Talk:Girl/Archive 1

Office girl

Where and by whom is a young woman working in an office referred to as an "office girl"? --Calieber 02:40, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

In USA dentistry the assistants and front desk people are very often called "girls".Not "office girls" though, that would be silly DanielHolth 29 June 2005 23:03 (UTC)

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Redirect

Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Redirect doesn't mean your girlfriend is a child. -- Taku 04:45, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

How about a redirect to Woman - isn't that more appropriate? Dysprosia 04:50, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It sounds better... Evil saltine 04:54, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It certainly sounds less sexist, but it probably is no more accurate. The ideal would be an article on the subject, but one that dosnt repeat the material in woman or child. mydogategodshat 04:58, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Couldn't Woman be edited to reflect the term "girl" and the fact that the term refers to a child? Dysprosia 05:01, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It could, and that would be infinitely better than a redirect to child, but we have to be careful because the term girl is frequently used to mean woman (eg: Oparah). mydogategodshat 05:09, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I think woman is fine too. -- Taku 23:45, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

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I redirected this to woman again. See Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary for why. -- Taku

Considering that boy is not a redirect, I feel it is more apropos if we used this article as the place to write about female child specific topics. Otherwise it will be hard to correlate to the other languages of Wikipedia which make a man/boy - woman/girl distinction (e.g. Japanese, 男性/少年 - 女性/少女) and it will be hard to cover issues specific to the child and not the adult. -- EmperorBMA|話す 08:07, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You have some good points. I am one of few people who think each edition needs to be consistent. But I could argue that perhaps boy needs to be a redirect as girl was and those shojo, shonen, etc articles in jp edition needs to be combined into one to make the edition consistent with this en edition. Why you say? -- Taku 00:02, Aug 1, 2004 (UTC)

I agree. That sounds like a good idea and would probably be more efficient than stubs for the children, but there's also a Boy (album) disam that seems to throw a wrench at it. I think that should be relatively easy to resolve, however, by creating a boy (disambiguation) page. Allright then, I will start folding girl back into woman (with the child header at the summary section) and do the same for boy into man. -- EmperorBMA|話す 06:05, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thank you!

I've always thought a good goal of Wikipedia is to try to avoid being sexist as much as possible. Examples:

Several chess articles originally had sexist language in them. On April 4, 2004, I reworded them to avoid sexism. However, one of these (at fifty-move rule) was reverted because it is a direct quote from an area off Wikipedia, and direct quotes must stay the way they were made.

Sweetheart was originally a re-direct to girlfriend. This is not logical in that sweetheart is a gender-neutral term. I made it into a dis-ambiguation page for boyfriend and girlfriend.

Cowhand was originally titled Cowboy, with Cowgirl being a re-direct. I asked the article to be re-titled Cowhand. Cowboy survived as a re-direct; though Cowgirl was made into a dis-ambiguation page because it had an alternate use.

Fourth, I thank you for doing a very logical thing to the articles girl and boy, making them re-direct to woman and man, respectively. As I'm sure all of you Wikipedians know, one commonly-brought-up phrase is "Wikipedia is not a dictionary". Dictionaries arrange words alphabetically, and don't put words together because they have similar meanings. In contrast, Wikipedia, which is an encyclopedia, doesn't need to follow such a rule; titles re-direct to others because they are talked about together in a single article. The article man now starts with the definitions of both words "man" and "boy"; similarly woman starts with the definitions of both "woman" and "girl". This shows that the article man is about men and boys together as a single kind of person, and similarly woman is about women and girls together. A dis-ambiguation page for other meanings of the word "boy" was created at Boy (disambiguation).

Anything at Wikipedia that is still sexist?? 66.245.82.186 14:41, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I find your attempts to make the wikipedia more politically correct disturbing. Tasks you can do 15:21, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Image

The current image seems to be of a young woman, not of a girl. Tasks you can do 15:21, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

I would have thought more of an adolescent age, but I've removed it anyway. It was only added as a stopgap for a copyvio. Personally I don't like the idea of having a single image represent an entire breadth of the population. This article is looking like a probable CotW anyway, so hopefully that won't be a problem soon. Sarge Baldy 21:25, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, being an avid photographer, I have lots of candidate photos that I can GFDL. Let me know on my talk page... --Janke | Talk 21:45:34, 2005-08-31 (UTC)

PS: I added a photo, not a very good one, but it's now GDFL, anyway... Better than nothing? --Janke | Talk 05:51:32, 2005-09-01 (UTC)

Well, she is certainly a girl, rather than possibly a young woman, which is a good start! Sam Spade 12:45, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Maybe this one is better? Still only a stopgap, though. --Janke | Talk 09:06:42, 2005-09-03 (UTC)

I'd sort of like to see a picture with various girls of different ethnicities represented, rather than a just a blonde white girl. --Mumblingmynah 06:55, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

You are absolutely right. I am looking through all my old 35mm slides, trying to find one! --Janke | Talk 08:06:59, 2005-09-05 (UTC) PS: Uploaded a new, multi-ethnic photo. Quality is low, let's wait for a better photo. --Janke | Talk 08:42:52, 2005-09-05 (UTC)

I've temporarily added a new section for photos at the bottom, just for somewhere to put them. This is the first time I've attempted doing anything with images on Wikipedia, so I'm hoping it's working out alright... anyway, first new photo's gone up, two more on the way!
Silverhelm 09:44, 5 September 2005 (UTC).

Please add more photos to the gallery here: Talk:Girl/Images

Let's build a gallery from which an image or two could be chosen by consensus. But, I moved the photos so as not to clutter the article page. The archive is now here: Talk:Girl/Images. Feel free to exchange the photo on the article page, though! --Janke | Talk 11:20:24, 2005-09-05 (UTC)

That's an even better idea than mine! For some reason, though, the Afghan photo isn't displaying? I've even tried playing with it, changing the order around, and it still won't work?!

Incidentally, the picture of the girl in the red hood needs redoing by whoever posted it, there are very noticeable compression artifacts on her face.

Silverhelm 17:32, 5 September 2005 (UTC).

It is entirely intentional - it's supposed to look like a "painting" - check the file name... ;-) I do have the original slide, though, if it is later decided to use this particular photo! The Afghan photo loads OK in my browser. --Janke | Talk 17:43:44, 2005-09-05 (UTC)

Ah, then you need to use a posterize effect!

I've reloaded the gallery yet again, but the Afghan photo resolutely refuses to put in an appearance. Grrr!!

Silverhelm 17:59, 5 September 2005 (UTC).

