that has always bothered me. I've heard people referring to married women (in their 20s/30s) as "girls." For me, I consider any female under 18 as "girls." Any female over 18 years old is a woman. But that's just me, though.

You never hear anyone referring to males over 18 as "boys."

I always correct people when they call me a girl. I'm 27 years old and I am NOT a girl-- I am a woman.

This Tim Horton's advert for wraps has this in spades, with Wrapman and Wrapgirl:

http://www.spyfilms.com/#trevor_cornish/tim_hortons-wrapman

When the one character suggests to the other that he should be "Wrapboy", instead of "Wrapman", he replies with "But I'm a man". And yet, five seconds before that line, the first character greets a coworker as "Wrapgirl".

Happens in the comics too; even though Hawkman and Hawkgirl were a married couple, it took forever for her to switch to Hawkwoman. And now she's back to Hawkgirl.

Seems like if there are two females sharing the same moniker, though, they'll split it by age, like the original Batwoman and Batgirl. Yay for that, huh.

Men are men, and women who are worth men's attention are "girls."

The word "woman" is still very uncomfortable for some people. It used to be very bad form to refer to a woman of polite society as such. "A woman and not a lady?" And when I was younger, I remember other women my age telling me that they NEVER wanted to be called "woman"--they wanted to be called "girl."

How did "woman," in English, develop a negative cast? Why did the more privileged classes feel the need to distinguish "lady" from "woman"? I think we can probably attribute that to status, but why did that happen for women only?

or it could just be that beer woman doesn't flow as well as beer girl

This is truly outrageous. Beer Boy would have been so much cuter.

If you go way back we might find the roots of this in the practice of 'making' men by separating boys from their mothers in tribal rites - to take the indigenous Australian example, by slitting the boy's penis open to menstruate, which would then heal as confirmation of his manhood. There is no natural awakening of boy from man as there is in the first menstruation that signals womanhood. In this way women are natural and men are 'made'. You can fail to become a man, and this is still reflected in the bullying, risk-taking and homophobia of society today. I don't know of a female counterpart to the fear of emasculation. So I think 'man' is constructed as something entirely different from 'boy' and weighs the difference on his capacity to prove himself publicly. With Victorian era conservatism still on our heels I think the menstrual awakening of women has become a very private matter, even a source of shame. The practice of calling women girls is like a misguided courtesy to keep their sexual maturity private - and perhaps this is why we confuse notions of sexualisation with immaturity on nights like Halloween.

When people get over the fear of menstrual blood we'll be making progress.

The Beer Girl costume looks a lot more like the "St. Pauli Girl" model than some kind of beer superheroine or whatever it's supposed to be, so the costume has to go with the established usage in the context or it will make no sense to the intended buyers.

As long as she's got the beer, I'll call her whatever she prefers.

Graves: When people get over the fear of menstrual blood we’ll be making progress.

Try some OxiClean® for that. It really works!

From a marketing/language perspective it's easier to say girl (one syllable) than woman (two syllables). Also it's shorter so it fits on packaging niver. Not that, that's a great excuse, but I'm sure it's part of the reason it's more popular to say girl than woman.

(Although on the flip side you don't see boy nearly as often as you see man and they're both the same length)

Anyhow just an observation.

By "niver" I meant "nicer".

I noticed this in a commercial for some fast food company. (McDonalds or Tim Hortons, I think) A man goes to the office only to find that his title of "wrap-man" has been taken by another man. This man suggests that he use "wrap-boy", an idea which appears to offend man #1. However, in this same commercial, a passing woman is referred to as "wrap-girl", and no one even questions it.Stupid advertising, really stupid patriarchy!

some of the worst offenders are sports casters. this was especially obvious during the olympics (being in vancouver, most eyes were glued no matter how you felt about them...another topic entirely). female athletes being referred to as "girls" constantly. male athletes being referred to as "men". and in figure skating, the official name for female events are "ladies" events, i.e. "ladies" short program, not "women's" short program, whereas with every other sport, they are women's events. i know this has to do with the rules of the international regulating body for figure skating, which makes it even worse.

my point is that the infantalising of women is alive, well, and officially sanctioned in the sporting world too.

Maybe if "woman" was one syllable, it would get more air time. Just a thought.

Girl is about being youthful and sexy and man is about being masculine, it's not sexist it's called marketing, idiots.

I think its all the same, Girl, Woman. maybe because I still call my friends girl, and no one cares. I don't think there is any harm or disrespect behind it. now its different if someone says little girl.