clarifying in reply to what you put in words. I wasn't presuming what you meant.
I'm not sure what you refer to as the second point. There is just one point and two examples.
It is easy to make such a generic statement, that's why
fleshedI tried to flesh out a more realistic one.Yeah, that's fair. I was trying to point out that I'm not advocating for "NO JOKES EVER, NO FUN ALLOWED". Just that people should think about what they say.
While there could be racial and/or gender bias in this, it could also be just that the company is low balling the offer to save money. Did your girlfriend try to negotiate salary? Was she offered an increase from what she was making before the offer?
I know my company just offered a white male funnily enough 71% of the salary of the female he is replacing. In both cases, both were asked what they felt a reasonable starting salary was and basically set their own price. The offer to my previous employee was at the high end of what the company was willing to pay whereas the salary of our new guy is lower than what we assumed was the minimum we needed to offer.
Yeah, and that may be a possible explanation. She wasn't even supposed to know the offer the other guy received, so we don't have the full story of exactly what went down. What we do know doesn't look good though.
She ended up taking a different job at a company she likes a lot better, so it ended up working out.
Honest questions, is guy and girl not roughly the same connotation wise?
It would be sound strangely formal and stilted to me to say "The new man will be starting on Monday" and I would actually expect "The new guy starts on Monday"; in that scenario the equivalent statement would be "The new girl starts on Monday" (technically gal, but nobody says gal) and "The new woman will be starting on Monday" would sound just as strangely formal and stilted as "The new man" to me.
Is it really seen as girl=boy=diminutive?
"The new person will start Monday."
Can't speak for everyone, but for me, "girl" is a lot closer to "boy" than "girl" to "guy". And I would argue in the workplace, you should side on the formal if wondering. In plural form, "ladies" ~= "guys", but I don't really hear the singular.
I do still have some close friends that say "Hey girls", but it's rare and like I said we're close and in an informal setting. They also use "Sweetie" and I definitely don't want to hear that at work.
Maybe it's regional?
In my circle of friends and acquaintances, "girl" is not an infantilization. We use "guys" and "girls" as roughly equal. My mom just told me about "the new girl at work" - the new girl is 75.
We certainly need to ensure that we're addressing men and women / guys and girls / ladies and gentlemen the same way with the same sort of respect, but I think that we also need to make an effort to not get caught up in nomenclature when we should be examining intent.
I do agree that it would absolutely be weird if the boss said, "We hired a man and a girl." Were those the words that he actually used?
I don't think the fact that "guy" and "girl" are used in the same context is evidence that "girl" isn't infantilizing. I think it's actually better evidence that the infantilization of women is normalized.
The fact is that virtually no man find's the term "guy" to be diminutive. Maybe a bit informal, but no one would take being called a guy as someone consciously or unconsciously trying to equate you with a child. Many women would take being called a girl as just that. Regardless of intent, that means it does make some women feel infantilized, and so it shouldn't be used unless you're willing to live with that outcome.
Before this, I have never heard of a woman finding "girl" insulting.
That's not direct evidence, of course, but it makes the claim suspect to me.
Wait, what claim is suspect?
The claim that "girl" is seen as sexist by enough people to make it a trend, as opposed to an outlier.
I mean, sampling bias and appeal to population are both logical fallacies.
I can live in a cave all my life and think that language is an outlier and be wrong.
And that's completely ignoring the fact that incidence doesn't excuse the behavior.
That all being said, I do think we allow words to have far too much power over us in modern culture. I personally don't care if someone uses the words "faggot" or "gay" in negative connotations so long as they aren't directed at me. And if they are directed at me, I have an issue with the person and not the words they use.
It is a pretty classic example that is written about a lot in linguistics and communication studies.
Here are some studies on the topic:
Cralley, Elizabeth L., and Janet B. Ruscher. "Lady, girl, female, or woman: Sexism and cognitive busyness predict use of gender-biased nouns." Journal of Language and Social Psychology 24.3 (2005): 300-314.
Messner, Michael A., Margaret Carlisle Duncan, and Kerry Jensen. "Separating the men from the girls: The gendered language of televised sports." Gender & Society 7.1 (1993): 121-137.
Wensing, Emma H., and Toni Bruce. "Bending the rules: Media representations of gender during an international sporting event." International review for the sociology of sport 38.4 (2003): 387-396.
Pomerantz, Shauna. "Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Un/Defining the" Girl"." Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 1.2 (2009): 147-158.
There is also a fair amount of non-peer reviewed discussion about this but these pieces have some good lit review discussions and quantitative data.
Well, I suppose I stand corrected. Certainly news to me, but dem citations, though!
