German newspapers calling the England football team "lame girls"

[oiteach]

Why is it ok to use the term "girls" in a derogatory fashion?

I am a highly qualified engineer, I am the main wage earner in our household, I can fix my own car, rewire a house, plumbing etc.

Why am I less of a person because I have a pair of breasts and a vagina?

This made me really cross this morning, I have no idea what to do about it but I feel the need to at least rant about it.

[Pattenberger]

This makes me cross too. I never call my ds a girl, in the derogatory way I see many parents do with their children, because there is actually nothing wrong with being a girl, dh also backs me up on this.

I hate it when people say "stop being such a girl" to their children

It reinforces the idea that the worst thing you could be is a girl, iykwim and the idea that only boys do things/behave in one way and girls in another.

[alexpolismum]

I told MIL off for calling ds1 a girl just last weekend! I was beginning to think that it was just me who objected to this use of the word.

[oiteach]

It's so widely used though.
DD's teacher made some comment about the opposite side in a school sports match being "a bunch of girls" a couple of weeks ago.

I asked him why he thought that was appropriate but all I got were a lot of looks from him and surrounding parents.

I did get an apology later but only after my dd wrote an essay on feminism and used that as one example of misconception and casual anti-feminist attitudes.

Agree it acts to reinforce the ideas about boys and girls roles. I loathe all of that with a passion.

[Blackduck]

I hate the 'X throws/runs like a girl' People just don't see how derogatory it is...

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

I don't expect our papers are being particularly polite about the German players.

[wastingaway]

BadKitten, it's the use of 'girl' as a put-down that's being objected to here.

[blackcurrants]

I don't much like the use of "lame" either - ablist and sexist language in one go - what a delightful two-for-one that newspaper managed!

I've found this is one of the easier ones to get up in people's faces about, though. I ask, innocently, "are you saying being a girl is bad?" or "What's wrong with girls, then?" or "hang on, when you say 'like a girl' do you mean 'really well' ?" And then smile sweetly at them until they get uncomfortable. Generally they get the message.

It's just lazy thinking, IMHO - few people who use that kind of crappy language would actually sincerely say that they believe girls are of less use in the world than boys, but they're happy to use the slur, and thereby perpetuate the myth anyway. It makes me