women over 18 being referred to as girls

I agree alicetwirled, women as a group term does need reclaiming as normal.

We could also try lasses (the feminine of lads) and ladies, both of those sound just as odd as a neutral group title for women.

[waves at LostinWales]

Pisses me right off too.

And it's quite right there isn't a neutral term for referring to a group of women which is telling. I try and get in 'sisters' wherever I can to counter all the 'girls'

FWIW I do always consciously use women and young women even though it feels a bit odd. Now there's a word that does need reclaiming.

(Rainbow here is the one place you won't get told to lighten up but instead commended for noticing . All the 'little' things do contribute to the wider problems)

LadyClarice..me too.

I find it particularly annoying in a work context, eg the "girl from accounts". It's infuriating when you are trying to protect a professional image and it is absolutely never mirrored with "the boy in Sales" or similar.

That's what I mean by context, reeling. It's when others call women girls and it comes across as patronising or demeaning that I don't like it.

Your mum and her 'girls' sound fantastic! I hope I'm like that at 86.

My Mum is 86 and goes out for lunch every Tuesday with 'the girls'.

There are three of them and they've been friends since school.

Men call themselves 'boys'/lads too.

Macabre, that's quite telling, isn't it, the lack of positive language for a group of women? A bit like all the female words that are use as insults (bitch, whore, cow ...)

I refer to myself as a girl sometimes (e.g. 'I don't read Marie Claire ? I'm more of a Vogue girl') and with certain groups of friends we talk about our 'girly dinners' etc. But it's all about context. Women being referred to as girls in the press etc is not on. And there was a thread here recently about someone's boss introducing her to a work contact as 'the new girl', which I think is outrageous.

I agree, it makes me cringe. However, I do think there aren't many ways to refer to a group of women in that kind of friendly way. Men can be 'guys', 'chaps', 'blokes' etc. There isn't an equivalent for women (that I can think of), so people fall back on 'girls'.

It irritates me too but it's so ingrained. I am planning a weekend get-together with three of my oldest friends (without husbands for a change) and we are all referring to it as the 'girlie weekend'. It should be the 'women's weekend' but that sounds wrong. Is the word 'women' falling out of use???

I think there's a time and a place, as sometimes men are referred to as 'boys' too - boys night out, old boys etc.

What really pisses me off though is when adult people are referred to as 'men and girls' - happens a lot in songs, newspaper articles etc. Or even worse, in an article I read recently about a mother and her baby DS, she was referred to as a 'girl' and him a 'little man'.

I hate it. Worse still I caught myself calling my group of female friends 'the girls' the other day and I cringed at how I must have sounded. We are all 30's/40's, not children in Lelli Kelli shoes.

Ooh, first post in Feminism. (Been lurking for a while)

I hate it. Really do. Really really. I am a 41 year old mother of 3. Way way beyond girlhood.

Darling and all variants from strangers make me cringe too.

Why does everyone have to lighten up anyway? What's the big crime in being serious sometimes?

Lighten up, you have no sense of humour, etc :-)

It is a good point, and I do it myself for younger women (as I'm no longer in that category) but I do feel so belittled when someone calls me 'girl' etc, I'm 29 ffs!