{"id":39915,"date":"2015-04-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beirut.com\/39915\/can-we-stop-calling-women-girls-already"},"modified":"2015-04-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-04-01T00:00:00","slug":"can-we-stop-calling-women-girls-already","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beirut.com\/en\/39915\/can-we-stop-calling-women-girls-already\/","title":{"rendered":"Can We Stop Calling Women Girls Already?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In case you haven\u2019t noticed, we at Beirut.com have been on a bit of a feminist tear lately. It\u2019s only a matter of time before the revolution begins. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve nearly convinced my female friends to go on strike to protest the fact that women have to pay so much of our hard-earned money for tampons \u2013 er, radioactive maxipads<\/a>. Let\u2019s all just all stop using feminine hygiene products, let it all flow out \u2013 til the worldwide patriarchy agrees to give every woman a monthly subsidy for the maxipad, Diva cup, or tampons of her choosing. The movement will be called #Letitflow. Those who find this modest proposal too gruesome to bear might simply suffice by pouring red paint on their pants in a show of solidarity. <\/p>\n

But what I\u2019m here to talk about is something else \u2013 it\u2019s the ubiquitous practice of referring to grown-ass women as \u201cgirls.\u201d I hear this even from my most enlightened media-literate friends. \u201cGirls,\u201d a colleague will say in an email addressing me and several other coworkers who happen to be of the female variety. “Oh, she\u2019s a very sweet girl,” someone will say about an accomplished theater director \u2013 who, by the way, is in her forties. The other day I went to my favorite bootleg DVD stand to pick up the most recent season of \u201cGirls.\u201d The guy didn\u2019t have it in stock. He offered some alternatives. \u201cTwo Broke Girls,\u201d \u201cGone, Girl,\u201d \u201cGirl, Interrupted,\u201d \u201cTwo Guys a Girl and a Pizza Place,\u201d and \u201cMean Girls.\u201d Clearly, Hollywood is doing it\u2019s part to keep women down. <\/p>\n


(GIF via Tumblr<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The practice of calling a grown-ass woman a girl, you\u2019ll observe, does not extend towards the males of the species. Have you ever heard someone refer to Nabih Berry as a nice boy? No. Why? To call someone a \u201cboy\u201d when they are in fact a \u201cgrown-ass man\u201d or a \u201cgirl\u201d when they are a \u201cgrown-ass woman\u201d is belittling. It implies that this woman \u2013 we do not need to take her seriously, for in fact, she is a child. <\/p>\n

The linguistic sexism isn\u2019t just in English. In Arabic you might say \u201cyalla shabeb\u201d \u2013 let\u2019s go guys, or \u201cyalla benat\u201d \u2013 let\u2019s go girls \u2013 but no one ever says, for example, \u201cyalla owlad\u201d (boys) or \u201cyalla niswan\u201d (women.) Perhaps one source of the difficulty is the lack of a solid feminine equivalent to \u201cguys.\u201d We sometimes say \u201cladies\u201d \u2013 but that\u2019s a bit old-fashioned, like calling a group of men \u201cgentlemen\u201d or \u201csirs.\u201d <\/p>\n

So I hereby propose we introduce a new name for women into the lexicon. The female equivalent of guys. I don\u2019t know what that word should be yet. I\u2019m still working on it. Here are some ideas:
GAW (Grown-ass women)
Aretha Franklins
Queens
She-ras
Hiyas <\/b><\/p>\n

I am not sure about any of these, but I\u2019ll give it some thought over the next few months. Post your own suggestions below. And don\u2019t forget to sign all your tweets #letitflow.<\/big> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In case you haven\u2019t noticed, we at Beirut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":418129,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_preview_accessed":0,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"media-embed-type":[],"class_list":["post-39915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"authorship":[38],"yoast_head":"\nCan We Stop Calling Women Girls Already?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In case you haven\u2019t noticed, we at Beirut.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beirut.com\/en\/39915\/can-we-stop-calling-women-girls-already\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can We Stop Calling Women Girls 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