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Calling Us ‘Girls’: When Men Insist On Using Infantilizing Language for Their Convenience
A woman will write an entire research-backed article explaining why the term “girls” is infantilizing, and men will still try to justify their language.
I recently published my article, “Men: Why You Should Call Us Women, Not ‘Females’ or ‘Girls.” Included in this was research, links to news articles, links to definitions of microaggressions, and examples of why their terms “girls” and “females” are systematic microaggressions that demean and degrade women by figuring us as somehow less than our adult male counterparts.
Yet men will (and have) still decide(d) to blithely comment, “but I can use the word ‘girl’ if my intention is good, right?” Or “But what if my woman friend says she is not offended by these words?”
Did you not truly read the article? Is that not the point of how insidious language works to normalize demeaning and degrading connotations for an entire sex of people?