I just placed an image - if required the same may be removed. --Bhadani 11:04, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I added two images to Talk:Girl/Images from Wikimedia Commons. Mamawrites 10:53, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

"Freundinnen" is sweet! In fact, I put it onto the page, and moved the painting down to the art section. --Janke | Talk 13:30:42, 2005-09-08 (UTC)

Former redirect

This page, with all its discussion and the the COTW tag, was moved by User:Sam Spade to Talk:Girl (disambiguation) Why? --Janke | Talk 18:12:43, 2005-08-31 (UTC)

Thats not what happened, check the page history again. Tasks you can do 20:22, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Ah, it was done by User:The Anome. Sorry, Sam. Still, why? --Janke | Talk 20:26:21, 2005-08-31 (UTC)

Well, at one time the article redirected there, so I guess they wanted to be consistant. I tried to comment, and when I realised the talk page was a redirect I undid it, and moved my comment here. Tasks you can do 20:39, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

So that's why the COTW tag disappeared? --Janke | Talk 20:43:20, 2005-08-31 (UTC)

The COTW tag was never here, until you brought it here. This page was nothing but a redirect to Talk:Girl (disambiguation). I removed the redirect, and moved my comment here from there. Tasks you can do 20:50, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

OK, I begin to understand. (Still a bit noobie... ;-) I never noticed it was a redirect (that's not something you really do, with such a small notice). But, originally going to Talk:Girl (diambiguation) from Talk:Girl, the COTW was there, right? And then the chain was broken, and suddenly, no tag? Is this correct? --Janke | Talk 20:55:14, 2005-08-31 (UTC)

Well, a few hours ago, when you clicked "talk" on the girl page, you ended up @ Talk:Girl (disambiguation), which is where the COTW tag was. When I removed the redirect, that changed. Now, when you click "talk" on the girl page, you end up here, a page that had no content other than #REDIRECT [[Talk:Girl (disambiguation)]] until recently, because it simply redirected you to Talk:Girl (disambiguation), instead of here. Hope that helps, I'm beginning to get confused myself ;) Tasks you can do 21:00, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Corrections

A "Girl" is not a female human it is a female form. A dog can be a girl. If it would apply to only a human it still wouldn't be a "female human" it would be a human female. Human is used before female because if it would apply to only humans then a "girl" is immediately a human then a female. The definition should start with what it immediately applies to first then whatever else makes it less general or more specific.

Edited by, Emmanuel J. Frutos —Preceding unsigned comment added by EmmanuelFrutos (talk • contribs) 02:02, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Etymology

The source given after "according to some sources" is Ghastly's Ghastly Comic. I think we need a better source than that, or we should remove the sentence.--Shanel 05:10, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Removed. PS: I'm surprised it was here so long! This surely needed the CotW. --Janke | Talk 05:47:04, 2005-09-05 (UTC)

I'm a bit surprised by this sentence:

There is a parallel objection to use of the word "boy" to describe a male over the age of puberty.

I can't recall ever hearing "boy" used to describe someone over about the age of sixteen, other than in the narrow context of a member of domestic staff in southern Africa (with a rather obvious racial subtext). Silverhelm 18:10, 5 September 2005 (UTC).

Really? Let me assure you it's definitely used (albeit rarely) as an insult, or figuratively. Trust me, it's there. --Matt Yeager 23:01, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

I stumbled over this

"however, in most cultures it is typically applied to a female child from birth until the late teens."

Is this true? I would assume that most cultures use the term “girl”, or the equivalent term, for female children from birth until their first menstruation, at which time they enter ”womanhood”, or the equivalent term. That would not be the early, not the late teens. (I could easily be wrong.) In modern Western culture, that is of course not the case, but the quoted statement makes a statement about most cultures. Arbor 11:29, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Whether "girl" is properly applied to a young woman beyond the age of menarchy has flipped back and forth in the introduction for the past several weeks. I think Americans tend to use "girl" for older young women than other English speaking cultures. Since the focus of this article is international, I am sorry to see the two alternative uses taken out of the introduction, but I don't want to start a reversion war by putting them back. Can we arrive at a consesnus? Rick Norwood 14:24, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I also agree - the article should present an international perspective. --Bhadani 14:36, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Well I deffinately would like to stay international however I would love to see specific examples of usage in other cultures instead of a vague well we think they use it this way. Olleicua 23:18, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I feel this section is in danger of overwhelming the rest of the article. I have moved it lower down in the article for this reason. I would also like to split this section into etymology and a separate section on application of the word to women. -Acjelen 01:02, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

This is my first edit/talk entry, so pardon if I do it wrong... I noticed that this line 'A male child was called a "gay girl"; a female child was called a "knave girl".' under the Etymology section is directly contradicting the similar (but opposite) statement made earlier at the top of this article. Which is correct? Ksoares 16:24, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Gender roles

The examples in the gender roles section have a marked Western and 20th century (if not late 20th century) bent to them. -Acjelen 06:00, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

The caption of the figure of the little girl playing with dolls is strange. Human beings interact with their environments, not their genders. A caption such as "gender and behaviour are interrelated to the environment in ways not fully understood" sounds better. Dycotiles (talk)

The caption is, Biological gender interacts with environment in ways not fully understood. The caption does not in any way say human beings interact with their genders (which, true or not, would be far too vague to bother saying IMHO). Gwen Gale (talk) 14:12, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant to say that gender does not interact with the environment, it is human beings who interact with their environments. This is whay saying that "Biological gender interacts with environment ..." is a strange thing to say. The idea is more like behaviour and gender interact and are conditioned/modified by the environment. The current caption is equivalent to "Maleness and femaleness interact with environment in ways not fully understood" which is also strange. Also using the word biological in this context is irrelevant since it is clear we are not talking about grammar (i.e. gender in words, which do not apply to English anyway). Dycotiles (talk) 19:35, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't find it strange. Moreover, use of the term biological here is fitting because children are indeed swayed both by their biological gender and conditioning towards social/cultural notions of gender. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:40, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I can't really see how "gender" being a quality can be said to interact with the environment. I really feel this caption is much better suited "Gender and behaviour are interrelated to the environment in ways not fully understood". What do other people think? 194.80.106.135 (talk) 12:07, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it entirely makes sense. Or is it just me? best. 194.80.106.135 (talk) 17:56, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Think of how oxygen (a characteristic arrangement of sub-atomic particles) interacts with iron (another characteristic arrangement of sub-atomic particles) to form rust (a characteristic arrangement of atoms). The word is used in a similar sense here. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Dear Gwen, thanks for the example, I think it can be used to illustrate what I'm trying to put through here. Lets analyze the sentence "Oxygen interacts with iron to form rust in ways not fully understood". This is perfectly fine. Oxygen is a chemical element and it is a well known fact that chemical elements interact with each other to form new substances (in this case, Iron oxide). A quality of gases (such as pure Oxygen), is their density. Now, at high pressures gases are found at higher densities. At higher densities (concentrations), the chemical interaction between Oxygen and Iron to form rust happens at a faster rate. Now, lets re-write the sentence above as "Physical oxygen density interacts with iron to form rust in ways not fully understood". This is simply not right. Density is a quality, it does not interact with iron. Oxygen atoms do. Furthermore, because we are talking about a physical system, the word physical in the sentence is not necessary (although not wrong itself). A quality of a human being (his/her gender) cannot be said to interact with the environment. Human beings themselves do. I don't think I can put this in a more crystal clear way. Cheers! Dycotiles (talk) 22:45, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes but "Oxygen at high density interacts with iron at a faster rate." Either way though, you find it strange, I don't find it strange, when I'm more alert (I'm so tired) I'll re-read all this and hopefully be clever enough to think of something that'll maybe spin for us both :) Cheers back! Gwen Gale (talk) 23:21, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

The article states "Gender differences emerge very early and have to do with underlying predispositions which are shaped by experience." Is there any citation for the "underlying predispositions"? Even young infants are treated differently by adults depending on their perceived sex. Unless the author can come up with evidence based findings on newborns, the assert that early childhood toy preferences are caused by "underlying"/biological factors is speculative. Even in newborns, in Western cultures, the first colour the baby is exposed to for any length of time is likely to be determined by the assigned birth sex.

