to think that there is NEVER an acceptable reason to call a 32 year old woman a "young girl?"

[Hullygully]

No I'm not.

I couldn't care less what emotive flannel is flung about.

IT. IS.NOT.ACCEPTABLE.

The end.

There are lots of things I don't like on here. One of them is the game of Cluedo that ensues from particularly nasty murders or child abductions.

But I've learned to ignore those threads and let MN deal with anything illegal

seeker that's a completely different scenario, and of course that would be totally unacceptable.

i Want to have a life where all I have to worry about is women being called girls.

"slaughter of the innocents" - I just didn't see that as a gendered phrase. The phrase was relating to unsuspecting officers walking into what they thought was a domestic robbery and instead facing what they faced. Nothing to do with them being female. To do with them being ambushed.

Maybe, in spite of my many years advocating and working for women's rights in the workplace, I am at heart still hopelessly naive! Its not outside the realms of possibility, I guess.

Right. Now imagine that you are leaving work. You've been there a long time and you're moving on promotion to another company. You have a leaving do and the CEO makes a little speech.

"I'd just like to say that this young girl has consistently performed at the highest level in the company and we will miss her"

Still OK?

What if the accountant were inexplicably murdered during the meeting?

Would she magically turn into a "young girl"?

That is a nonsense.

orange me too - some of what I see on a daily basis would make your average MNetter run screaming!

YANBU.

I'm not even sure at 32 you'd qualify as a young woman anymore. Let alone a young girl.

That women are infantilised in this way (and I mean generally, not necessarily just specifically to the incident from which this discussion has arisen) is part of the problem faced by women in terms of rights and equality that still exists today.

How can we expect to be taken seriously (on the whole, I know a great many women on here have responsible and professional careers) and how can we expect our daughters to have high aspirations for themselves and their careers when so much of the population - including women - are happy for them/us to be referred to as children well into adulthood?

The slaughter of the innocents is the term used to describe Herod's slaughter of the first born of Egypt. Babies.
Once again infantilizing professional women.

Yes, it's better to have a life where you care about important stuff affecting half the population, threeOrange, it is a shame you don't, I agree.

Some of what you see on a daily basis might change if we changed the culture of the way women are seen.

Some of what you see on a daily basis might change if we changed the culture of the way women are seen.

Yes!

You do realise that this is the mind set that is making people question whether women should be allowed to do front line policing, don't you?

Why would anyone assume that what I talk about on MN is 'all I have to worry about'?
That's crass, right there.

Yes yes.
Having an opinion about whether 'young girls' is appropriate or not means that everything else in life is a fucking breeze. This is the one issue that means you have no terminal illness, disability or mental health issues in the family.
That is so true.
It is the only thing I have to worry about.

you can care about one thing without instantly not caring about anything else you know people

I wish i was called a young girl more often

at work yesterday some bloke said to me 'your generosity is greater than your beauty' I wanted to smack him one tbh

Owllady, I don't blame you, what an arse!

For some reason I keep being drawn back to this thread.

Hully, seeker, you are both absolutely and resolutely right. 100%. It's outrageous, demeaning, disrespectful etc ..to call a woman a 'young girl'.

I'm off swimming, with my late middle-aged woman mother and my young boy son.

Acceptable terminology?

Or is that ageist? I might worry about that now, it does seem compulsory.

'The slaugter of the innocents' deprofessionalizes them by making it sound as though they just happened to be there.

DP mentioned just this issue yesterday morning before work, as I said on the other thread. He couldn't believe it when I said 'oh there was a thing on mumsnet about that, 30 odd pages of people howling outrage and saying it was disgusting to even think about the issue' after work!

Sigmund, the very fact that you're making an attempt at parody there to show how inappropriate and artificial such descriptions are sort of makes the point.

In my organisation my group often get called "the legal girls". It infuriates me given I am a senior legal counsel within the organisation and the other "girls" are my direct reports, one of whom is a lawyer and the other two are paralegals. We just happen to be females. It's patronising and offensive.

YANBU at all

No seeker that would still not be OK.

But this situation is different. There's little point trying to draw an analogy between the two because the situations are so different.

And I apologise for suggesting that some of you don't have other stuff to worry about - that was rude and uncalled for.

FWIW, I work in a voluntary capacity outside my main job for an HIV charity that works with former prostitutes and their children who have become infected. The path to using prostitutes for the scum who fly here (Thailand) to abuse and coerce these women starts with mere disrespect, with denigrating language used to subordinate women. I really do understand that.

But I see this instance as different.

And I also understand that others don't.

So I think we shall have to agree to disagree.

(Doesn't mean I can't try and persuade you though!)

YANBU. I am 32, if someone called my a young girl, particularly in a professional setting (or any really), I would be unhappy.
And this thread is faaaaar from the worst there's been on Mumsnet. Have you never seen a McCann thread? Or an AIBU O.P having infertility wished upon them? I have.