Girl vs. Woman

This is something my gir-- err, lover -- wrote up for me, after giving a good rant to me about it on the phone. It definitely made me pause and think; I trust it will the same for you!

I decided the other day that I would rather be called a woman than a girl. I think that calling adult women 'girls' infantilizes and disempowers us. A girl is a child, weak, impressionable, requiring parental supervision and guidance, unable to look after herself. A woman, on the other hand, is an adult, strong, competent, independent. A girl is somebody that a man can control; a woman is someone who can stand up to him, doesn't need him, and won't take his crap. When was the last time you saw a sign at a strip club that said "Women!?" You didn't, because they all say "Girls!"

I am not going to apologize or pretend that I am not what I am. I am a woman. I'm intelligent, educated, competent, I'm completely capable of taking care of both myself and, if need be, others, and I even have body hair. I'm not going to be horribly offended when somebody calls me a girl, but I think a culture that hesitates to call women what they are is one that is still afraid of what they are. I think that kicking the 'girl' habit is a small way of erasing the persistent paternalism that, at this point, really shouldn't be informing us any more (not like it ever should have to begin with, but we can't change that).