Girl
- For other uses, see Girl (disambiguation).
A girl is a female human child, as contrasted to a male child, which is a boy. The term "girl" is used to indicate biological sex distinctions, cultural gender role distinctions, or both. An adult female human is a woman. A woman may be referred to colliquially as a "girl" in certain contexts; for example, the word is commonly used when discussing adult females in relationships, such as in the word girlfriend, which is often simply abbreviated to "girl". The word is sometimes used as a diminutive or dismissive reference to women in particular or in general.
Gender roles
Girls are traditionally associated with playing with such toys as dolls, and toy kitchen and cleaning sets, while boys are associated with toys and games that require more action and violence, such as toy trucks, balls, and toy guns. Girls are also more often expected to participate in other non-active activities such as reading and chatting with friends, than are boys. Girls, as a group, tend to be perceived as being more docile than boys, and as being less capable of rational decision making and more prone to emotional responses. Often, girls are expected to be more responsible than boys, and more trustworthy in regards to their willingness to follow orders. At the same time, girls are often prevented from participating in many of the same activities that a boy participates in at the same age, as a matter of protecting them from outside dangers, such as boys/men, or anything that may cause physical injury. A girl whose gender role resembles that of a boy's traditional role is sometimes called a tomboy. The more feminine of girls are sometimes referred to, especially by tomboys, as "girlie girls."