Stop calling me a girl

“Men will click on the link to chat to girls”

A sentence you should only hear uttered in some creepy, dark place that is scheming a sex ring group.

Not in an ad agency.

Let me be clear, this is one of the more extreme versions I’ve heard over the years but none the less I’m throwing it out there.

We often call men, ‘men’ or ‘guys’ but refer to grown women as  ‘girls’...

So when you put the two words together, it sounds kind of creepy, right?

I watched a short video that had gone viral by Mayim Bialik this year around ‘why we shouldn’t call women, girls’.

Did you see it?
Maybe not.
Watch it.

I saw a friend on Facebook had shared it online and instantly a guy commented ‘I don’t see the issue, it’s just a word’.

Here we go again, I thought.

Having been a freelance copywriter for 3 years and in a female creative team for 1.5 of those years I was well versed in the term ‘the girls’ and also the power of words an how they can affect us and our perception.

In an industry that already sees women as a minority and taken often less seriously – and that’s backed by statistics, additionally calling women ‘girls; doesn’t sit right or help.

I can’t say whether or not it affected our work when we were a female team, but I do think it affected my mind set slightly. When you work hard to be taken seriously, and your work to be taken seriously instead of being ‘dumped’ on the female brands, when you get called ‘the girls’ it feels kind of demeaning as a near 30 year old women.

Would you honestly, hand on heart call a male creative team in their 30s ‘boys’.

Probably not… because they’re grown ass men.

As Bialik puts it, if you’re having an issues with wondering what to call a female, do a quick check:

Is she is an independent woman?
Does she have a job?
Is she living without her parents?

If the answer is yes to at least 2 of these, then she’s a woman. Not a girl.

By Casey Bird, freelance copywriter, SheSays president, and The Freelance Circle founder.