I wrote “maybe it could be hate speech”. I don’t think that warrants any implication as to whether it actually is hate speech. The question asks if it is reasonable to presume that the sentence is hate speech, not whether it actually is hate speech.
ETA: On second pass, if someone thinks it is impossible for the sentence to be hate speech, I encourage them to still pick “No”.
~Max
FWIW, I didn’t vote, though I’ve expressed my opinion in this thread. I didn’t vote because there’s no option for ‘it’s not hate speech, but it’s obnoxious’.
No votes for “confusing”?
The phrase “mostly still girls, and readily identifiable as such” suggests to me that we’re talking about people who are not yet fully mature: they’re mostly not adults yet. If that’s what is actually meant, I don’t see anything wrong with the word “girls.”
However, the rest of the (limited) context that the OP gives makes that interpretation doubtful, though it doesn’t rule it out entirely (as I read it). So I’m left confused about what kind of people we’re really talking about.
I did mark it as hate speech but never backed it up with a comment because I wanted to see what others said first. Professionally speaking, I am a writer, usually technical, but I have written press releases, proposals, news articles, training, and more.
Also professionally speaking, one should never, ever use the word “girl” or “girls” when speaking about adult women in business, because it implies that the speaker does not value adult women or see women as adults.
I can excuse it being used in casual conversation, especially by older folks. I’ve had this conversation with my mother and realized that she wasn’t going to change because she was so immersed in her culture that she really didn’t start noticing the problem our language usage can create until about 10 years before she passed away. And then she started advocating for the use of “Ms.” (She’d be 86 today, if cancer hadn’t had it’s way with her.) But I advocate against using it precisely because it can be used, and is often used, derogatorily. If we remove it’s usage from casual speech, suddenly it will sound clearly derogatory when referring to an adult as a girl. Hence, my conclusion that it is being used as hate speech. Just not all the time.
They’re old enough to be holding down a job; and the context is professional. So “girls” is the wrong word to use, even if the same people are, for instance, on a girls’ sports team at high school and can reasonably be referred to as girls in that context.
I also very much doubt that it’s possible to be certain, in the context given in the OP, that any person in the group being described is 17 rather than 19 or 16 rather than 18 or even 16 rather than 20 or 21 or even older, especially if the speaker is much older.
It’s sexist and demeaning. When a MAN uses it. Okay? End of story. Done.
Is it “hate speech”? That is a far more stringent definition, even a legal definition. OED:
‘abusive or threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice against a particular group, especially on the basis of race, religion, or sexual orientation.’
I’d say no. It is not abusive or threatening. It’s just talking like an asshole. If you choose to not understand why that is so, that’s your problem. You will be judged to be an asshole; that’s the penalty.
An example of both this and of a related problem: Before he died, my father was receiving care from a number of medical professionals, and he would often tell me of his hospital visits. There was the general practitioner, and the oncologist, and the cardiologist, and so on, and there was the gal doctor. IIRC, she was a radiologist, but he never referred to her as such: She was always “the gal doctor”.
I always pointed out that, first, he meant to say “woman”, not “gal”, and second, why was he seeing a gynacologist?
I had a similar problem with my mother toward the end of her life; she had trouble even realizing that the radiologist was the radiologist, if the radiologist happened to be female. And yes she would use “girl” for an adult medical professional.
In her defense, she was in dementia at the time; and I think was often reverting to attitudes and mannerisms common in her own actual girlhood. She was born in 1914.
At least a quarter-century ago, etiquette expert Miss Manners offered a useful dissection of the problem with this practice:
Without context I not only cannot tell if this is hate speech, but struggle to understand what the sentence means.
That’s not how I read that at all - my reading only makes it worse than just the first phrase by itself, in that it’s emphasizing their traditional gender conformity, not their youth (i.e. they’re being contrasted with men, not women).
Well, it was this post, in a thread previously pretty focused and detailed about the differences between the two eye-care specialties, where jtur88 remarked
This usage was gently pushed back on by another poster, leading to the following exchanges:
At which point jtur88 was “pre-warned” by a mod and flounced:
Sexist, somewhat demeaning, incoherent and illogical speech, definitely, but I would not classify it as “hate speech”. Except in the sense that I’d hate to speak like that.
Google hits:
Saleswoman — 8.0 M
Saleslady ----- 4.7 M
Salesgirl ------ 5.0 M
An example, dated June 2020, from within the HR industry:
Yes, sexism still exists. And?
Sales clerk:
About 137,000,000 results
How about the opposite phenomenon where one refers to the members of the other group in strictly professional/clinical terms while being familial with what one perceives as their own group.
That is, a man may refer to guys, dudes, boys, etc but strictly women for women, so as not to offend, but in so doing, they are “othering” those and contributing towards a different inequality. Not to get political, but I recall the phenomenon being part of the concern of Pence being theoretically comfortable with dinner with men, but would never have a one on one with a woman.
It may be a tangent, but I still bristle at “person of color” because of its othering effect in my mind. I feel like basic empathy allows one to acknowledge another’s unique experience while also not dwelling on it to the point you treat them less than you would someone, with whom you have other characteristics you identify with.
and
sales representative : About 741,000,000 results
salesperson: About 37,700,000 results
sales agent About 1,710,000,000 results
The “Maybe it could be hate speech” part implies there are two possibilities, yes or no. By voting for No, I would be voting for “yes or no.” No means No. No doesn’t mean “I think it’s reasonable to presume there’s a possibility.”
Yeah. Just a couple days ago my aged MIL got in a wrangle with the clinic head nurse at her old fart’s home over the quickie wellness exam they all get every couple weeks. Mom’s not greatly senile or demented, but her thinking is getting a little spotty.
Mom insisted the doctor had come to her apartment and taken vitals. The nurse said, “No, he (the sole MD on staff is a ‘he’) was here in the clinic all day and never went to any apartments much less your apartment.” Mom asserted the nurse was saying Mom was crazy or imagining the visit. Mom got really incensed, etc. Cue unhappy day in her simple life.
Two days later she calls me still upset and tells me that story. I say “Do you remember that there are several nurses on staff who are men? That’s almost certainly who came to visit you & take vitals. The doctor would never spend time on that task when there’s a line of people at the clinic to be seen.”
“Oh. I’d forgotten all about those men. Never miiiiind!”
Mom saw a male in clinical garb and of course that man was a/the doctor. How could it be otherwise? All medical females are nurses, all males are doctors. There is no alternative.
This extreme sex-roleism isn’t a new development of her aging fading mind. It was simply nearly universal practical reality 90 years ago when she was growing up and has remained her default to today. What’s new-ish is lacking the insight to consider something beyond her habitual first impression.
See if you can get a really skilled person to check her. That may well be early signs – my mother’s judgement went while she was still presenting as functional otherwise.
[sorry about the hijack --]