Like many other cultures, English-speaking cultures tend to associate femininity/masculinity with children/adults and lower/higher places in hierarchies respectively. Referring to someone by childish terms is generally informal, and while informal usage isn’t always insulting (it can be affectionate), it’s usually not what you’d use for a social superior – and until very recently, virtually all social superiors were men. Common casual language often changes slowly, so the current usage is still borrowed from that older world: another example is gender-neutral “you guys”, which is rooted in a long tradition of English and related languages using masculine terms for groups of mixed or indeterminate gender.
Not as simple as that. There’s plenty of times that men will refer to their friends as boys. You see this all the time with guys saying things like “Just hangin with the boys.” or in racing “Let’s go racing boys” is a phrase that’s often said.
And you see it with women also, calling their friends girls or ladies or whatever.
Thing is this is all subjective and contextual. Using the younger version can be pejorative but most often it’s colloquial and friendly….sort of on the same level as a nickname.
And everyone receiving these will react to the differently. Some will be highly offended if you use the younger version while others will find it a much more friendly tone.
Well men tend to hold there physical prowess in much higher regard then women do. Calling a man boy is a slight to the physical abilities and masculinity. Women tend to intentionally try to appear younger than they are and it’s not a direct slight against them to call them girl unless they are significantly older than you, then it’s a slight against their experience
Depends on the context. Calling your male friend your boy isn’t really unacceptable at all. It’s a term of endearment is most cases. Calling a male adult you don’t know a boy typically means your demeaning them as an adult. Other times, it’s not. When you address the waiter at a french restaurant, you call the garçon, which literally is “boy”
Boy was used during the slave Era to refer to male slaves as a derogatory slang. It was meant to strip masculinity away from them. Some people find certain words hurtful to and it’s best to acknowledge that they don’t like it or get offended and in this case it can mean a guy is immature or less than a man. It might not make sense to some but just like how people prefer certain pronouns and even if you don’t understand it its best to call them what they would want to be referred by.
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