I’m quite sure I’d be referred to as a 20 year old woman, but I don’t get it.
It sounds weird to me because I still think of myself as a 20 year old girl, and I can’t fathom ever NOT thinking of myself as such.
My question is, when did you begin to consider yourselves men and women? Marriage? Having children?
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I’m almost 35, married, with two teens and I still think of myself as a girl.
trisha
I’m a 36-yr old man, but, to me, I’m just…well…me! I don’t really think of myself as an adult. It’s like when people tell you to “act your age”. I always answer, “I am. This is my age and this is how I act at this age.”
B.M.I.F.
Oh your from Wales?? Do you know a fella named Jonah?? He used to live in whales for a while.
::uncouth snickering::
Oooh, I’m so glad others do this. Maybe other cultures don’t do this, where age is an admired goal, but the youthful doofus still lives on inside me. Truth to tell, I often feel like an imposter in hairy social and professional situations.
Very bizarre, actually. I’ve never felt “grown up”, i.e. okay, NOW I know WTF I’m doing. When I pull something off (courtesy of experience), a part of me is still an “Animal House” bullshitter, amazed that the onlookers bought the schtick.
Personal preference only: I don’t give a levitating, technicolor, soon to be released on DVD whoop in hell what people call me. I don’t consider myself particularly human, much less defined by categories.
FWIW, it’s FUN getting some years under your belt: gives you time to grow camo covering. You can project what you want. And if some courtly gent calls me “girl”, well, he isn’t wrong after all.
Veb
I am 20, and I would have to second the above statement
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I’m a lady. As per Tom Jones. 
Alcohol and calculus don’t mix. Never drink and derive.
Boy is what callers call me right before I hang up on them.
Man is what my mistress sarcasticly calls me when I refuse to accept help with carrying an armload of groceries.
http://www.madpoet.com
I am human, and I need to be loved
Just like anybody else does
“Cause I’m a WOMAN…w-o-m-a-n…” I find girl offensive and belittling, when addressed to me. But I usually refer to myself as a chick. Any less belittling? Probably not, but at least it’s a little sassier.
A little persistance goes a long way. Announcing:
“I go on guilt trips a couple of time a year. Mom books them for me.” A custom made Wally .sig!
I’m not nessecarily offended by “girl”, but I consider “Woman” to be a title I’ve paid my dues for, and I wear it proudly.
Drink up, dear. I made it just for you.
sig by WallyM7
I live in Never-Never land, and I am not leaving anytime soon.
Hell, I’m just trying to avoid being called an old man.
I don’t mind girl (which I prefer) or woman as long as they are not used in a derrogatory(sp?) way…i.e. “Hey woman, get me a beer!” Not that I have ever had this said to me, but it demonstrates my point.
BTW, a saying I have is “Woman can’t drive–bitches can drive.” Sorry, but the majority of the women I know are too timid to be good drivers. You gotta get out there and assert yourself to be a good driver, and that is when you are typically called a bitch. Oh well, call me sexist (and yes I am a girl)
Rather, I was in the position of a spore which, having finally accepted its destiny as a fungus, still wonders if it might produce penicillin.
–Ayi Kwei Armah
Interesting question that I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment, having asked it myself. Well, not about myself - I ain’t a girl or a woman.
See I have trouble addressing the female gender because I’m conditioned to say “girl” for anyone my age or younger. Whereas women are older than me. Only problem, that age gets older each year. I think it does stem from the fact that I don’t see myself as an age (and thus have to recalculate whenever asked - How old am I again…?) I wonder when or if I will ever consider myself an adult. I have my own job, pay my own bills, etc. And as long as I don’t see myself as and adult, then anyone my age can’t be an adult. Thus it shocks me to meet people my own age with three kids and two divorces. Or something like that.
Now that I’ve agreed with everyone, I offer a little insight, for what it’s worth. How come we in this culture don’t feel like adults at the age of 30 and beyond, but in other cultures people become adults as young as 15?