Some starter cites: A comparison of observed and reported adult-infant interactions: Effects of perceived sex: an infant was dressed in stereotypically gendered clothing and put in a room with an adult and three toys, a duck, a doll, and a train. The adults tended to give the doll more to the "female" infant, they verbalised more with "female" infants and interacted more physically with "male" infants. They were unaware of their bias and denied a belief in child toy stereotyping based on sex.

• Another study: "Maternal behavior and perceived sex of infant: Revisited.", Child Development. Vol 49(4), Dec 1978., showed that adults encouraged more gross motor behaviour in six month old perceived "boys".
• There is another replication here, <a href="http://www.springerlink.com/content/q606272535516712/">"Baby X revisited"</a>, showing highly stereotyped toy choice by adults. These are part of a body of work supporting the influence of perceived sex on adult-infant interaction.

Lara (talk) 13:09, 29 February 2008 (UTC)waawa

Opening paragraph

The opening paragraph now reads:

"The definition and use of the term "girl" varies between different human societies. In English-speaking cultures, it is typically applied to a female child from about the age of one, and is used as the default term until her late teenage years. Beyond that age, the term is commonly used as an alternative for "woman" until some time in her twenties (or beyond, in the usage of some older speakers)."

Since the word "girl" is an English language word, it seems odd to talk about its meaning in "English-speaking cultures". Cultures that do not speak English use some other word, yes? Also, contra this paragraph, "girl" is universally applied to newborn babies, e.g. "It's a girl!"

How about the following:

"English-speaking peoples, at various times and in various places, have used the word "girl" with different meanings (see: etymology). In the Twenty-first Century, most English speakers would hesitate to use the word to describe a mature woman, and would limit the term to describing an unmarried woman younger than twenty-one. Some would insist on a limitation to a woman younger than thirteen."

I'll leave this here for comment and possible revision. If there are no objections, I'll put it in the article on Tuesday. Rick Norwood 15:19, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

I'd originally attempted adding something about babies, but gave up! You're right, of course, but, I think, also wrong. Newborn babies are surely usually referred to as just babies; if one needs to explicitly refer to gender then, sure, "girl" or "baby girl" get used. To put it another way, if you're standing on a street and need to point out someone, you wouldn't use "girl" for an infant. But then, maybe I don't know enough babies! :-)

I've also never heard "woman" being used as a referrent for a thirteen-year-old girl. Additionally, there's also a problem with the phrasing "mature woman"; I can think of three different meanings for that term.

Still, you have pointed out the problem with the wording I put up...

Cheers, Silverhelm 17:45, 5 September 2005 (UTC).

"Call me Woman, hear me roar, in numbers too big too ignore..." Never mind. I've got five children and more grandkids than I can count and the only reason for not calling a baby a boy or a girl is because you've never changed its diaper. I'll fix the lead. Rick Norwood 00:04, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Synonyms

Shall we try to keep the list as short as possible? Señorita and mademoiselle are hardly English words... ;-) --Janke | Talk 05:49:06, 2005-09-06 (UTC)

Should that list be there at all? I thought that was more the kind of thing for WikiDictionary? And many of those are not synonyms. A debutante is a girl, but a girl is not a debutante. Fram 14:25, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I am also inclined to agree that such a list is perhaps not required. More comments are requested. --Bhadani 10:59, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

It could perhaps be replaced with just one sentence containing the most used synonyms? --Janke | Talk 11:04:06, 2005-09-07 (UTC)

The girl in literature (proposed section needs to be wikified)

Rick Norwood's original draft has now all been wikified and incorporated into the article. -Unsigned

A few comments. Some of your remarks aren't NPOV (a 'sympathetic' portrait? 'inappropriately' sexualized?). You've missed 'Alice in Wonderland' somehow. 'Little house on the prairie' perhaps as well? And there are many important paintings of girls before Jan Steen, including 'Las Meniñas' from Velazquez or the portrait of Rubens' daughter. And of course 'The girl with the pearl earring' by Vermeer! But as most early paintings were religious and not many girls appear in the Bible or the lifes of early saints, not many girls were depicted.

The most famous Flemish comic strip is 'Spike and Suzy' (Suske and Wiske), and it's about the adventures of a boy and a girl (approx. 10 years old). Franco-Belgian comics with girls in a central role include 'Isabelle' (By Will) and 'Sophie' (By Jidéhem). I don't know off hand of any similar comics in the USA (there are a lot of girls in Peanuts e.a., but not the real protagonists). Fram 08:24, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

First, no, of course I don't mind it being moved here. I never intended it as a finished article, and I was aware that many obvious examples simply slipped my mind. How could I forget Alice! But we have to start somewhere. Please add your examples to the proto-article. I am going to move the section heading back to the main page, just to get other people thinking about this topic. As for NPOV, I don't think "sympathetic" is a problem -- but maybe "sentimental" would be a better description. As for "inappropriate", you are right, and I've taken it out. Everyone, please feel free to edit the proposed article above freely. I will. To set the proposed section off from comments on it, I've used horizontal lines. (Is there a better way?) Rick Norwood 12:30, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I've moved some of Rick Norwood's queries to other Wikipedians out of the original section draft and down here, to better separate the draft section from our comments on it so that we can continue to improve the draft itself. Mamawrites 09:24, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Proposed section

I've moved part of the proposed section back to the main article page, after I wikified it and added some thumbnail images. If anyone would like to continue this process with the remaining draft sentences at the beginning of this section, please feel free! Mamawrites 09:34, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I think your Wikification of the first half of the section is excellent. I hope work continues on the second half. I've made a few changes, but more needs to be done. Rick Norwood 14:38, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I've created a popular culture section, and moved the material from the talk page back to the main page. I agree with Rick -- more work needs to be done, so I hope others will continue to edit on the main page! Mamawrites 06:55, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm having some doubts of this section, the focus is so vague that the section would be intrinsically both huge and pointless... 惑乱 分からん 23:16, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Sequence of sections

In my opinion, the section etymology should find a place just after the lead sentences. In the section etymology, some of the synonyms may also be mentioned. If agreed, this “maneuver” may be carried out by one of us. --Bhadani 12:47, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I did it... changed photo, also. Many more in the gallery... --Janke | Talk 15:04:45, 2005-09-07 (UTC)

Pictures of girls from other cultures would be a plus. Rick Norwood 21:11, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes. I have tried to get people to add photos to the gallery at Talk:Girl/Images, but not much there yet... My own "multi-culture" shot of three young girls isn't very good... --Janke | Talk 04:56:00, 2005-09-08 (UTC)

In a day or two I will try to upload an image of an Indian girl – after all India is a country of 100 billion people. --Bhadani 13:48, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

A couple of small reverts, discuss?

