I think any human female under the age of 18 in the UK is a girl, not a woman.

[epstain]

Reading some of the Epstain files and Branson refers to a 17.5 year old woman.

I think he’s wrong, and minimising.

A 17.5 year old is a girl.

Completely agree with you.

Calling them a woman is a deliberate attempt to frame them as adults with agency, which they were not.

And you wouldn't.

If you were asked to a give a description of a teenage girl, you would start with that, not describe them as a teenager and leave out the gender. The question is whether you'd describe a 14 yo as a teenage woman or a teenage girl. And if you think the first sounds ridiculous, you have your answer.

18 is the age of majority in the UK, so a female child is a girl until then.

Completely agree with this.

If we want to officially call anyone over the age of 16 a girl we need to raise the age of consent.

We can't have it both ways.

A 14 year old girl is no more a woman than a 14 year old boy is a man. Prefacing it with the word young, doesn't change that fact.

I think that part of the problem is that there is a legal definition of adult/age and then there's the definitions that others want to assert is a fact not an opinion.

And we have had kids for years trying to assert that they're mature and adult enough to do things that are proscribed (and apparently enjoyable), whilst also claiming they are immature and not responsible for their actions when bad things happen.

Meantime parents are also quite two-faced about their children. Wanting to call them children to protect them from the world while asserting they are adult enough to decide who should govern the country.

Labels are awful. They rarely help because they are exclusionary and they conjure up images that can be used to promote one's arguments.

Talk about a child and sex and the mind instinctively jumps to some prepubescent kid. It's ridiculous because we all know there are different levels of maturity (and on different topics), and it's silly to have categories that have a cliff edge of 2 seconds from childhood to adulthood.

Personally, I don't know if its right to claim that under-18 are children.

After all, not so long 14 year old were babysitters. Now it seems they need babysitters.

I remember at 16/17 we definitely thought we were adults, while going to pubs, clubs etc. Even at 14/15.
With hindsight we can see how naive we were.

It’s a continuum. There isn’t a cut-off point where one day you’re a child and the next you’re an adult. Except for legal purposes obviously. That being said, we now know that the brain doesn’t stop developing until mid-20s, so I’d say the continuum ends well north of 18th birthday.

I see 16-18 as a grey area.

People of that age can take a lot of adult responsibilities and have a lot of adult privileges (driving at 17, can have a lot of employment, ability to leave school if not actively engaged in lessons etc etc and soon the ability to vote).

On the other hand, they haven’t officially reached the age of majority and there is a lot they can’t legally do.

It is semantics really. It totally depends on context.

Yes it's absolutely ridiculous the number of adult women who diminish and inantilise themselves by referring to themselves as " girls".

In the UK certainly under 18s are girls, 18 and over women.

But the number off women who for some reason ars frightened to acknowledge they are actually adults and cling on to calling themselves girls way past the age of 18 is inexplicable.

The context is everything…

when referring to a clearly adult woman as a girl, we (or they) are emphasising the lack of socially normal adult behaviours or expectations they’re demonstrating. Or expecting/wanting to demonstrate. In other words shaking off adult responsibilities. Of course women refer to their mates as “ girlfriends”, the girls etc- we’d all like a great time with each other letting our hair down.

but that’s a great deal different when someone refers to us a girl in settings when we need to be an adult or be recognised as an adult. With adult autonomy. Most women would object to their boss always referring to them as a girl in front of other staff…it’s patronising and devalues their work. Or if a police officer, a medic etc. or a complete random stranger referred to them as a girl, particularly if a man.

how often do men refer to adult men as “ boys” like that? Some men might say a “ boys night out” with their mates, but no boss is going to say to a group of men “come on boys…” it is entirely deliberate that in countries with a racial segregated history, whites often referred to black men as “ boys”. God forbid some still do. It is entirely deliberately disempowering and controlling. Women are just raised to be nice to put up with girl shit a lot longer, from people who want to control them.

But in same reverse way predatory men refer to girls as women to justify their dodgy behaviour. It is firmly implying that girls have adult responsibilities and expectations to be able to consent knowingly, that they should have wisdom beyond their years, and they are responsible for what happened to them. The language is entirely victim blaming.

the term women in this legal and moral context regarding sexual activity should always follow the law. In uk that is 16 at minimum. Even if a 14 year old was pregnant strictly she is still a Child legally and therefore term girl is correct. Maybe midwives etc might refer to her as pregnant women out of respect for her level of responsisiblty she now has, and autonomy because her anatomy is clearly that of a fertile female adult. But she is still a child legally.

I'd probably refer to people under like 21 as girls. And tbh I don't really consider them adults. They're at uni living in halls, getting drunk on a Tuesday, taking classes. Obviously not all of them. Some kids are working from 14. Doesn't make them adults.

Maybe I'm particularly sensitive to it as I was groomed at 18 by a 40 year old. I'm 30 now and look at 18 year olds and think "god they're just kids, why would an adult want to have sex with them?!"

I’d not refer to a near 18 year old as a girl or boy, I’d also prob say older teen or similar. Not sure getting up on semantics changes anything. I’ve seen women in their fifties call themselves girls. Doesnr change anything about the situation.

Agreed.

Dh’s old aunt at 80-odd still referred to her bridge-playing cronies of similar ages as ‘the girls’. 😂

YANBU @epstain.

Disgusting old rapists normalising perversion. I never liked Richard Branson, he always made my skin crawl.🤢

I agree with you, which is why it grates on me seeing so many people refer to Beatrice and Eugenie as "poor girls" .

It’s minimising to call her a ‘woman’.

Thank you for explaining my point much better than I have been able to do!

I agree. I think the age of consent needs to be in line with when they consider people 'adults' in this country - 18

My 17yo daughter is sat downstairs now playing with a tub of slime she bought today and watching video compilations of ponies and horses. Heartbreaking for those girls.

Probably tangential but I’ve always had Branson pinned as a total creep…

A 14 year old is not a woman. She's a girl.

I agree with most of what you say but "girls" and "boys" are both used frequently in workplaces and usually not considered offensive. If you're having IT issues in my office then you go and see "the boys in IT" because they are, at this time, all men and it doesn't mean we don't respect them as adults. But regardless of whether we sometimes use "girls" and "boys" to mean men and women, we should never be calling children men or women.

So they are women and men when we want them to get a job, are legally able to have aex if they chose too, drive and buy a car and decide what they want to do with the rest of their lives and some even have children but then girls and boys when we feel like it