While I do understand why having never experienced or heard of this before makes you think the claim is suspect, I think you should be careful not to fall into the logical trap of 'If it hasn't happened to me, it's never happened'. Every person has unique experiences and it's important not to discount them, simply because your personal experience has happened to not overlap with theirs. Especially on Tildes. It's entirely possible, for instance, that you have heard a woman find 'girl' insulting before, but if it wasn't significant to you at the time then you probably wouldn't remember it.
I think that needs a source, because as I just said, I think it's potentially regional. Almost every group of women that I know of refers to "having a night out with the girls" or "girl time" or "just one of the girls". It's almost ubiquitous here. I don't think it's infantilizing at all. I'm certainly not saying that it cannot be though.
Intent is super important though. Why would we consider anything regardless of intent?
It definitely could be regional. For company events though, "ladies" is used. And when hiring, like at job fairs, we definitely don't use "girls". So, I think we recognize it's not right.
As for actual words, it was more of a conversation:
Me: "We have two new hires?" (saw new names pop up in our logs)
Boss: "Two, an Asian guy and a young girl. Guy's more senior (blab blab balb), and the girl's a bit junior."
You're talking about business activities while /u/aphoenix is referring to usage among friends and family. That's a completely different context, hence the reason both of you are correct.
As far as I know it is not regional. What is regional is the usage of less formal, more casual or even colloquial language at work.
'Girl' can definitely be used as an endearing, personal form of reference. But even in private, the tone or meaning can very quickly degrade into a condescending one, without the speaker even noticing. So commonness does not validate its appropriateness.
So at work, except for blue-collar and service industry apprentices, generally neither girl or boy are ever ok to use.
Even if you're linguistically restricted, as there is no female equivalent to the indiscriminate singular guy ( the plural, guys, is neutral), it does not absolve you of the consequences of using a generally too patronizing term.
In that example of yours, there are several options:
For male: guy, young fellow, young man, young male
For female: young(er) lady, young(er) female
alternatively, names
So, for instance: "an Asian, young fellow and a Caucasian, younger lady"
Thank you. I really agree with this.
And funny enough, I ran into another manager getting water who said "Oh we hired two new UI developers. They're on M's team and we're planning on putting them on project XYZ."
Which I found far more informative in a work setting than their ethnicity and gender.
Alternatively:
"The new manager will start Monday."
"The new salesperson will start Monday."
"Our new team member will start Monday."
"The new programmer will start Monday."
There are lots of ways to handle this without resorting to the demeaning "girl" or the vague "person".
What do you think of the term "gal"? I always go with gender neutral "them", "person", etc. but curious about your thoughts. I feel similarly about girl/boy being paired more often than guy/girl, but it made me thing guy/gal, but now I'm wondering if gal feels kinda 50s to anyone else and demeaning because of how we're usually exposed to it nowadays.
Honestly, I don't mind "gal" and there was a brief period in university that I remember people using it. Have to admit, it does sound a bit dated now :P
I think I kinda like gal - "the new gal starts today" sounds way better than girl to me - casual, but doesn't imply she's 9 years old!
I definitely prefer being called a gal to a girl, in company that is my age or older. I also hear 'galpals' thrown around instead of 'girlfriends' when referring to your close female friends, which I think is more of an endearing term rather than an infantilizing one.
In a professional setting though, I still hear "the new girl" a lot more than "the new lady".
It's a bit too American to my Aussie ears.
Whereas in certain parts of the UK "gal" is a contraction of the name Gary.
I'm definitely with you on the sweetie thing, that's just absurd.
See my other comment here: https://tildes.net/~tech/2sj/we_hired_a_man_and_a_girl#comment-vu7
It's certainly diminutive to call a man a "boy" (and can be racist when said to black men) and likewise a woman a "girl." It implies immaturity at the very least.
The gendered counterpart to "guy" is "gal" and that sounds old fashioned, but "guy" survived for whatever reason. I personally use the term "lady" often in a non-ironic sense to fill that void.
I don't think "girl" implies immaturity at all. As others have said, it's simply the counterpart (or a counterpart) of "guy."
That's actually really interesting. And I can kinda see the youth thing, since in Asia, sales are starting to use Miss instead of Auntie or Grandma for all women.
However in North America, I've never had anyone trying to sell me something refer to me as girl.
It's actually the opposite for me. I know the other person is not being purposefully malicious, but I still think it's important to point it out.
Wait, how is "boy" racist at all? It has nothing to do with race.
Black adult males in America were often called “Boy” by white folk, regardless of their name or age, when in a service role and just out and about. This would be applied to children and elderly men and all in between. Today it’s a functional equivalent of “n****r”.
To add, for anyone who doesn't know the history of this...
MLK was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. He was there supporting the Memphis sanitation strike, who famously used "I AM A MAN" as their slogan and on their signs.
https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/2/12/17004552/mlk-memphis-sanitation-strike-poor-peoples-campaign
Is it really? I've never heard of this before. If I called a black guy "boy" would he be more offended than a white guy or is it more of a historical thing? I guess I don't really use that word except when talking to... well, boys.