The idea that to call someone a "girly boy" is non-threatening goes against all my experience. I would say, rather, that the person called that name had better be ready to fight or get a beating. As for the use of "girl" to mean a woman who is not emotionally mature -- I can't recall ever hearing that usage. Example? Rick Norwood 20:47, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Sorry. I didn't write either one of those sentences initially; I just tried to make them make a LITTLE more sense than the way they were first written. I'm actually not sure exactly what the authors meant. I do agree that neither one is really accurate. --Mumblingmynah 21:31, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Napalmed girl mention

I think it was Rick Norwood who first added this sentence to the article:

"One of the most famous photographs of the Vietnam War shows a girl whose clothes have been burned off by napalm."

Is there any chance that we could track down the photo itself, in a copyright version that we could add to the Wikimedia Commons? Otherwise, it seems sort of incongruous to mention it.

The other possibility for expanding that into a paragraph is to add a few other sentences about famous photographs of girls, but I can't think of any. What was the name of the girl who got stuck in the well in Pennsylvania a few years back? Perhaps there is a photo of her... Mamawrites 15:40, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Note quite sure whch photo you are referring to, but the girl was Jessica McClure. However, there is also Afghan Girl by Steve McCurry - I'd dear say even more well known than Vietnam Napalm by Huynh Cong Ut as referenced above. --Frodet 21:21, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking in terms of photography as an art. Rick Norwood 23:22, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

"All" vs. "many"

Counter-example, as requested: !Kung children. --Mumblingmynah 22:34, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Nice link -- I wish I wasn't such a skeptic, but from Margaret Mead on stories of idealic faraway cultures have often proved to be wishful thinking. In any case, "all" is a hard case to prove, so let it be "some", though I suspect "all" is closer to the truth.

P.S. All human cultures have laughter and tears, song and dance, family and religion.Rick Norwood 23:01, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Western bias

Despite the addition of two pictures and some UN statistics, this article still has an overwhelming Western bias. This is notable especially in the art, literature, and popular culture sections. Where is mention of Japanese anime (except for Kiki's Delivery Service, which is like an elephant figurine in a china shop). There is also no section on the historical conditions of female children (not the history of the word). -Acjelen 01:14, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Something about the reasons behind sex-selective abortion in different cultures would be good. (Economic, cultural, "bad luck"?) And maybe to balance it out, something about the view that girls are somehow inherently good-natured--"sugar and spice and everything nice." Would that go in its own section, and if so, what would you call it? --Mumblingmynah 01:53, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Certainly this article must have something about such customs as foot binding and female circumcision. Rick Norwood 16:21, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

I am going to attempt to revert the most recent edit. (Attempt because wiki is slow this morning.) I have no objection to a paragraph that mentions that some people believe gender roles are genetic, but unless and until that is scientifically established, we should still be cautious about asserting that certain kinds of behavior are, by nature, appropriate for girls, and that expecting that behavior is a form of "encouragement". Also "behaviors ... are" is gramatically correct and should not have been changed. Rick Norwood 14:09, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I guess the disputed paragraph is this one

In such a heated debate, it often becomes conceivable that there are few middleground viewpoints. However, most scientists and feminists alike do not typically favor one extreme over the other. In most intellectual circles, it is held that gender-distinict behavior results from both biology and socialization.

There are at least two problems with it. (Not counting the fact that it doesn't add anything to the paragraphs that precede it.) (1) The paragraph makes a factual claim about "most intellectual circles". The claim must be removed because it isn't verified. Such a claim needs a citation, otherwise we cannot have it here. In fact, I suspect the claim is plain-out wrong, but that's not the point. It needs a source. (2) The paragraph sets up a compromise between two viewpoints where one extreme is held by almost nobody. I have never seen a serious claim that all behaviour is caused by biology, especially not in scientific circles. That extreme viewpoint doesn't exist. The two viewpoints are (a) socialisation is the only contributing factor and (b) genes, hormones, and other biology-stuff is a contributing factor as well. There is no (c), so (b) is not a “middleground” viewpoint. The paragraph is misleading in setting up this dichotomy and condescending, badly sourced, or plain-out wrong in its claim about what “most intellectual circles” think. But I am sure a little editing can improve it. Arbor 17:23, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Guess what. Most the claims in this article are unmitigate/unproven. You're just focusing on this one cus it doesnt fit your POV. why focus on this before citing sources in all the pro-feminist assertions that have the same flaws? Im just balancing the article.Urthogie 17:47, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

For example: Girls are less often encouraged to pursue sports NOT CITED, with the exception of those such as dancing, figure skating, and gymnastics NOT CITED. Girls are generally taken to be less adventurous NOT CITED than boys with the exception of tomboys, so-called because they are thought to exhibit typically "boyish" traits. Conversely, the more feminine of girls are sometimes referred to as girlie girls. Sometimes boys are presumed to be more responsible than girls, except in the cases of caring for younger children, which is sometimes thought to be instinctual in girls. Girls, as a group, may be perceived as being more docile than boys, and as being less capable of rational decision making and more governed by emotional responses.

Urthogie, it's not clear whom you are addressing here. (I am not the one who reverted your edits, merely trying to explain what is wrong with the cited paragraph. Also, don't presume to guess other editor's POV, and always assume good faith. Finally, note that I am not in principle rejecting your paragraph. Just the current form, because it establishes a misleading dichotomy and makes a (possibly false) claim about what "intellectuals" think.) I completely agree that all the other claims you pointing to need to be sourced, and I would be happy to see this happen. By all means remove them if you think they are wrong (I have been tempted myself, though I suspect they are actually correct). Anyway, here are some concrete suggestion: (1) as you make clear, we ought to point out that (pretty much) nobody thinks that behaviour is completely determined by biology. The current article doesn't make this clear, so the paragraph that talks about sociobiology and Baron–Cohen could need a disclaimer. (2) You could provide wikilinks to articles like Nature versus nurture or Biological determinism, which (ideally) are good introductions to the issues you want to point out to the reader. Arbor 19:14, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Don't delete content out of hand just because it's not cited, or because you're trying to make a point. If you really disagree with someone's statements, it usually only takes a minute or two to google some evidence that either supports or contradicts it. --Mumblingmynah 23:35, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I haven't deleted anything. Arbor 07:14, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Not you. I was speaking mainly of Urthogie's edits, but also just generally. --Mumblingmynah 07:23, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm approaching this the way my edits were.. I removed em. Seeing as to how I fixed my edits, why not fix theirs before putting them back. Only makes logical sense.Urthogie 15:45, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

“Most” feminists, “extreme” feminists…

I don't think we can make any statements about what “reasonable” feminists think, or even their majority. Here's the current paragraph

Some extreme feminists deny this [i.e., the influence of biology], but most feminists agree that both biology and upbringing have an influence on gender roles,

We cannot write this. Wikipedia is not at liberty to define which feminist viewpoints are “extreme”. Here (for example) is the Swedish “equality” minister Jens Orback

The [Swedish] government considers male and female to be social constructions, which is to say gender roles that have been created from nurture, culture, economic frameworks, power structures, and political ideology.

