On the way to work this morning, I saw a post from a friend on Facebook:
This sparked a day long conversation between the two of us, which was awesome. I abhor the use of the word girl or boy to refer to an adult. It's demeaning. It removes the learning, experience and responsibility from the adult. To refer to a woman as a girl is to feel superior to them as an adult. Children are dependent and not fully matured. Adults are not children.
I was genuinely interested in whether I was alone. I know Jo has similar views, so I put it to the women in my life by way of a Facebook post. I wasn't surprised to see most of the women I know were not happy with being referred to as a girl, but there were a few that were okay with it.
I thoroughly enjoyed flexing my mental muscles in trying to verbalise clearly how I felt, and having a person such as this friend with whom I could share my views. He's a very smart guy and great to get in to philosophical debates with.