Talk:Girl Friday

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[edit] Woman Friday

The content followinmg content was removed:

"* The supposedly female "equivalent" of the term Man Friday, which was used previously, but now is considered a pejorative or demeaning term, and is replaced with Woman Friday in order to have a linguistic equivalence as the parallel term for a helpful assistant who is female".

The disambiguation page is in place to help people find articles, meanings and clearity. The above text reads as a combative statement which is inappropriate for the page. It would be better suited for an actual article, if anywhere on the site. Also, it would probably need citation. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 00:10, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I see your point, but since you have this item on the page serving as a definition as well as a link to articles, think your definition's lack of parallel could be addressed briefly. I guess your use of equivalent is what seems really odd to me. Such comparisons, that are not parallel, were battled out twenty-five years ago, why would we want to retain a vestige of them as a definition we provide? The discussion about such differences is that, calling a grown woman a girl is the same as calling an adult black male a boy in a white society. It is the same type of demeaning reduction of status of a "minority". Think Wikipedia should avoid these traps and a slight clarification might be effective. Could you take a stab at it? 83d40m 01:14, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia's not censored. We have an article on nigger. What's on the dab page is a usage, not a "definition." Wiktionary defines things. The fact is, "Girl Friday" has that meaning. The most we could do is indicate that's older—thus my addition of "early"—and/or deemed offensive. Whatever we do, we should keep it brief and very easily verifiable. See Nigger (disambiguation) for an a good example of simple, appropriate dab page discriptions. Also, you might want to direct your attention to Man Friday's "Idiom" section if you really mean to spread the word about the perceived offensiveness of "Girl Friday"s primaey usage. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 01:48, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the change, it seems more appropriate for Wikipedia now. Not high on my list to pursue the issue, but will look at it at some time... if you think it needs attention, "now deemed offensive" seems to be a good term for these, bet Ros was forty at the time the film was made. 83d40m 02:34, 28 December 2006 (UTC)