You may think he's completely nuts (I do), but this is the official policy of whole country. There is no definition of the word “extreme” by which one can label this statement as “extreme feminism”, or that this is a minority viewpoint that most feminists reject. (Orback is not even a member of the Swedish feminist party either. He is a social democrat with something like 40% of the electorate behind him.) In short, I would be happy if we didn't make any value judgements (implicit or explicit) about which viewpoints are “feminism” and which are “extreme feminism”. I can't even see on what basis we should discuss this. (There might be studies of this, asking self-identified “feminists” what they believe. This would be exactly what we need.) Indeed even if we could ever find out (and it would be a monumental and worthy task) on this it belongs to Feminism not Girl. Arbor 10:12, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree, of course. Thanks for setting me right. Rick Norwood 16:10, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Why on earth would you think girls are less adventerous? Thats not true at all. I was the only kid that would go into the forest behind the school. And most of my peers that want to be cryptozoologists, like me, are girls! Weaker maybe, but that doesn't mean less adventerous. -Unsigned

Etymology and usage moved to the middle of article

I do not see the point of their current placement. Also, we should have added more about girls in non-Western cultures before we asked for a peer review. I hesitate to do so, because I think people who actually live in non-Western cultures are better able to be NPOV. For example, I do not think I could maintain a NPOV writing about female circumcision. Rick Norwood 23:03, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

As I mentioned other places, the etymology section was overwhelming the rest of the article, which is about girls, being a girl, the condition of girlhood, etc., and not primarily about the word. -Acjelen 02:59, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Too many pictures?

Perhaps the pictures at the bottom of this page are in excess, people get the idea of what a girl looks like and perhaps does clutter the page. A friend and I were discussing the other issues that so many pictures raises, it does look a bit dubious. I'm not in objection to the pictures, just; are there too many??.

• It does seem to be degenerating into a "lets post pictures of our daughters/nieces/etc. on Wikipedia!" free-for-all. Is the gallery at the bottom really necessary? I notice that the Boy article doesn't have a gallery, while the Man article has a smaller gallery with a wide variety of men (different ages/races/ethnicities). The main body of the article already has a number of different ethnic girls (though more could be added). OhNoitsJamie^Talk 23:28, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree -- the gallery is kind of silly. I say remove it and maybe move one or two pictures from it into the article. Hbackman 00:47, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I've commented it out for now. We'll see if there are any reasonable objections to it's removal (or alternative proposals). OhNoitsJamie^Talk 00:52, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd say the current version of the article contains the right number of pictures to be aesthetically pleasing without making it needlessly large. GBrady 21:44, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Originally Posted by kchen:

1. How do you approach a girl? Well, I basically came up to this one girl (who I later dated) after school, when no one was around. It's better if there's less people, so you won't be as nervous when you talk to her. Be your casual self. Don't do anything stupid, because that won't look attractive.
2. How do you do what a girl likes and something you like at the same time? Our first get-together thing was at Mickey D's. No joke. It wasn't a date though - I mean, dates shouldn't be in fast food restaurants in the first place. I got a cheeseburger, and she got a McFlurry. I paid for her, but you aren't obligated to.
3. How to avoid screwing up in front of a girl? Whenever she doubts your skill at anything, launch into a five-minute lecture about how you are right. Follow by raising your eyebrows and saying, "Know what I mean?"
4. How to get a girl's attention? This bra strap's made for snappin', and that's just what I'll do...

This is my experience with my first girlfriend. It didn't go too well in the end, but hey, everyone needs time to learn, right? -Unsigned

Etymology

What about the German word Gör (child/young girl)? Couldn't it be related (perhaps through a diminutive form *gör(V)l(V) )?

Yeah, it's possible. From German Wikipedia: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Göre

Das Wort stammt aus dem Niederdeutschen und ist verwandt mit dem Mittelhochdeutschen gorec 
"klein, gering, armselig"; sprachliche Verwandtschaft mit dem Englischen girl 
(mittelengl.: gurle, gerl = Kind, junger Mensch) ist wahrscheinlich; die genauen Zusammenhänge
sind aber unklar, da die Herkunft von engl. girl wissenschaftlich umstritten ist. 

The word is derived from Low German, and is related to Middle High German gorec 
"small, trifling, paltry"; linguistic relationship to English girl 
(Middle English gurle, gerl = Child, young person) is probable, 
the exact connections are unclear, though, 
since the origin of English girl is scholarly disputed.

From Etymonline:

c.1290, gyrle "child" (of either sex), of unknown origin; current scholarship leans toward 
an unrecorded O.E. *gyrele, from P.Gmc. *gurwilon-, dim. of *gurwjoz 
(represented by Low Ger. gære "boy, girl"), from PIE *ghwrgh-, 
also found in Gk. parthenos "virgin." But this is highly conjectural. 
Another candidate is O.E. gierela "garment."

惑乱 分からん 11:03, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Too many pictures? (redux)

Do we really need nine photos in this article? I think it's sensible to have a few photos to represent different ages/ethnicities, but this is starting to get a bit excessive (especially considering that 7 out of the 10 girls represented are Caucasian). OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 22:49, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

The boy article has 11. I'd say the girl article needs more. Or at least more material.71.232.62.13 04:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Regarding a phrase

In modern usage, "girl" is properly restricted to mean a human female who has not reached adulthood, and some would restrict the usage to prepubescent girls. There has been an HTML comment about the word "prepubescent". I looked up the word in Wiktionary and I can't find any difference between the 2 definitions of "girl" present in the above sentence. Georgia guy 22:18, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

New question

Any term for inclusive language when specifying a female person whose age cannot be determined?? (Please note that this subject is mentioned near the top of the Gender-neutral language in English article.) Georgia guy 00:46, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Most any dictionary would support use of the term female (the first definition of this word wontedly specifies that it refers to a person). Gwen Gale 01:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Usage

I deleted a sentence stating that in modern usage "girl" properly refers only to a child. This statement was clearly POV: the article already refers to the fact that some feminist consider this usage offensive; nonetheless, it is clearly a current usage, which is listed in dictionaries. E.g. http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/girl. 24.199.119.162 05:21, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree, hadn't noticed it before. Gwen Gale

Popular culture section is an abomination

I did a little pruning, but the section needs a lot of work. Many of the references are trivial to lesser or greater degrees, and original research abounds. --Ashenai 10:04, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I wonder which cultures raise girls on tales of princesses? Do all of them, or only some of them? 204.52.215.107 14:21, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Cooties

I noticed somebody added an internal link to 'cooties' and it was placed in the references section, so I move it to 'see also', but is this needed? The idea of 'cooties' are stupid, and more importantly maybe even irrelevant to this article (it is hardly used anymore, I work at an elementary school and nobody says it)

The addition of that link was just someone very poorly accusing girls of having cooties. I have removed it. Someguy1221 06:27, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Recently, User:Voortle created a re-direct from Girlhood here. Does this make sense?? This article talks almost exclusively about how girls differ from boys, not about how girls differ from adult women. Any discussion?? Georgia guy 20:38, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

• First, I've restored two sections which were lost during a botched vandalism revert over 3 months ago. At the very least, these give much more context to the article.
• Second, the header starts the article off by defining a girl as a female child, which I think for most readers clearly establishes the difference for most readers (and hence, the notability of the article topic and a redirect from girlhood if consensus supports it).
• Third, while I do think the article still needs a lot of work, it might be helpful to ponder that both boys and girls are human beings with many similarities and describing the very many lesser differences (biological and social) is rather a handy way to describe what a girl is for the purposes of an encyclopedia article.
• Lastly, I think a girlhood section would be helpful. I would also be ok with a separate girlhood article. Gwen Gale (talk) 07:19, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Citations, OR

I've redone the etymology section with citations. I rm'd the references to feminism as possible WP:OR (citations on this topic are welcome though).