In the US?
Yes. Very yes.
Good to know. I don't think that situation would ever come up, but if it does now I know.
It's racist when used for black men. You might find this interesting.
Yea, I've read the links people replied to me and I understand why it is now. Still seems silly to me, but what do I know...
It actually has an older context that was used to belittle black men.
From the 8th definition for the word "boy":
From the usage note further down in the entry:
Source: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/boy
Huh, TIL. That's super weird to me. Sounds like one of those things that used to have a certain meaning, but nobody cares about it anymore. I can see how calling someone a "boy" could be insulting in the sense that you make them seem like a stupid kid, but I really can't see how could that be considered racist.
It's racist in context. If I call a white man "boy", that's not racist because there's no history of using this term to demean white men. If I call a black man "boy", that is racist because there is a history of using this term to demean black men. Context is everything.
I understand it now. Still seems weird that this seemingly unrelated word has a racist meaning behind it, but I can see the thought process behind it.
I would say guy = gal, not girl
The trouble is it's not equivalent. "Boy" is equivalent to insulting; "girl" is not and I'll explain why.
A perfect example, call a girl "old" and it can easily be an insult. It's harder to insult a guy with "old", especially if he's young, it can be a compliment.
"men" gain worth with age(don't get any pitchforks out, I'm talking semantic definitions here, men historically are valued mating wise by their social status which accumulates with age.)
(again no pitchforks please, I'm talking semantically as in the origins of the words and why "girl" isn't a putdown) women are traditionally valued for their fertility, something that means the younger you are the better, the more of it you have left.
These are not societies current values of these to male & female roles(depending where you live and how evolved your society is), but it leads to the semantics where:
Boy = youth = less social status, devaluing a man.
Girl = youth = another word to describe a female.
I'm not saying this is how it should be, I'm just saying you should not be upset with the people using "girl" but rather your bone to pick is with semantics which evolves over time and doesn't say much about the guys "attitude" rather just semantics.
Guy here. I work in the tech industry, but a lot of my knowledge about equity comes from my time playing Ultimate Frisbee where there recently has been a very large gender equity push. I definitely think the tech sector which has historically been - and still is - largely dominated by men could use WAY more talk and discussion about these things.
I definitely agree with your feelings that people using "girl" to commonly refer to women is casual sexism, as "girl" often carries with it the connotation that "boy" does when referring to a man. Regardless of intent to discriminate or not, it's still sexism. Just because "there is no 'guy' equivalent" doesn't mean they have to use a word that has such a connotation. If that's the case, what's wrong with using "woman?" What's wrong trying to change your words when a woman tells you that it's something that's bothering them?
When it comes to how frequently this happens, it's due to inherent societal biases that have existed due to how patriarchal society has been. It's institutionalized, just as racism against people of color is still institutionalized. I am not a sociology major nor a feminist studies major, so I'm not even close to being the most qualified person to talk in depth about this, but I don't need to be either of those things to see the effects it has on the women around me.
I applaud you and your bravery for pointing it out. I'm sure it's difficult given the immediate dismissal of that idea of your peers, but I firmly believe you're in the right and that you're not alone in those thoughts. The more we point things like this out - especially to superiors - the faster I think the change will happen to fix this.
Woman in tech here. One day we were chosing photos to post on our office walls. We had like 20 options and we had to chose some number around 7. There where photos of graffiti paintings.
Before we settled the final photos, I just pointed out that we had 2 photos picturing women (there were young, pretty women) and no photos of men. All the guys just said that the men were ugly and laughed it off. It pissed me off, I mean, the reason I brought it up wasn’t to also objectify men in the office, it was to point out how we were objectifying women.
Just ranting here and I felt like you might understand.
Might be nitpicky from me (but hey, half this thread is about small nuances in language), but I… Well, I don't want to tell you what to do, but raising it as a question seems fake (because I have something to say, not necessarily anything to ask besides "what do you think?"), so I guess here's a thought:
I wouldn't put these on the same level at all… That's not to say one is worse than the other, but I think they just function within completely different dimensions, so they're hard to compare (and we shouldn't really). In my experience at least, seeing quite some different cultures, the "racism against people of color is still institutionalized" is quite a bit more US-centric. As in, the specific way racism is institutionalized, or even just outside of that, how it's carried out, is different than in other countries (tangent: and has changed even in the US, there used to be more racism/tribalism in what's now called "white people"/caucasians/whatever, where there used to be hostility). As in, other countries exist where racism exists but depending on where you are that looks completely different. In the US you might speak of discrimination from white+conservative christian people against black people or muslims or hispanics being the norm; in Egypt you're talking about muslims discriminating against christians or sudanese refugees, or whatever. I mean wars and tribalism have been a thing for forever, before white people showed up and claimed half the world (and that's not to diminish the role europeans often had in ramping up tensions already present for their own gain).
