7 Culturess writers on the word ‘girl’

(Image courtesy Cheryl Wassenaar)

2. Cheryl Wassenaar

I am neither a full proponent of “girl” nor a full opponent. For me, it’s always been on a bit of a case-by-case basis. For example, I’ll call some of my friends “girl” in casual conversation, because it’s an easy way to inject a lot of commentary into a single word and because we’re friends! Like a lot of words, the usage of “girl” totally depends on the tone, even in text.

But I also usually mirror that behavior. That is, I’m usually not the first to call the other person in conversation “girl,” just because it’s not a word that everyone likes having applied to them, and my general assumption is that if you’re comfortable enough to use it with me, it’s okay using it with you.

(This also gets more complicated when I don’t think I’m at the friendship level of being called “girl” by someone. “Girl” is totally a friendship level. I did not make that up, nope.)

And, of course, it’s complicated by when a guy calls me girl, because there’s a whole extra layer to decipher, and that layer is “Am I being patronized right now?” Because if the answer is yes, we are not having conversations anymore, or if we are, the conversation is going to include at least a question about how that guy would feel if I called him “boy” to his face and was condescending on top of it.

Not great, right?

In public discourse, the idea of adult women still being girls is a little bonkers and should basically be avoided, though; sure, New Girl is a cute comedy but we probably shouldn’t call Zooey Deschanel a girl because she’s an adult, and as for men being called boys or kids in the public sphere … yeah, that’s not fun either, even if it is less common. If you’re an adult, you’re an adult and should be spoken about as one.