Perhaps it is because we lack the notion of the trial by fire, initiation ritual to adulthood. In many indigenous cultures, a person must undergo a trying, often life-threatening, ritual trial that establishes adulthood. This may involve a solo trip through the jungle, a hunt for a large predator, a drug-induced catatonic state and hallucinations, an initiation fight (like gang initiations), or other variations. All of these rituals involve the person taking responsibility for emself, and facing some grueling challenge alone, to depend only on es own merits and abilities. And once the trial is completed, the person is viewed by everyone as an adult, and takes on adult roles and actions and duties and behavior.
What about us in our “modern” culture - don’t we have initiation rituals? What about graduation (high school and/or college), that typically marks the end to living at home and the beginning of supporting oneself? What about turning 18 and registering to vote, just because you can? What about marriage, forming your own household (not just moving out), and starting a family? Buying a house?
All of these are possibilities that could serve as adulthood initiation rituals. Why don’t they? Is it because they don’t involve a dramatic “trial-by-fire” experience? Maybe. We have a culture that regardless of how we desire to break free of your parents’ control and establish ourselves as individuals, we still tend to hang around and rely on them for lots of things. Like helping with expenses during college.
That’s one guess.
Another thought - our culture seems to glorify youth and look down on aging. Is it perhaps a subconscious desire on our parts to retain youth by refusal to become adults?
Okay, I’ll offer up these two suggestions to get the mental juices running, let’s see what others think.
Thought provoking question. I think, at the ripe old age of forty six, what has surprised me the most is, you don’t really age in * your head. *
I’ll see the stairs and start to take them two at a time, and by the time I’m at the landing, my knee is telling me **‘you, yeah, you with these old knees, cut it out!’ **
But, I still will forget, and have to be talked to quite firmly by my knees again, it’s quite embarrassing actually!
I suppose, once I had my sons, then I ** thought **, ‘I am a woman, now’. But, on the secret * inside part, that even Superman couldn’t reach with his X-ray vision! * I’d just as soon be playing outside with a squirt gun as cooking dinner!
“I never saw so many words compressed into so small an idea.” Abraham Lincoln
I forgot to mention that men have this convenient title of “guy” they can throw out that is perfectly ageless. How come we don’t have one commonly used for women? I nominate “gal”. It is short, easy to remember, already means female, non-age specific, similar enough to guy to make a mental connection, and shouldn’t offend the feminists who hate any word for “womyn” that “derive” from men. What do you say, any takers?
Or we could just assign an arbitrary age limit - 21. Anyone younger than that is a boy/girl, older a woman/man. Or do we want to go by emotional maturity over age? I know some pretty immature guys who are men by that age standard.
Okay, now it’s your turn.
Well, they don’t call me “neuro-trash woman”, now do they?
Seriously, I have no problem with being called a girl. I’m only 22, still completing my education, and I confess that I have not fully matured in manifold and multitudinous ways. On the other hand, I have no problem with being called a woman, since I have the rights and privileges of an adult under the law. I still haven’t gotten used to it, though. In my own mind, I’m still a girl, and probably always will be. I don’t really care what you call me, though, as long as you don’t mean it in a derogatory fashion.
Heck is where you go when you don’t believe in Gosh.
IRL: I am a wife, a mother, a daughter. In the little boxes where they want me to check M or F, I check F. If I were written or spoken about, I would more than likely be referred to as a “woman.” But a “guy” on my bowling league called me “cutie” last night. I was not offended. In fact, I was flattered. And two weeks ago, I got carded for cigarettes. When the checkout lady asked me why I was crying, I told here they were tears of joy, because she’d carded me, and I’m 32.
Like SwimmingRiddles, though, my personal preference is for “chick.” It has a nice little attitude to it.
Cristi, Slayer of Peeps
I made my husband join a bridge club. He jumps next Tuesday.
(title & sig courtesy of UncleBeer and WallyM7!)
Adulthood is a myth. There is no adulthood, there is only the arrival of hormones and puberty.
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G’s and ho’s.
Dr. J (tip o’ the hat to Snoop Dogg)