In sdn‘s journal, she asked her female readers whether they refer to themselves as “women” or “girls” (or chicks or gals or etc).
I’ve always thought of “woman” as a fairly neutral sort of word, just as “man” was. Yet I was surprised how many people, many but not all teens, truly hated the word “woman”–it sounded too old, to them. Which makes me wonder, on the first hand, whether the connotations of the word have shifted.
But it also makes me wonder–why would one want to sound younger than one is all one’s life, anyway? “Woman” says that I’m an adult. I worked hard to become an adult, and to take on the responsibilities and power that go with same. Why would I want to pretend I’m anything else?
Do boys say they don’t want to be called “men” because it sounds too old? Somehow, I really doubt that.