My internal rule is never call a black man a “boy” unless you want to be hurtful and working in a long tradition of violent white supremacy, and also want to earn a justified stink-eye and possibly a telling-off.
There’s a stereotype that black men are prone to violence, and when people say things like what you said, I think that stereotype is unconsciously at work.
If black men were beating up every white person who said something racist, there’d be no room in the hospitals for COVID patients.
To sum up: There are some situations where it’s reasonable and appropriate to refer to adults as “boys” or “girls”. Those situations where it is actually appropriate are roughly symmetric between the genders. However, a large number of people mistakenly believe that there is an asymmetry, and will therefore refer to adult women as “girls” in contexts where they would never dream of referring to adult men as “boys”. This is demeaning towards women and highly inappropriate.
Yes, please can we keep ‘hate speech’ for the serious stuff, otherwise we’ll have no term left for that. And similarly can we keep ‘violence’ for beating people up and not insulting or abusive speech?
At work we jokingly call the tech support agency staff the ‘IT children’ because they look so damn young. And we’re not even that old…
I just picked up a new pair of glasses 10 minutes ago. Nothing but girls working there today, three of them.
Under eighteen years old?
All were more than 18 years younger than me. So if I am old enough to be their father then I generally refer them girls.
And do you do the same for boys/men?
Sometimes yes. Before Covid I hung out with the boys on a regular basis. Sometimes with old farts. Depends on the situation.
Not the same usage. If you see guys working in a store, do you refer to them as “boys” if they’re more than 18 years younger than you?
Like in “How are you boys doing today?”. Yes I have no issue with it and neither to people I associate with.
I assume you mean drawing in ‘male people’. Who do you see placed there to draw in female people who need glasses fitted, dispensed ot fixed? I can assure you that their being ‘attractive and young’ is not what draws me in.
So what if they are? I suspect this is because then their employers can profit from paying them lower relative wages because of their youth and it being an entry level position. As long as they can do the advising, fitting and adjusting, their age and ‘attractiveness’ is immaterial.
I say guys for men, and ladies for women. Though, I do sometimes say the “girls in the front office” when referring to them in the third person. I try not to, but it’s habit that is hard to break.
As long as you’re trying, that is what counts. I agree, unconscious, ingrained speech patterns can be the devil to change, I am a ‘girl’ and very motivated but I still slip up occasionally. I pick myself up, dust myself off and commit myself to do better. It’s incremental.
^^thanks
I’ve heard guys refer to a middle aged women as a girl, unfamiliar women old enough to be their mother. I’ve never heard grown men call other unfamiliar grown men as “boy”. Just not a common use. Men you don’t get a free pass to call women, Young, middle aged or old, girls just because one might remind you of your daughter.
They are grown women entitled to respect. Your age relative to them has nothing to do with the matter. You don’t get a pass to disrespect people just because you got older.
And yet no females have ever expressed that I was being disrespectful to them when I have called them girl. So I will continue on as I have been.
And I will continue on telling you what I think of that carrying on as you have been.
Did you ever have to hold down a job in which being polite to the customers, even when they were being rude to you, was a requirement if you didn’t want to be fired?