Livia Regina

I've been thinking about this for a while now and I couldn't find any other posts on it.
What do you think is the difference between a girl and a woman?

I think it has something to do with knowing what you want and knowing whether it would be good for you to have it. But that's not quite it. I think it's a mindset too, just one I haven't got quite yet so I'm not sure what it is. Is there anyone who has thought about this more than I have who has a clearer answer?

ninnycode

I agree it's a mindset. I think it is a lot of things that would be hard for me to express more clearly. It's being aware of yourself, and not so concerned with others being aware of you. It's caring for others as much, if not more than you care for yourself. More than age, I think it's maturity. I have met many, many young women who I consider to be more of a woman than one of my 43 year old co-workers.

See...no clearer, but definitely made me think. Tough one, but good!

astrahl

A true love lost.
A grief that can still brings her to tears.
A real desire for sex (girls do it to please, women do it to be pleased).

indigochild111

I think to a certain extent age doesn't play a huge role. I mean, like ninnycode said,sometimes younger women are more mature than older ones. I think it's about truly knowing who you are and what you want. It's also about being able to put yourself in someone else's shoes. And last but not least, a real woman knows how to use her sexuality and is comfortable in it :-D

Squishor

Age 18.

Past that you may be a "young woman."

bad jane

i agree it is about maturity and mindset, not age. 18 may have made me legal, but it didn't make me a woman. i was still in school and i wasn't entirely comfy in my own skin yet. i remember that i couldn't even refer to myself as a woman at that point! lol

i think it's when you make that shift from trying to figure yourself out to actually knowing who you are and what you want from life and how to get it. for some, that happens in their teens and for others it comes later. i think for most of us, it's something that happens in the early to mid twenties. after having a little real life experience under our belts--complete with success, set-backs and failures.

for anyone in the "trying to figure it all out" stage, i'd call them a young woman. prior to that, you're a girl.

then again, who's definition are we using? even though my mom and i are friends now...she still thinks of me as a little girl with a lot of growing up to do sometimes and i don't care how old i get or how much i go through, she is always going to see me that way. in a way, i will always be her little girl, time and experience are not going to change that.

maleficent

Every so often my evil feminist side shows thru. The term "girl" bothers me when it's being applied to a person of the female gender over age 22 (and 22 I'm using as the cutoff, because that's the age where a person is done with college and is more than likely on their own.) Not many people would refer to a person of the male gender in the same situation as a boy (well, I would, but it's a term of endearment, I call my 50 year old colleagues boys)

Men of that age, are either called men or guys. There is no equivelent term for a female for guy - so we're left with women or girl. My nieces are girls -- they're aged 12 and 7, I'd have a hard time referring to myself as a girl because I'm surely not that young.

Girls, seem to be trying to figure out who they are, women, hopefully have gotten this figured out already.

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bad jane

for an older female who is still figuring it all out, i'd call her a gal, chick or a lady (though some equate that with sophistication...). depends on the person and their age i suppose. then again, at some point i think you do just start using the term woman in order to be descriptive. i'd call a female in her 40's or 50's a woman even if she had the maturity of 12 year old girl.

Livia Regina

Perhaps I should have asked then what the difference between an adult woman and a child is other than their ages. In my opinion the question is not about the number of years one has lived but one's maturity level. I know several ladies older than I am who I consider girls still because they think or act like young girls.

*grins* Yeah, part of it is to start thinking of yourself as a woman instead of a girl.

pinkie

I'm a woman, but in many ways I still seem like a girl... A bad girl... Who needs to be punished...

Brooke

Someone expressed the sentiment that there is a transitionary period. I like the stage idea -going from girl to young woman - to woman - to maybe mature woman....
I know some women in their fourties that have not gotten over highschool, and some girls who are twelve and have had some painful realities thrown upon them, and cause them to mature faster than usual.

So then, is it more a sense of maturity? I think that for me, maturing in the eyes of the rest of the will be the time that I stop fighting so hard to grow up, and can accept my inner two year old and can play with her quietly while driving on the way to work.

__________________
And so its over
Your fantasy life is finally at an end
And the world above is still a brutal place
And the story will start again

lurkette

*smacks pinkie a good one on the ass*

There ya go, love

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"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

lurkette

I dono - I have a couple of male friends in their mid-to-late twenties who are DEFINITELY boys. It's not that they're figuring themselves out or anything, they're just...boys. One of them's a rally driver, the other one tried to join the merchant marines but couldn't because of a prior DUI. They're both crazy, impulsive, fun, silly, and thoroughly irresponsible. In fact, they're less boys that really big puppy dogs.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

pinkie