But I think that patriarchal systems are much more a constant, across different cultures and times.
That's just my 2¢, that while I think both racism and sexism are institutionalized, they vary wildly in history and root causes, etc, so I'd caution against lumping them together.
This happened to me this week! There's a new senior manager starting at my workplace. She's high up the hierarchy. And my female manager was saying to me "when the new girl starts in two weeks..." When I said "woman", she looked at me funny, like I was from another planet.
We don't work in tech. I work in a female-dominated workplace: only 2 out of 10 of us are men. But, for some reason, the women are all "girls" even to each other. I don't get it. They call me a man (I wouldn't let them get away with calling me a boy!), but they call each other girls. Why is this?
EDIT: Also, whenever one of these women needs something heavy lifted or moved in the office, she comes running to me. Because I'm a man. When I try to point out the sexism in them assuming that I'm stronger than them just because I'm a man (I'm a slightly chubby middle-aged man - not a body-builder), they look at me like I'm crazy.
I think a better parallel term here would be 'guy', rather than 'boy'. It's similar in length and is just as easy to say as 'girl', and it gets used quite a lot. Does framing it that way change your opinion of the term at all?
It's not though. Little children are called "boy and girls", not "guys and girls".
Well, yes, that's exactly my point. The issue is that 'girl' has two connotations, one being 'young woman' and the other being 'slang for woman' in the same way that 'guy' is 'slang for man'. I am presuming that in an office context the intended connotation would be the second one, as "guys and girls" is a reasonably common phrase.
I think that this is an issue that is arising due to the influence of patriarchal culture on the English language that led to 'girl' being used as slang for a woman, rather than someone being intentionally dismissive. Of course that doesn't make the term less problematic, though. It doesn't really make sense that 'girl' is also used for young women while 'guy' never is used in that way.
What do you think a good alternative here would be? 'Female' isn't great because it sounds like you're describing a biological specimen, 'lady' is a bit too formal (parallel term would be 'gentleman'), and 'woman'/'man' sounds generic and bland and I don't think it sits right in an office casual context.
I honestly hear this argument for continuing the use of "girl" a lot, and honestly, it's dismissive. It's comparing a word that no one has an issue with to one that is problematic.
"Woman" is a valid alternative, though I agree, a bit formal.
A better alternative is "person".
Hey, I apologize, I think we're actually in agreement here. 'Girl' as a parallel to 'guy' is absolutely problematic, and I wasn't intending to suggest the guy/girl parallel was a good argument to continue its use, only that it might explain why it happens so much.
I definitely prefer the use of gender-neutral terms wherever possible, so people is great! I do wish there was a good monosyllabic casual gender-neutral term, because my mouth is lazy and less syllables is less work.
No worries. I believe we are in agreement :) I didn't mean you were being dismissive, more of the argument is dismissive.
What casual? My female manager was referring to a senior manager who's starting work with us in a couple of weeks. I think that warrants the use of "woman".
I mean, you're not wrong. You'd probably know your own office culture better than me. However, I think 'woman/man' carries with it an air of formality that doesn't lend itself easily to the more casual (as compared to say, professional email) social rules of in-person interaction. Does that make sense?
Gal? Miss? Madam?
We might have even more problems if we started saying "the new Madam is starting today." Haha!! <- That was a joke.
Show me the female equivalent of "guy", and I'm on board with being called a "guy" at work.
But as long as the casual noun for a female adult is the same as the noun for a female child, it's demeaning to use the latter to refer to the former - especially in a workplace. Remember, we're not talking about inviting "the girls" over for a party. We're talking about a senior manager being referred to as a child.
That's the funny thing, I find a lot of times women are just as bad.
This is so true. If it's not accepted one way, it's not acceptable any way.
I mean that works the first time, but after you are the person who's lifted heavy things before you technically have the proven track record of being the person who can lift heavy things.
Unless there's like a female bodybuilder or strength athlete at your company, it would make sense for them to continue to come to you.
I'm talking about the first time I'm approached, not the twentieth time. I'm approached the first time because I'm a man, not because I've demonstrated a history of lifting & carrying.
One time, I was helping move some equipment because a woman asked me (because I'm a man!) and because I'm helpful. That stuff was heavy and it damn near killed me! I have underlying health issues, and I was also recovering from a shoulder injury. Turns out she was stronger than me - and that attempt to help her wiped me out for the rest of the day.
Never assume a man is stronger than a woman just because he's a man.
You're telling me that if you and a couple of other male coworkers were having a conversation in the break room at work, and a female coworker walked up and said "What do you boys have planned for the weekend?", you'd take offense at that?
Or you and a male coworker are at your desk working through some problem, and a female coworker walked up and said, "What are you boys so engrossed in?", that would be an issue?
