7 Culturess writers on the word ‘girl’

Courtesy Alice Stanley

4. Alice Stanley, Jr.

Recently my mom and I went out to dinner and our waiter began every check-in with “How’s it going, girls?” I might feel, like Britney, I’m straddling “girl” and “woman.” However, my mom is definitively not a girl anymore. We both talked about it at length. Was he trying to compliment her in some creepy way? Was he on auto-pilot? The next day my 70-year-old white male manager asked me to do something and I responded, “Girl, of course,” to which he took no offense.

These two unrelated incidents are proof of how complicated the word “girl” is. On one hand, I often refer to myself as a girl. Usually in the context of, “I’m a cake vs. pie kinda girl.” On the other hand, last week when a stranger told my all-lady improv team were “a nice group of girls” I wanted to sock him.

On the third biologically-incorrect hand, I much prefer “Girl, please” to the misogynistic “Bitch, please.” To be honest, I have never minded being called a “guy” when someone is corralling a group of people. Guy to me never meant men. It just meant people. And if girl becomes to equivalent to that semi-androgynous meaning of “guy,” I’m down!

But if “girl” is an insult or a way to depower women, I’m less down. In fact, I’m not down at all. So, how to avoid that? From my perspective, we should always refer to female-identifying people over 17 as women. That said, they can and should call themselves whatever they want! Okay, girl?