When referring to a Women do not call her a girl - acknowledge the important role women play in society

I am ready to take up the cause to inform people that using the word girl when referring to a woman is a derogatory term.  The word girl is not a status enhancer and if you think that women do not need to continue to enhance their status, to demonstrate their value in the workplace and in society as a whole, you need to understand some very disturbing facts:

• In Canada, women, on average earn 29% less than men
• In US, a woman earns 77 cents for every dollar a man earns and the gap widens with age - women 15-19 years old earn 91 cents for every dollar a man earns, as women age and approach retirement, earnings drop to 75 cents per dollar
• In 2010, women held 15.7 per cent of board seats in Fortune 500 companies
• World wide, on average, by age 18, girls receive 4.4 years less education than boys
• In several countries, testing for genetic defects is used to determine the sex of an unborn child for the purpose of aborting females only
• In the US, a woman is beaten every 18 minutes and raped every 6 minutes. More women are injured in domestic violence incidents than in car accidents, rapes, and muggings put together.

Improving the status of women around the world continues to be a struggle. In developed nations I believe we have an important role in projecting and reinforcing positive, mature images and perceptions of women. And we need to do our part to ensure women are taken seriously.

Girls do not make professional decisions, they do not chair boards, they do not hire and fire people, they do not authorize six figure spending and they certainly don't lead teams comprised of adult males and females. The word girl conjures up images of skipping ropes, Barbies, pig tails and giggles. These images should never be aligned with the responsibility that a woman takes on in the professional world.

The word girl has its place, like the playground and in youthful school rooms. It does not have a place in a professional world because of the subconscious images and ideas that the word evokes. By classifying a woman as a girl we are subconsciously devaluing their words, their efforts, their importance in society.

I believe that it is the responsibility of all of us to accept, embrace and reinforce more mature labels. Challenge the use of the word girl when referring to a woman; stop women from being placed in a subconscious position of inferiority and immaturity.
 
And don't accept when someone placates you after correcting them. When I respond with "I am not a girl," I typically hear "oh, I didn't mean it that way it is just a word I use."

Now I respond with "The word girl does not enhance nor endorse the important role that women play in society. I ask you to think of us as women."

Recently I had a conversation with a female entrepreneur who runs a business with her husband, in a male dominated field. She told me how difficult it was for her to command the respect of her male contract workers while her husband was off on a sick leave. "They didn't want to work for a girl so they wouldn't listen to me and we didn't get anything done." Well, that kind of sums it all up.