The Gender section reads from beginning to end like an original research essay. It's an interesting and friendly read but I think it likely only shreds of this, as written, are supportable. There is a "nurture/nature" question but without support from references readers could be easily misled. I plan on getting to it when I have more time and hope other editors will put in some cited text (or find support for bits of what's already there). I don't want to rm this text because some of it does seem helpful, such as the higher test scores (over boys), which is highly supportable, I've read about this a lot. I took this article off my watch list months ago, guess I shouldn't have done. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:02, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

some sources

• http://dir.salon.com/story/books/review/2003/06/19/ridley/
• http://web.pdx.edu/~megr/inquiry_naturevsnurture.htm
• http://www.faqs.org/health/Healthy-Living-V3/Mental-Health.html
• http://www.emory.edu/ACAD_EXCHANGE/2005/sept/wallenqa.html
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7152762.stm
• http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/july-dec98/naturenurture_10-20.html
• http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/40/nicholson.html
• http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0DE0DE1F39F937A25750C0A961958260
• http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/database/stats/genderstats.html
• http://harrisschool.uchicago.edu/about/publications/research-report/rr2006/classrooms.asp
• http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2376202

Gwen Gale (talk) 18:45, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I got stirred up to do something about this. I've changed the section title to Gender and environment, adapting to later published thinking on this topic and replaced the old uncited text with wholly cited new text. Gwen Gale (talk) 22:23, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement w/ Reader's Digest as a source

I've removed this sentence from the article: "The word's earliest meaning in English was a child of either sex. A female child was called a gay girl while a male child was called a knave girl.". The source given is Reader's Digest, which does not have the most stringent policies to keep urban legends out of their articles. If someone can find a source from an etymological dictionary or similar, please restore it. Natalie (talk) 17:27, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I just realized this isn't super clear - my objection isn't to the claim that the word originally meant children of either sex, but is to the specific claims of "gay girl" and "knave girl" having meaning. Etymology Online does give the word as originally meaning children of either sex and cites the OED, but makes no mention of the "gay girl" and "knave girl" part. Natalie (talk) 17:37, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I hesitated over that when I was going over the article. Although I've heard it once or twice before, I've never known if it was meaningfully supported. I have no worries about keeping it out until a sturdy, verifiable source shows up. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:36, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

"used by women only among themselves"

I take this to mean that women would not say, e.g. "I am going out with the girls" to a man (when 'girls' refers to adult women). Correct?JudahH (talk) 15:13, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

No. You might want to let it go for a day or two and read it again. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:29, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Um, can you just tell me what it's meant to say? There's probably a way to rephrase it to take out the ambiguity. JudahH (talk) 15:41, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The clause begins with such as. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:58, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

OK. Well, can you tell me what the word "only" would add to the sentence as it stands now? To me, all it says is that women only use it among themselves. For instance, I might say, "I like many foods, such as ice cream only when it's soft." "Such as" would imply that I like foods other than ice cream, but "only" would imply that I only like ice cream when it's soft. JudahH (talk) 16:09, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

This is not a big deal. Only because you've asked (which is cool by me), your example has neither the same structure nor the same intended meaning, so I think it would more likely imply you didn't include the conjunction but ("such as ice cream but only when it's soft") to clarify that this trailing adjective describing an explicit preference (I like in the leading clause) puts a hard, wholly exclusive limit on the noun. A much simpler way to make your ending clause implicitly exclusive would be, "I like many foods, such as soft ice cream."

Likewise, the clause "...by women only among themselves" is not exclusive, but an example (such as) of an occasional action. The clause you chose, "such as by women among themselves" is another, different example. Both are ok.

Moreover, this example could be rm'd altogether and most readers would breeze through it with nary a stumble, as in...

"Although the word girl is sometimes used to describe a female of any age, when meant to describe a woman in professional or other adult contexts it might imply child or be otherwise misleading (as with the term boy when applied to an adult man), hence this meaning is often deprecated." Gwen Gale (talk) 17:40, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the example can be removed, but I don't think the rest of what you say addresses my point. I do know what the phrase "such as" means. "Such as" is not exclusive, but "only" is. In fact, that's precisely the word the dictionary I looked up used to define "only": "exclusively". Anyway, you're apparently fine with the sentence either way, so the point is moot. JudahH (talk) 03:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Only following up here, such as makes any clause which follows it non-exclusive (as to ...is sometimes used to describe a female of any age... meaning here, "some women might only use the word girl for woman among themselves"). However, it's but a single word in a single example given as an aside with no meaningful sway on the text so yes, I'm ok with it either way. Gwen Gale (talk) 05:47, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Years given

"Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, Jan Vermeer van Delft (1862)." is wrong! Vermeer lived in the 17th century. The painting in question was made between 1657-59. Check his own page on Wikipedia. Can the editing ban for the girl page be lifted, BTW? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.250.199.197 (talk) 23:57, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I've fixed the date. This was my botch, the date of the prior image was carried through in the caption and I never caught it. Gwen Gale (talk) 00:33, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Image alignment

Currently all the images in this article are on the right hand side. The total height of the images actually spaces out a lot of rather small sections, creating a lot of unattractive whitespace. I would like to align left some of these so as to eliminate it. Does anyone have a problem, are they all right-hand side by design or coincidence? Tyciol (talk) 05:16, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Discussion of images

• 
  A smiling Asian girl.
• 
  A smiling Iraqi girl.

Which one do you like better? (207.156.197.1 - Talk)

Only cuz you ask, the Iraqi girl is technically a more likeable photograph in terms of focus, lighting, saturation and gamma. Gwen Gale 12:48, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the Iraqi girl fits better into Wikipedia's quality standards, with the reasons by Gale-san Travis 06:26, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I like the asian girl one better. I do agree with your observaion on focusing/lighting/saturation/gamme (ignorant as I am about these things) but I think there are other issues to consider here. Firstly: the asian girl picture shows JUST a girl. The Iraqi girl picture shows other people in the background. I think this is distracting. Furthermore, it shows the girl covered up, making her appear to be more androgynous to someone who is unfamiliar that hijab is something that is worn by females. One thing I don't like about the 'asian' picture is the use of the word 'asian'. It is much too vague, whoever posted the picture could at least find out what nationality the girl is. It would be like calling the Iraqi picture "smiling Middle Eastern Girl". Heck, since the middle east is technically on the asian continent you could call it an asian girl too. Much too vague. If the country can't be figured out you could simply write "a smiling girl". The nationality or ethnicity of girls in these pictures is not always important to mention unless there is something notable about the picture indicating this. This would apply to the Iraqi girl since she wears hijab which is mandated/encouraged in many of these countries. Tyciol (talk) 14:06, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Definitions?

