Girl Vs. Woman: Where Do We Draw the Line?

Britney Spears might have been onto something when she sang “I’m not a girl, not yet a woman.” I mean, it’s pretty clear that a 4-year-old female is a girl, and an 83-year-old female is a woman. But I’ve had trouble articulating the differences between girls and women, especially when it comes to teens, and when that change happens. I do see Girl vs. Woman as a feminist issue, since “girl” is often used as a diminutive or pejorative when referring to a woman of any age who does something dumb or ultra-feminine or when she’s a victim. There even seems to be some confusion here at the Feministing community over when to use “girl” or “woman.”

Like I said above, I have difficulties defining the difference between girls and women. The two factors that I try to use to draw the line between girl and woman are age and fertility. Obviously, drawing the line this way is problematic, because age of majority and fertility don’t always go hand-in-hand. Some 30-year-olds, for example, can’t get pregnant for all sorts of health reasons, but I wouldn’t say that those 30-year-olds are girls. They’re women. At the same time, I really don’t want to call the 9-year-old girl in Brazil who was raped and impregnated a woman simply because she can physically get pregnant. And I certainly don’t want to call a 14-year-old mother a girl, since she can make decisions for her child, just like any legal adult could.

In the Feministing posts I linked above, “girl” seems to be used when a teenage female is a victim of something, like rape or sexual assault. But “woman” is used when talking about a teenage female doing something great, like sailing around the world, or taking responsibility, like taking birth control, terminating a pregnancy, or raising a child. Is that the difference?

Or can teens be both? Can a 16-year-old be a woman when she gets an after-school job to care for her sick mother, but a girl when she wears pink to her junior prom?

What does everybody think?