The Language of Power: Why ‘Girls’ and ‘Boys’ Just Won’t Do

Knowing Self-Aware Leadership

Hello KSKOers

Nothing annoys me more than managers who refer to their team as ‘the girls’. You may have been one of the girls, you might have heard it used, hey - you might have even been THAT manager! When a gang of male workers turn up and the supervisor says, “I’ll get the boys on it!”, my toes curl and my teeth clench. Join me as I share with you why they are terms that should be consigned to the history books and rubbish bins of forward thinking organisations.

Looking forward to joining you on your learning journey!

I’ve always worked in a female-dominated sector. Often, for every twenty women in a team, there’s one man. Sometimes there are no men at all. I’ve often heard people refer to their team as ‘the girls’ - because, in very simple terms, they’ve been a single-gender team of women. But, girls they are not!

A few years ago, it became a bit of a ‘thing’. I found myself picking it up with my team and talking to them about why it wasn’t ok to be calling people ‘the girls’. I shared with them why I thought it encouraged an outdated sexist and ageist idea that had no place in our contemporary culture.

I lead a team of around a hundred people and during the whole eight years of employment, I maybe worked alongside five men. The situation came to a head because