A "Girl" is not a female human it is a female form. A dog can be a girl. If it would apply to only a human it still wouldn't be a "female human" it would be a human female. Human is used before female because if it would apply to only humans then a "girl" is immediately a human then a female. The definition should start with what it immediately applies to first then whatever else makes it less general or more specific. EmmanuelFrutos (talk) 02:15, 24 April 2008 (UTC)EmmanuelFrutos

I think standard dictionary definitions would not agree with your take on this [1]. Gwen Gale (talk) 02:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Standard dictionaries are always being updated. There is simply no doubt that in casual terms, 'boy' and 'girl' are used for animals. "C'mere girl" and "c'mere boy" are pretty much staples of calling dogs in culture. Contrastly, you don't hear people calling their dogs 'man' or 'woman'. Obviously these terms are less human-specific. They are the casual equivilents of the more science-specific 'male/female', with a touch of neotenic implications. The reason for usage with animals is because they are associated with children since for domesticated species they have been bred for cuteness in many cases, and how they are similarly to children, wards of their adult human keepers. In fact, the usage of these terms for pets is now MORE common than directly calling a boy or a girl "boy" or "girl". For humans, these are generally used objectively (such as in place of "one") or collectively ("boys", "girls"). Especially in the case of "boy" since even that is generally replaced with "guy". Tyciol (talk) 14:00, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Used to refer to adults?

In common media I've heard words like 'boy' and 'girl' used to refer to other adults. It is a common slang term. I've been unable to find the article reflecting this wording. You only need to consult a lot of hip hop to see this usage. It is common casual speak where people relate to each other on a very informal level. Even if this isn't the traditional or proper usage I think it's important to reflect this less people misread what many infer by their usage of the phrase. A good example of this I just found and will add for reference is the song Promiscuous Girl by Nelly Furtado. The song is describing her (and Nelly is a legal adult) yet uses the word 'girl'. I'm sure there are probably other examples in modern music we can find that reflect this slang change in the use of the word in culture. It seems to be used in place of words like 'woman' and 'lady' and the like for a more familiar feel. Tyciol (talk) 20:47, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the usage of girl to mean woman is universally deprecated. In the US, Many women refer to themselves as girls. Women go "out with the girls". Men and women talk about a "new girl at work". I am never sure if this implies anything about the status and prospects of the new hire, but it is common usage. I think that many large companies are trying to avoid harrasment lawsuits by instructing their employees to refer to adults as men and women, but not everyone works in the offices of a large company. --SV Resolution(Talk) 15:58, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, these expressions are great examples, I'm glad someone else realizes this. The song This One's for the Girls is another example here. Lately people go after guys just for saying they love girls, when it has such a much broader meaning. I have incorporated these observations into the article. Tyciol (talk) 13:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Smut

Why is there a naked girl on the page, called peubloan girl or something. please remove it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.163.214.206 (talk) 13:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree it should be removed unless there is a strong reason not to, which I can't see. Removed -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 23:34, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I think it is wrong for this IP person to call this 'smut'. The image in question here was displayed with the caption "Puebloan girl holding a small child (about 1907)". This was last visible prior to your removal here. The etymology and deprecated usage sections now have no picture accompanying them. Now, one thing I am wondering, why does there need to be a strong reason NOT to remove an image? Someone thinking that nudity is smut is not enough reason to take down an image. Although nude, both the children in the picture are not gratuitously displaying any private parts (her right arm is covering both her chest and the boy's pelvis, her right leg is covering her pelvis).

This picture is of significant variation to the other pictures in the article, because they picture happy and healthy-looking girls swaddled in rich modern clothing. This is a bit of a bias, because it ignores girls in the world who suffer, who are without proper clothing and who are forced to take care of children due to problems with overpopulation, families which are too big, parents who are negligent, and how in many countries girls are not able to find employment or schooling due to countries' policies (like the Taliban, though obviously not applicable in this situations since they do cover them up). I think it would be good to contact the person who added the image in the first place and get their input on why they added it and what they think about it being taken down just because some IP protests it. The picture was added here by User:Bobisbob on Aug31/08.

Admittedly, I don't think the explanation for adding it sounded good ("if the boy has example of nude exotics then so should this one") because I am not sure what he meant by 'exotic'. One thing I do take issue with is as can be seen there, he replaced what seems to be an okay image of an Iraqi girl. I think both images are valuable. We do not have an image of a girl in hijab. There are similarly, two other high quality illustrations which have been removed. Looking at this older version of the article, you can see there is a smiling iraqi girl, portrait of a young girl, and 'the white girl' (I think referring to her dress). All three of these, along with the Puebloan girl, are four relevant images to this article which offer something that the other pictures do not into examples of girls. I am not sure why they were removed. Tyciol (talk) 12:55, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

"Numerical minority"

I don't understand this edit. How are girls a 'numerical minority'? And most importantly how the heck can that change with age? Does that mean that girls start turning into men as they get older? :) --Lhademmor (talk) 16:32, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it means that less girls are born compared to boys but the difference changes with age (i.e. the boys die or something). --Joshua Issac (talk) 16:41, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Ah okay, that may be the case. It should be clarified, though. --Lhademmor (talk) 16:47, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I've tried to clarify the text even further. Also, I've added a citation. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:31, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Great. Problem solved, then. --Lhademmor (talk) 05:43, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I still see a problem with the edit, because it would be more specific to say something like this about females and males. Male and female are the terms used when describing birth statistics and ongoing survival statistics. I say this mention should be removed from here to the female or maybe human female or something article, or even to an article on human survival statistics including a sex criteria (something like this is bound to exist with how through WP has become). It just doesn't seem very relevant in the grand sense of things. Tyciol (talk) 13:55, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Iranian girl

As per the page here someone saw fit to list this at the top of 'gender and environment'. It's not a bad picture, but it's much too big, and as mentioned there is a problem with with the watermark (not appropriate for a wiki feature) as well as ascertaining the authenticity of the image. The key edit was here (ignore the previous 3, he self-reverted them) by User:ااممییرر (that's a mouthful). He's already been contacted about this by Neuro, but he can talk about it here too, since this links to previous topics about pictures. Tyciol (talk) 13:17, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Non-western

Are there any treatments of young girls in the art of non-Western cultures? -Unsigned

Shakespeare has many charming boys in his plays, but does not seem to have noticed little girls. -Unsigned