I wouldn't think twice about it, other than it might possibly register in my brain that the speaker was being casual and friendly.
How do other males in this thread feel about that?
Notice that your examples are using it in context of casual conversation to an inclusive group of peers. Try a few where it's just a singular "boy", perhaps a manager in a formal setting instead of the break room or a scrum of peers, for me it starts to get uncomfortable. "SleepyGary is late on that TPS report, someone tell that boy to have it on my desk at EOD please." or "Need you boys to step it up if we're going to ship X on time" isn't as bad but I still wouldn't like hearing it from a boss if we weren't on familiar terms.
But isn't it uncomfortable simply because it's not idiomatic to use "boy" (in the contexts you suggest) in a non-derogatory manner, whereas it is idiomatic to use "girl" in a non-derogatory manner? And since you mention context...
I believe that "girl" has two very common meanings, one being "female" and the other being "female child", and it simply (like many other words) requires one to consider the context in which the word was used to be clear about its intended meaning. One should not simply assume the use was intended to mean "female child", and ignore the context. And I think to do so, and claim some harm or offense, is disingenuous.
Could it be it is idiomatic to use "girl" in a non-derogatory manner because traditionally the male dominated workplace has declared it such, tradition from a time when it was acceptable to treat women as if they were of a lower station even when doing that same job. It wasn't long ago we called those in the mail room "mail boy" despite usually being adults for the better part of the 50 years but you'd never hear call someone on the upper management or the board of directors a boy or girl unless they were intending offense.
I don't think most people do this intentionally to hurt people, it's an unintentional bias for a reason. It stems from lack of reflection on things we take for granted. When I was younger calling something gay was idiomatic for lame, stupid, undesirable, etc. It wasn't meant to hurt homosexuals, my aunt and a few close friends are homosexuals, I never meant anything by it, it injured them nonetheless. My wife finds men that call her girl in the workplace offensive, she worked damned hard to get to where she is today and feels belittled when call her that. Knowing how my homosexual family and friends feel and how my wife feels made me reflect on the worst I say and as a result I try to be better.
I wouldn't think twice, but I also don't care about slurs directed at my sexuality or race so I'm probably not the best person to ask.
I care more about the intent of the language than the language used. A word is a tool to convey a message. Certain words imply more positive or negative connotations but to me I care about the message than the tools used to convey it.
@SleepyGary already wrote my response for me. :)
Unfortunately there's always that element of subtle and often unintentional bias. Even raised primarily by my mother, having some great women in my life, and generally being raised such that I appreciate women, I find myself struggling to remember to say "women" rather than "girls". Additionally, I haven't worked on a full team of programmers yet, but one of my interns was a younger woman and I had to remind myself not to try to be "helpful", and to assume that, yes, she actually knows what she's doing and to only check in now and then on her progress as I would any other intern. Hell, I even find myself dealing with racial bias, immediately associating people of color with belligerent behavior when I see them in public, and have to correct myself frequently.
It's honestly kind of frustrating knowing that I have to keep myself in check like this because of that inherent bias wanting to bubble up to the surface.
I think what's important here is that you realize there's a bias there.
I definitely do find this sometimes too both for myself and other friends and family. I grew up, studied and work in very male-dominated environments, and didn't start even realizing it until I met more women in my field.
Among our friends, we're all about gentle corrections/reminders. I have no issues with people slipping up and using "girls" or similar language. I just find it so weird when people become defensive when corrected.
I honestly think you're interpreting sexism where none exists. Neither the language nor intent were discriminatory, so there honestly isn't a problem.
I'm certain that there wasn't discriminatory intent, but I'm curious how you've come to the conclusion that the language isn't discriminatory either. It seems to me like it's a fault of the English language and the discriminatory culture in which it developed that makes the language inherently discriminatory. 'Guy' is the rough equivalent of 'girl' in a casual, adult context, but there's no way for 'guy' to be anywhere near as dismissive as 'girl'.
Also - even if there wasn't discriminatory intent, doesn't mean there's not a problem. Clearly OP feels that it is a problem, and they undoubtedly have legitimate reasoning for feeling that way.
I'd be hesitant to proclaim that there's a problem just because someone has been offended. It certainly is worth looking into, and it could be a problem, but in our current culture, everything would be a "problem" if the only criterion was that someone was offended.
Which is exactly what happened, as it turns out. And I don't think the situation at hand is a problem, honestly. I do sympathize, though. Certainly being offended is no good feeling.
The OP made it pretty clear that she's not offended, only that she finds the term problematic. There's a significant gulf between not liking how a word is used and being offended by a word.
In that case, I guess I misunderstood.
Agreed, this is a failing of the English language, not sexism or bias. There is no female equivalent of "guy".
man -> woman
male -> female
gentleman -> lady
boy/guy -> girl/gal
but nobody uses gal.
But boy is not used interchangeably with guy...
