Called a ‘girl’ at work...

[Annoyed94]

NC as I did talk about it at work...

Will start off by saying that I’m a young female working in a semi senior technical role for a large organisation, wouldn’t be described at the “typical” type of person expected to work in this type of role.

Been involved on a project at work all via Skype type meetings with an external company and there have been absolutely no issues.

Recently attended a presentation for the above project and introduced myself to the two leads from the external company and was met with surprise and slight shock that I was the person they had been talking with via Skype.

Now to today... a meeting was scheduled via Skype so I dialled in with my microphone on mute so it wasn’t completely obviously that I had joined. Just as I joined the meeting I overheard the following sentence... ‘is the girl from xx department joining’. I then unmuted and joined, meeting carried on as usual.

When it had ended I realised how angry I was about being referred to as a girl! They clearly know my name, and i find it so so derogatory to be called a girl instead of a woman when I’m 26 years old, know my job and am the department lead on this for that very reason. I at least deserve the respect of a name!

I don’t know why I’m posting really I am just so angry!

I’m not the type to go straight to management or HR, I’d rather talk one on one with the person. Even though it’s annoyed me and come across badly there is no need to escalate it right away.

I’d still ‘talk’ in writing (email) though - mainly because it’s recorded, and people can’t claim later that you/they did/didn’t say something or they did/didn’t know . That’s me though, feel free to be softer about it all I’ve reached the stage where I’m just done letting this kind of stuff go.

I'm mid-50's and would never refer to a colleague as a boy or girl. I think it's disrespectful in a professional setting.

I'm long retired so maybe denigrating coworkers is more common these days. It would never have occurred to me to denigrate a coworker or client in that fashion. It is unprofessional and would likely have been addressed with a conduct report being placed in the permanent file of the offender.

I will admit I did sort of leave a job for being referred to with another colleague as "the girls and girlies" multiple times. There were of course a whole load of other reasons but it did come down to being treated like schoolchildren as fairly professional-ish, educated young women. We both left fairly promptly after that change of management!
I think it depends on how you are generally being treated and if it does come from someone who may look down on their female colleagues, even if unintentionally. There are people I wouldn't mind calling me "girl" and there are people who would leave me fuming.

"Is the woman from xx department attending?" sounds borderline rude to me. It's a real shame that we don't have a 'guy' equivalent. Or rather that we do, but our equivalent means the same as a female minor.

"Is the woman from xx department attending?" sounds borderline rude to me.

Really? Why? Would you consider "Is the man from xx department attending?" to be rude too? If not, what's the difference?

And no, girl is not the equivalent of guy. Girl is the equivalent of boy.

IME it is about context.

You tend to know what's intended.

calling the two women in my office who do the admin 'the girls' while all other women get called by name is, to me, obviously not right. Usually in the context of stuff the men should do themselves but CBA 'I'll get one of the girls to do it'.

I would never direct someone to a male colleague by saying 'you need to talk to that boy over there' for eg

It's all about who is saying it, what the context is...

I have noticed as well how women are called "girls" much more than men are called "boys". I cringe when I hear "girl" used when "man" would be used for a man. I remember in Bend It Like Beckham (I know that was quite a few years ago now), the male team captain referred to the "mens side" and the "girls side", what would be wrong with the "women's side"?

I can’t believe so many women are saying this is ok.

And so many are defending it because they refer to themselves and their friends as girls. That’s just not the same as a man saying it in the circumstances described by the OP. Women in the workplace are fighting to be treated equally and it is not ok to be spoken about like an inferior by men. We would never refer to a male colleague as a “boy” if the tables were turned would we? It would be ludicrous to.

Really? Why? Would you consider "Is the man from xx department attending?" to be rude too? If not, what's the difference?

It's not so much rude as an odd way of speaking. I don't think one would say that in real life. One would say "the bloke from...." / "the guy from...."/ "what's his name from...." or even "the prat from...."

Really??!!

Someone would really go to all sorts of words, in order to avoid using the word "man"?!!

This is really interesting!

Thanks!

In the context of what happened with the OP if I could not remember her name I would have gone for
is what's her name from....attending?
or
"will the xyz department be sending its person again?"

Someone would really go to all sorts of words, in order to avoid using the word "man"?!!

This is really interesting!

Using "man" in this context is a bit too much the man from Delmonte or the man from the ministry or the Man from U.N.CL.E. These are stylised and not natural speech.

I tend to be quite formal in speech but the man from xyz department does not sound like natural speech