LGBT uses

I recall in popular culture there have been instances of gay males using the term 'girl', generally in reference to certain practises (correlated with metrosexual) more popular amongst certain homosexuals, like being emotionally expressing, waxing, dieting, speech mannerisms, relating to finding men attracting, socializing with women). I think where I saw it was Will & Grace though I'm not totally sure. It was in a bit of a joking fashion. Similarly, the word 'girl' much like other female words (woman, etc.) is also used by non-biological females, trans genereds/sexuals/vestites either in reference to their personality and/or assumed visage. In either case, these are real world modern usages which I'm sure have been happening at least a couple decades by now. I think it would be valuable to find some cultural references for this to help expand the article on the many uses of girl. This is simply not reflected in the disambiguation, and it really is relevant here. We need to have pictures and explanations representing all people who are labeled this, including adult women, gay men, and MtF transgendereds. Tyciol (talk) 13:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Kerl

Who connects "kerl" to "girl"? Kerl in German usually refers to men (meaning roughly guy, chap, bloke), and is related to English churl and the name Carl (and its variants). It's possible that kerl is some kind of dialectal variant of gör, though, although that could be made more explicit. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:15, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Archaic, former definition

The Article starts with the former definition of the word. In present-day English, the word "girl" is an informal term for "female," without being limited by age. The meanings of words, or at least some words, do change as languages evolve. Changes in definition are often accompanied by changes in spelling, which is why I bolded letters that are not in the present-day word.

To illustrate, the Old English spelling "gurll" simply meant "child," and was actually not limited by sex. This term probably had a common ancestor with "gor" in Low German, which has the same meaning.

As English grew and changed over the centuries, the later spellings "girll" and "girl" (in that order) came to mean "female child."

More recently, as adult men who happened to be cattle herders came to be called "cowboys" and the New York Yankees (also men of legal age) became the "Boys of October," the same logic of universalizing and informalizing former formal childhood terms was eventually applied to both sexes, and so the present-day word "girl" is simply an informal term to refer to a female.

Regarding all this, I suggest that the Article should instead begin with "The word "girl" is now accepted as an informal term for a female, but was traditionally a word for "female child"..." or something along those lines. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 18:21, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Girls vs. Boys

I find this sentence nonsensical: "Girls tend to like toys and other objects they can interact with, while boys will more likely prefer 'things that they can manipulate and do things to.'" Seems to me that "manipulating" and "doing things" to something are both forms of "interacting" with it. I'd say we delete the sentence or at least clarify it so that it says something meaningful. 209.2.216.111 (talk) 21:38, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to say "delete": even if the sentence you refer to was semantically coherent, its content would still be tenuous at best.82.176.209.52 (talk) 13:41, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Deleted. Kaldari (talk) 02:06, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Message to Wikipedia editors...

I don't know if you are aware of this, but sicko childmolestors on facebook are using this page as a connection point to contact each other. They click "like" on this page and then make friends with other predators that "like" the page. I suggest deleting this page. I reported it to FaceBook, but there is no way to tell if they are doing anything about it. Please do something, the child you save may be your own.76.246.235.134 (talk) 00:06, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

So Facebook will do something about it. A Facebook Like Page with a Link to this Article is not the responsibility of Wikipedia. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 00:16, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, this is waaay outside of Wikipedia's legal and moral jurisdiction. You don't expect us to remove the articles on national socialism because it might give some nutters ideas, do you?82.176.209.52 (talk) 13:39, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Image caption

Hi. I stumbled upon this page by accidentally clicking the wrong link in a disambiguation page. My one grievance is that there is a picture of a teenage girl who looks like she just came off the movie set, with the caption "typical teenage girl". I have met a lot of teenage girls (and boys) while teaching, and I think that the "typical" or normal teenager does not have the perfect smile, perfect hair, perfect body, etc. Maybe the caption should be changed to "an example of a teenage girl", or something along those lines.

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.108.130.47 (talk) 02:56, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I've taken out the word typical. Gwen Gale (talk) 11:31, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Replaced the image with a more natural/typical photo rather than something out of a fashion magazine. Kaldari (talk) 02:09, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Etymology

On QI the panel game on BBC television it was stated that the word "girl" had not always meant a female child. Looking up this up I found Oxford dictionaries supporting this statement whereas this Wikipedia entry did not mention it. For completeness, showing differing views, I added a sentence (or so) to this effect to the etymology section as a bullet point and made the existing but quite different view into another bullet point. The diff at first glance seems to show that content was removed and so the edit was reverted. A longer second look will reveal that nothing was removed. The addition seems to improve the etymology section making it more complete. I propose the addition is reinstated. Mashzeroth (talk) 23:13, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining. What you propose makes sense. JoeSperrazza (talk) 00:25, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Adding content to the article: Suggestions for section topics?

I'm just wondering if anyone has suggestions for section topics that would be a good fit in this article. I'd like to add more content to it. OttawaAC (talk) 01:04, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

A section called History - about the position that girls have occupied in society throughout history, how they were treated, what was expected from them etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.25.160.232 (talk) 08:01, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm adding more info to this article, but I will no doubt have to create some new standalone articles. The history of girls' games, toys, etc., is a category unto itself. (-; OttawaAC (talk) 01:56, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Maybe something on organizations for girls, like the Girl Scouts and Girl Guides. Kaldari (talk) 20:42, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Going to correct some wording, posting this to be clear

"A girl plays with paper dolls. Biological gender interacts with environment in ways not fully understood." [Italics added]

I'm going to replace the word "gender" with "sex," and here is why: gender is social, whereas sex is biological. Gender can exist to lesser degrees in societies that are relatively egalitarian, and to greater degrees in societies that are more heavily patriarchal. Sex is permanently engrained by the evolution of most vertebrates and all mammals, including humans. It either exists (humans, other mammals, most vertebrates, etc.) or it doesn't (earthworms, most plants, single-celled life). Are we clear on this difference?

In addition, an encyclopedia should not confuse sex with sexual intercourse, despite conversational usage. Sex is identity as a male or female individual, whereas sexual intercourse is the reproductive act with someone of the opposite sex. I haven't seen this latter error, but I assumed someone would say "but isn't sex the act" in a Talk Page reply otherwise. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 21:13, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Petition to remove the "Girl Model" photo

The "girl" in the photo is clearly a teen (has breasts) and should be put on the teenagers page. It also seem like a cheap shot to promote the model in question. 60.224.160.185 (talk) 07:51, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Removed the (possibly self-promotional) image. Kaldari (talk) 19:50, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

We Need More Picturess

Very good article, however, We greatly Need More Pictures. I would like to see younger girls too, toddlers et al. Thank You Very Much 137.30.122.155 (talk) 06:27, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for The ARTICLE.--Zahid2005 (talk) 11:19, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Why are photos of caucasian girls absent from the article? --BrianJ34 (talk) 13:27, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

The section on Art, Literature, and Girl's education already feature images of European girls. If you want something specifically from the Caucasus, there is an image of a Talysh girl in Commons. Dimadick (talk) 15:46, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Description of Chinese girl flushed down toilet under Violence heading is not accurate

The sentence needs to be deleted. The article cited refers to an infant boy, not an infant girl. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.241.54.45 (talk) 22:13, 3 January 2014 (UTC)