In plural form it's not that uncommon to use them interchangeably (e.g. "What's up, boys?", "Good job, boys!", etc.), however those cases are all inclusive, implying the speaker is part of the group being referenced as "boys". But in singular form and solely in reference to the gender of an adult man it's incredibly uncommon unless being used as a possessive term of endearment (e.g. "How are you, my boy?") or as encouragement ("Atta boy!", "That's my boy!", etc). Outside of those specific cases I can't think of any other where "boy" isn't generally viewed as a derogatory/demeaning term when in reference to an adult man though, similar to your complaint about referencing an adult woman as "a girl".
When was the last time you called a coworker or subordinate a boy? I know I'd be a little insulted if my peers or boss did so in a professional setting.
Whether or not coworkers use the term is irrelevant to the point @backtick was making.
I think you’re confusing sexism and intentional sexism. In my opinion
That wasn't really a distinction I saw fit to mention. Intentional or not, I don't see it here.
You don't think it's sexist to refer to women as children, while not similarly referring to men as children? You don't see the difference there?
The word "girl," when directed at or referring to an adult female, is the counterpart to "guy." It is not solely used to refer to children.
In whose opinion? The man who's using it and isn't affected by his word choice, or the woman who's hearing it and is affected by the choice of word used to describe her?
In my opinion. It's a very dangerous game to attempt to police one's language in way that offends absolutely nobody, because you end up with cases like this. In my own opinion, I think this is a good example of someone finding an issue with harmless language. It shouldn't be required of anyone to walk on eggshells to the point where even innocuous language like this is out of line.
There is something to be said for trying to avoid offensive language, but that has its limits.
But it's not your place, as a man (I assume), to tell women what language they should find acceptable.
I've brought this up in other threads in the past, but it's relevant here. What happens if two women disagree on whether my language is offensive? Women aren't some monolithic entity. What happens if, in order to stifle the discourse, a woman claims that all my attempts to communicate are offensive? If I truly get no say in the interpretation, I would be forced to halt the conversation indefinitely.
It's very important to keep intent in mind, and I don't think I need a "place" to give my perspective. If someone is offended, we'll work it out on a case-by-case basis, but I'm not going to just slavishly defer to literally anybody who insists my innocuous language is actually problematic.
Why not play it safe and just not use the potentially offensive language at all? Even if only one of those two women finds "girl" offensive, you can still win by not using "girl": the woman who finds it offensive won't be offended and the woman who doesn't care won't care.
I admit that sounds reasonable. I'm just nervous, in general, about language-policing.
Thank you!
It's unintentional bias. I didn't realize it had a term it until a friend from the Navy recommended a couple of books about it. i always thought about it, but didn't realize how in depth some people had laid it out. Google it and read some stuff. It'll open your eyes on how to handle it and other ways to look at things.
I have difficulty with the concept that the use of the term "girl" automatically indicates unintentional bias. For many native English speakers, men and women alike, there is absolutely no negative connotation to that term. It is functionally equivalent to "woman", "gal", or "lady". It is quite often simply used as a descriptive term for no other reason than to make it possible to continue the conversation about the person, since English relies heavily on gender-specific pronouns. If you say "we've hired a new person", then people don't know whether to ask "when does HE start?" or "when does SHE start?" I'd even suggest that more often than not, the bias is being assumed by the listener, and not believed in the least by the speaker, and bias is going to be assumed even if the speaker says "we've hired a new woman" or "we've hired a new lady".
In English it's okay to use "they" if one does not know the gender of someone talked about. source
But that opens up another ambiguity. Is that a single person you don't know the pronoun for? Or maybe it's multiple people? Ambiguity makes communication harder
Singular they has been a thing for hundreds of years. It's exceedingly common, to the point that the people who complain about it almost all use it that way. Like... you:
I learned this in elementary school. Is this usage no longer taught or are the people arguing against it being disingenuous?
It seems to be a very regional thing. We in Australia have been using the singular "they" commonly for at least three decades. Meanwhile, it looks like people in the USA have only really started accepting it in the past decade or so. Whenever I've discussed the singular "they" on internet forums, it's much more likely to be Americans who push back on it than other English speakers.
Maybe Americans are more willing to fight for pointless misinformed causes, but I can say without a fraction of doubt that singular they is a part of Standard American English. No less, it's incredibly pervasive, especially if the person being talked about is a hypothetical.
It's just not used a lot so it causes confusion, but we absolutely learn this in the US (or at least in California). I use it frequently in speech in real life and never run into confusion.
I'm well aware it's a thing (as you pointed out), and it definitely has it's uses. That doesn't change the fact that it can occasionally create confusion (as minor as it would be). I think it's fine to use it when you don't know which gender to use, but if you do, there's no point in hiding that information behind a neutral pronoun.
