I’m not a linguist, but I can answer partially. Women have their own: chick, dame, gurl come to mind. While dame is antiquated, I still occasionally hear “chick”, and “gurl” is used somewhat like “bro” in a close-friends-one-of-us kind of way
I suspect that, depending on how things progress, words will continue to become more gender neutral. Language is supposed to be fluid and the meaning of words rightly changes over time to reflect the society we live in
And if I had to guess as to why we have so many that are gendered, it would be for men/boys (of the past) to be able to identify whether the person in question is dateable and for women/girls (of the past) to be able to identify if the person in question could be a threat
Times are changing, though, and hopefully we can continue to go into a more inclusive/neutral direction. Back when I was a teen alot of this was unheard of. I didn’t even know trans people existed until my 20’s. It took me a while to wrap my head around it, but I’ve mostly caught up and try to use the appropriate language where applicable
I’m not a linguist, but I can answer partially. Women have their own: chick, dame, gurl come to mind. While dame is antiquated, I still occasionally hear “chick”, and “gurl” is used somewhat like “bro” in a close-friends-one-of-us kind of way
I suspect that, depending on how things progress, words will continue to become more gender neutral. Language is supposed to be fluid and the meaning of words rightly changes over time to reflect the society we live in
And if I had to guess as to why we have so many that are gendered, it would be for men/boys (of the past) to be able to identify whether the person in question is dateable and for women/girls (of the past) to be able to identify if the person in question could be a threat
Times are changing, though, and hopefully we can continue to go into a more inclusive/neutral direction. Back when I was a teen alot of this was unheard of. I didn’t even know trans people existed until my 20’s. It took me a while to wrap my head around it, but I’ve mostly caught up and try to use the appropriate language where applicable