Women and men

I was talking to a baby boomer the other day who in the course of our conversation referred to a contemporary of mine as a "woman."  Immediately I sensed the problem with this and felt compelled to fix it, and also to unnecessarily make my boomer friend feel uncomfortable.  So I informed her, faux-offendedly, "Um, we call them girls."

Because it's true: most unmarried/childless urban females under the age of, say, 40 refer to themselves and each other as "girls," and their male equivalents are "guys" or even "boys."  "Woman" sounds like a fat or boring person; "man" sounds like a strange, be-suited fellow.  Both are waaaaaaaay too mature-sounding for the ineffectual, directionless, adult children we feel ourselves to be, and too old-sounding for the sexy, with-it hipsters we hope we are.

And yet right after I issued my official Millennial correction, I realized that I wasn't actually so sure about it.  I'm not so sure I want to be called a "girl" anymore.  Although self-identifying as a "girl" is superficially self-affirming, since it suggests that one is cute and fun, it's starting to seem a little depressing.  After all, does it really feel good if at 26 I fall into the same category as a 5-year-old?  The problem with "girl" no longer has anything to do with feminism (see above, "boy" -- there's no double standard) -- it has to do with the issue of Millennial/Gen-Y maturity.  And as I started thinking here and a bit here even, it's maybe time we started working on that.

I'm a cautious proponent of the "fake it till you make it" strategy, so I'm going to go right ahead and start promoting the trend of females over the age of 18 calling themselves "women" again, in the hopes that this symbolic gesture will make us feel more like adults (in the best sense of the word).  And boys should be men, too.  Doesn't it all sound more exciting?  To be women and men--to know women and men?  I think it does.  It kind of casts everything into a different light, to think of things that way.  It's kind of radical--so I like it.

Is it going to become a thing, actually?  I don't know.  Maybe.  Maybe a different word will become popular.  "Lady" has had a bit of a comeback.  Maybe other slang terms will come back instead.  But I do think I see "girl" on its way out.  It's not right anymore.