Honestly, I'd be satisfied with a singular neutral pronoun instead of the same pronoun used for plural. However, if what people use and understand is that word, I'm not gonna make up some other word I think is better and end up making communication even harder. I'll use it for sure, but it doesn't mean I think it's the best way to do it.
I don't think anyone here has advocated for always using gender neutral pronouns. I do agree that when you know someone's gender, it's both more clear and a non-issue to use their pronouns.
If someone tells you "we've hired a new person", and you ask "when do they start?" there is absolutely no confusion about whether you're referring to a single person or multiple people.
The English language is full of confusing grammatical and linguistic trip-ups. It's what makes it one of the hardest languages to learn. And most languages have ambiguity involved that relies heavily on context. This is just par for the course, and not a reason to avoid the use of the singular "they".
For extremely clear communication purposes: that's why militaries around the world, in many different languages, use a limited and explicit vocabulary for their purposes.
Just because it's par for the course doesn't mean I can't avoid it altogether. That's like saying government corruption is just par for the course so we shouldn't think about it too much.
A bit off topic, but that's an interesting opinion. Pretty much everyone I know considers english one of the easiest languages to learn. I obviously don't know every language, but from the ones I do, that's definitely the case.
There's an inherent bias for someone to think their natural language is easy to learn.
Language scientists around the world agree that English is one of the hardest languages to learn. It's not the hardest but it is very hard, primarily due to it's unique grammar and expansive word choice.
English isn't my native language =P In fact, I think my native language is much harder than English if only for all the goddamn verb conjugations and exceptions. I don't think I've ever read/heard a scientific approach to a language's difficulty, it's interesting to see that English is considered hard. I guess being on the same side of the world and having tons of contact with the language made it easier for me and the people around me.
Well it's also relative. Many languages share grammar, words, or other aspects of language. So someone who speaks a greco-roman language will have an easier time learning another greco-roman language than say a romantic language or a nordic language.
Some languages are fundamentally different in ways that other languages don't have, such as tonal languages when compared to atonal.
So it's even more nuanced than that, but English is a relatively difficult language to learn in the grand scheme of things, but certainly not the hardest or one of the hardest. But it is difficult and prevalent so it receives a bit more attention than say, icelandic or navajo, both of which are very complicated and unique but spoken by very few.
It seems like the "english is hard" idea comes up most often around people who study languages generally, and in the context of trying to learn it from scratch.
In practice, in many places it's pretty hard not to get at least some exposure to english media while growing up, which seems like it would make learning it later in life a little easier.
Yea, I guess this is the case for me and those around me. Hell, I've been playing videogames in English since I was like 4. There are situations where I find myself thinking that it'd have been easier to say something in English than my native language. I even think in English sometimes.
That's not a fair comparison, though. Government corruption is a very different ballgame than linguistic accuracy. There are excellent reasons to avoid gov corruption, and not really any good reason to avoid the singular "they" grammatically.
Isn't that clear from context?
I agree. But it should also be okay for the speaker to let their audience know the gender of the person they're speaking of, without having to go through a bunch of mental contortions trying to figure out how not to offend anyone over the innocent use of one of any number of gender-identifying nouns, pretty much all of which could be claimed by someone to have some implicit bias.
People use wording around me that I could find offensive if I wanted to. But I can also choose to consider the context of the conversation, the intent of the message, and the character of the person speaking, before coming to the conclusion that any offense should be taken or that any harmful bias exists.
We talk a lot these days about the responsibility that people have when speaking, but there should be an equal responsibility on the part of listeners to be thoughtful and reasonable, and not presumptive and reactive.
No one finds mentioning someone's gender to be offensive. That seems to be the basis for a part of your comment, but I don't see where you're getting that from.
It's also worth saying that "new girl" is idiomatic, so substituting it with "new woman" or "new lady" naturally sounds weird. So does "new man", when "new guy" is the preferred phrase.
It's common to use "he" or "she" when talking about someone to indicate their gender. "When do they start?" "She starts Monday". It's also common to simply ask "are they a he or a she?", though for some reason people don't consider this to be standard.
I think I agree with you. My point wasn't that it's offensive to mention someone's gender. It's that some people needlessly take offense at some of the specific words used when mentioning someone's gender. Even though, as you say, "new girl" is idiomatic and not derogatory.
I said it's idiomatic, I'm not arguing whether or not it's an exception to the derogatory nature of calling grown women "girl".
It depends on the situation / who is saying it and how.
In my personal opinion, I think you may be trying to make an issue where there is none. Of course, I can't know for sure as I'm not in your shoes. However, from what you have written - this seems like an overreaction. As other commentors have pointed out, guys and girls mean the same thing in informal English. In this situation, I would personally refer to her as lady, but I don't think a reaction of this kind is warranted.
I'm not sure what reaction you're referring to. Do you mean just in this thread? In the meeting itself, I brought it up once, and let it go.
