‘The girls’

[Girlygirlgirl]

I’m fairly certain I’m not being unreasonable in getting irritated by this, but does this irk anyone else?

I started a new job 6 weeks ago with a new organisation. In our department there are two types of job role. My role is highly qualified, the other role is also skilled but less qualified, and supports my role.

The people that do the other role are collectively called ‘the girls’. For example ‘the girls can do that piece of work’ or ‘give it to the girls to action’. I don’t get it. They are not girls, they are grown women!

Everyone who does my role is also female. We are all women! So why are they ‘the girls’? In my old organisation we called them by an abbreviation of their job title.

Come to think of it though, the people on the shop floor are referred to as 'the lads', maybe that is as bad?

YANBU,

Your username though

Can’t stand ‘girls’ or ‘ladies’, but adding ‘my’ to it makes it so much worse.

Yes because that’s exactly the same as a professional work environment, isn’t it?

Is it the NHS?

I work in a qualified clinical NHS role and the HCA’s are nearly always referred to as ‘the girls’. I suppose it doesn’t stand up to close examination but no one has ever expressed an issue with it.

I agree with you OP, in a professional setting no group of women should ever be referred to as 'the girls'. I'd happily call it out each and every time.

Not the same. In your context all 'the girls' are equal in status. In the OP's context a lower status group is labelled as 'the girls'.

OP, YANBU.

I work in an almost exclusively female environment (the only males are visitors or contractors). Much as I dislike the management style of the most senior people in our organisation, they never refer to any of the teams or departments as 'the girls'.

I shout “come on boys” when watching my rugby team. And “come on girls” when watching their female equivalent. Is that offensive?

Same..

I refer to friends as the girls in many contexts, we are all in out 50s now.
However, I passionately hate it at work and always have.

Oh for crying out loud

Me too! It's shocking isn't it. I get it if it's amongst friends, although I don't do it then either I just refer to them as friends, but in a professional setting it's really patronising. You all have to start saying things like: ask the IT boy about that issue, or: tell the finance boy to send that report.

See, it sounds wrong to use boy in a professional setting for most people, but to use girl seem to still be OK for some.

Start your own thread, it’s completely irrelevant to this.

You could just refer to them as friends, that's what they are after all. I'm going out with my/some friends. Sounds pretty reasonable. It's different though, because you are not belittling them at work.

Right. Stop this nonsense . It is about context

using the term girls to describe adult is infantilising women.

That is absolutely fine in the context of when you are “playing”, so women out having a bit of fun, letting off with their “adulting”. It can be in that context setting a culture of fun, playfulness provided everyone referring to women as that in this context is part of that playful activity

using it to describe women who are adulting, carrying out their serious responsibilities or duties , or acting with authority or responsibility, is diminishing their efforts to something merely unimportant and frivolous and not serious. It is part of the unconscious bias where women’s work is seeen less important. The same boss would not describe the more junior roles that men do as “boys”- a 40 year old man would very strongly object to being called a “boy” by a more senior man, or god forbid woman.

so just stop with your feigned “but “

At my work people work in teams and if it's an all-female or all-male team (all adults) people will refer to 'the girls' or 'the boys.' If it's mixed-sex usually it's 'the guys.'

I hate this, too.
In my old job, I had worked there 13 years and was a grown woman of 38, and my boss still used to refer to me as "the girl in the office" "office girl".
He thought I was being "funny" when I challenged him about it.

Completely agree with this.
I had one Manager in a team meeting who referred to me & 2 colleagues as girls. I politely reminded him I was 40 with a child and not a "girl". I would do the same again.
It's awful.

I put a stop to my little sub team being referred to in this way by visibly cringing every time a certain manager did it. It wasn't conscious the manager mentioned it after I'd been there a couple of years and hed started calling the team by our functional name. He noticed I have a terrible poker face. But why would someone call a group of three women (some with more experience in the setting than the manager had) in such a dismissive way.

No, & not the main point.
Which is that one layer of workers in OP's org are referred to as women, & a less-skilled layer are referred to as girls.

It's infantalising, demeaning, & snobbish.

It would rub me up wrong way too. It’s fact they are less qualified - sort of treating them like a 50s typing pool. Why aren’t your all female team known as the girls too.
I’d want to use a more suitable term eg job title.
Can you raise it. It’s confusing for new staff if you told them to give it to ‘the girls’ and there’s 2 all female teams it doesn’t help. Plus presumably one day you might recruit a male to the girls team.

How have PP managed to miss the point so spectacularly?

Not all the women in OP's company are called girls. The seniors are referred to as women, the less-senior are called girls. This is what OP is objecting to. It is clearly status-led & it stinks.

I wouldn’t like it either OP and I wouldn’t use either the terms ‘the girls’ or ‘the boys’ at work. It sounds patronising.

I also think of myself as a woman, not a girl (I’m mid 30s), so I wouldn’t refer to others as girls. I’ve never understood why the word woman or women sounds ‘old’ to some people or something to avoid using.

I wouldn't be happy with that at work unless it was said in a jokey way.

I do call my girlfriends my girlfriends though, because they are. Female friends and I've known some of them since childhood. A bloke sniggered at that a few months back and I looked at him quite sharply.

I'll say what I like thank you. It's a free country.
So stop with telling me what I can and can't say. God forbid people should have a different opinion. Given that you don't know this particular boss you're not in a position to say how they would refer to men. My middle aged husband refers to his work colleagues as the boys it the lads.
Fully understand that OP is annoyed that this term is only used for the support role. I can't see anywhere where she says how they refer to her team.