Ladies, women, girls....

[kelownagirl]

I dated a guy when I was 19 who always called me "Doll". I liked it at the time. Not sure if I would now though...

[teigyr]

I guess I wonder if we want to be neutral? It's hard to say because it's all in intent for me. Sometimes I can swallow my pride and let things go if the person really means well. I don't see myself as a ma'am or a lady or a woman or a female at all, if truth be told. I like girly stuff, but I'm my own person. I also understand that other people, like us, mean well but don't know how to classify well.

So in the knowledge that our language is patriarchal in nature, what would you call a female athlete? Or someone competing against the big boys?

(I can say that, I swam in the big girl/boy lane at the gym AND I did 30 laps. Means I can say these things, right?)

[velogirl]

So in the knowledge that our language is patriarchal in nature, what would you call a female athlete? Or someone competing against the big boys?

Simply put, I would call her an athlete!

Women have a real challenge calling themselves athletes, especially women who are more recreational in their pursuits.

[East Hill]

It's odd how many people 'just don't get it'...most women don't want to be called 'chick', 'babe', 'hon', 'girl', etc., by anyone with whom they are not intimate.

It's one thing for my husband to call me 'babe', it's another for a man on the street to do so. The implication is that the man on the street feels it's acceptable to call me 'babe', because all I represent to him is 'female' and with luck, 'available'.

However:

Woman/Women, followed by a collective 'Ladies' (rather than 'girls', or 'chicks' or 'gals').

YMMV .

East Hill

[DirtDiva]

How would I know? Noone ever calls me a lady...

As for 18 year-olds calling themselves girls, that probably has a lot more to do with them not quite feeling like grown-ups yet than anything.

[margo49]

Over the years I have had lots of young people working with me for a while on their travels. Most (Europeans, Brits, North Americans, Colonials) were quite happy to call me by my name. But the Japanese and Koreans used to bow! Very formally on entering and leaving and a feet-at-attention plus head-nod during the day after getting a task or a reply to a question. Nothing I said made any difference.
I had a Turkish (agricultural engineering) student who always called me "Ma'am".

Couldn't get enough of it!

I prefer to introduce myself first: "margo from Kinneret" (because my family name is foreign and I don't like to use the SO's). Then I proceed over-polite, tightly structured and to-the-point. Things degenerate naturally from there.

If I encounter a damsel in distress I usually use Dear or Sweetie .
For a child I call them "Chick" (as in baby bird).
Men in distress I never aproach unless they are bleeding or unconscious or (preferably) both and I'm the only person around.

[Kimmyt]

there are hot-button words for every race and gender and character of person out there, it just gets so hard to keep track and sometimes when you don't mean a word badly it may have that effect.

K.