I was referring to the thread.
Is speaking about something that's bothering you in a limited and controlled capacity with no judgements is considered an "overreaction" now instead of a normal response?
What would be an appropriate reaction in your eyes?
...not posting? I don't mean to be harsh, but if I stubbed my toe I wouldn't come on ~ to post about it. Even if I was talking about it in a limited and controlled capacity with no judgments toward whatever I stubbed my foot on.
I'm sorry but that's a ridiculous comparison. You're dismissing someone else's rather measured response to something someone said on the basis that it's like they're basically stubbing their own toe?
It's also extremely rude to tell other people to adhere to your own personal value judgements, especially to tell them that they are ultimately overreacting by having any response at all.
Would you be ok if your manager announced you being hired as:
We hired this boy
?
Did you read what I said? I was saying that guy and girl are used mostly interchangeably. If he said "we hired this new guy" instead of "we hired this new man", I could care less.
Independently of what you said about them being used interchangeably. I’m just asking your opinion on this:
Would you be ok if your manager announced you being hired as We hired this boy
Yes or no?
Without making a judgement about if it is okay or not, you are asking them to make a false comparison. As pointed out guy and girl are used mostly interchangeably. You are now asking about a theoretical usage of boy while forcing them to actually use the only meaning as it is used.
If you wanted to ask this is a fair question you should ask something like this.
It sounds pedantic maybe but I believe that discussing subjects like this in less binary terms does foster better understanding and in the end achieves more.
I really think that it’s the same feeling being called girl or boy.
Here’s the logic.
We can call women either women, lady, gal or girl, do we agree?
Then we say that girl has two meanings:
I think up until now we are all on the same page.
Being called girl at an office context makes you feel as being called female child. So I was just trying to show him how we feel at the office when we’re called that.
And how can I make him feel being called female child? By imagining being called male child.
I’m not saying the intent of the manager was to call her child. But what I am saying is that it made her feel like being called female child, which is totally valid given that it is one of it’s possible meanings (that we agree the manager didn’t meant it).
So maybe next time you want to call a woman girl at a professional context, it might be good to think that she might feel like being called boy (which of course it isn’t the message you want to convey).
You recognize there are several meanings and that people can clearly have the explicit intent to use the one opposite from the one that you take offence with. Which is again why asking someone "would you be okay with being called boy" is not a constructive thing to ask. Because the honest answer is likely that people don't know as boy (annoyingly for woman) only has the one specific meaning, making it a hypothetical.
All I offered or attempted to offer was a way to be able to discuss and frame it in a way that makes it easier for people to understand the issue.
I mean, being aware that man doesn't know how it can be perceived as there is no equivalent can be productive. Because it means that instead of going "you wouldn't like being called a boy" which is just a hypothetical you can simply make men aware in a different way. And request that because there is no equivalent of it for them that it might not be fair of them to try and reason it is okay when you perceive it as degrading.
I never said I am one to do that, I am merely saying that your way of arguing at the point where I replied is approaching more of an entrenched position that doesn't seem constructive towards making the other person understand the point.
So, was the substantive discussion of the female less so than the males? Are you nitpicking word choice only? Because your post is talking about a word but didn't talk about the content of the discussion.
If it's just a word I think you're overreacting. If the discussion of the person wasn't equitable then you have a point.
Are you a man? How would you feel if a colleague referred to you as a "boy"?
Just fine? Complimented? In any case I don't care about discussing that part of it as there's plenty of other healthy discussion about that already.
I'd be more concerned if I was evaluated differently because of my sex. Which is what I'm driving at.
Can you see the point that a mature adult woman might feel that describing her as a child is evaluating her differently because of her sex?
Nope -- not necessarily. Mostly because girl doesn't read as automatically talking about a child. People use girl for females of all ages, up to a point. Little girl is almost always a child, though. In any case, I'm more concerned about the content of the discussion than what words are used.
Also, like I said I'm not interested in talking about this. There are plenty of other people here to talk to about it, go reply to them.
I apologise: I mistook your comment here as an indication that you wanted to participate in this discussion.
Apology accepted. Thank you.
It's the nature of open forums, my friend. By posting at all, you're implicitly inviting discussion.
It's very culturally based, but honestly, you can help change the culture. Just start by quietly talking to your boss and explaining to him that you seriously were offended, tired of this culture, hoping that eventually change, whatever position you're willing to take.
Of course, I don't know your boss, or the culture at your place, but calling thoughtful people out on something helps them understand that yes, the world is changing. There's always a risk in saying what's on your mind, and I certainly understand the reality of needing to keep a job. So it's really a judgment call on your part. Just saying.
It definitely is. My work culture is generally pretty open and as you mention communication is key. Though I'm not sure if people just know not to use that language around me or if they've actually applied the change all around. I suspect the former, but hey, gotta start somewhere.