article: Little Girls

[Entsuropi]

I refer to some people as 'boy'. Even when they are, infact, older than me. Don't read too much into it.

[Nessa]

I refer to some people as 'boy'. Even when they are, infact, older than me. Don't read too much into it.

As an endearment? When I imagine you calling someone older than you 'boy' it would be more sarcastic or joking.

[JenaRey]

e - I'm sure my niece would be thrilled to know she was quoted, except that at five she's not sure what quoted means or why I find her hysterical.

As far as the definitions of becoming a 'man' or a 'woman' a lot of that is societally based on the assumption of specific responsibilities, and also comparison in ages and association.  I will always be my mother's baby, even though I've not been near the baby stage for a long time, and my grandfather's best girl.  Those are uses of the words as terms of affection and familial endearment, so as brought up here I think the usage of the word boy or girl is very much changed by situation and who is speaking it and it not always a definition of maturity.  It can be meant that way, but it's layers of interrelated meaning that means more to gender than age.  Along those lines you can get even more complex and look at societies such as the Thai where there are FIVE separate genders.  I think I'll stick with my niece.  

~J

[Fellfrosch]

I call my daughter "baby girl," which really bugged her for a while--between 18 and 30 months old, when she was old enough to not be a baby yet still young enough to make it a fine line (and a very important one in her mind). She insisted that she was a big girl. Now that she's four, she doesn't mind being called baby girl because she knows she's not a baby, and she knows I don't think she's a baby. She's confident in her big girl-ness, I guess, and appreciates her nickname for the term of endearment that it is.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

for some reason, I call my 2 year old "Pooks"

She tells me "No. I'm not pooks. I'm Phoebe."

Her name is Rachael.

/me shakes his fist at The Magic School Bus

[House of Mustard]

 Along those lines you can get even more complex and look at societies such as the Thai where there are FIVE separate genders.  I think I'll stick with my niece.

Now I'm curious: what are the five?

[stacer]

Sounds like something in Hinduism, where an ancient sect believes that homosexuals are a separate gender, from what I could tell from an NPR piece I listened to once.

[JenaRey]

Male
Female
Dee or Tom - lesbian/dominant female
seaubai - gay/subdominant male
Kathoey - transgendered/transsexual/hermaphroditic/neutral

The ancient Thai legend says that First Man and First Woman were created, and then First Kathoey.  Man and woman were to be the beings of creation and continuation of the species and kathoey to bridge the gap between.

I don't know enough about it to get into a lot of details.  A good friend of mine did her doctorate disertation on the subject, which is where I learned about it.

~J