And Putin, I see your quotes around girl.
Here's the thing. I understand where you are coming from on the "girl" thing. Why are women girls for so long, and boys become men so quickly? That *is* a legitimate gripe, but I've decided after thinking about it and interviewing female friends that below a certain age, I'm sticking with girl. For parity I will also try to use "guy" or something other than "man" for males of the same ages.
And by that I mean under about 25 years old. Every "girl" I talked to told me they didn't like being called a woman so early in their life, and wouldn't be comfortable with that word until they were about 25 or more. They preferred girl. I asked, doesn't it strike you as belittling, they said no, it struck them as descriptive - indicative of their youth.
I still use it when it's formal or legal - obviously my roommate's girlfriend is legally a woman. But when describing her I will say girl, because she's 19. Saying woman conjures an image of an older person. Not old, just older.
The parity issue is interesting though. Should we then refrain from calling males of the same age men? What instead? Boy? That has different connotations.
This is why I usually just dodge it and don't say man. I say dude, person, guy, all manner of things. "Just this guy I know," is fine and no more discriminatory than saying girl.
If that's what you were going for with those quotes - I don't know.
I want to briefly let you know that I agree with you though, for the most part, about the unfortunate quandaries of language. You once, on this forum, objected to the use of "chicks" and as soon as you did it was plain to me that saying such a thing is not okay. I haven't used that word since, because yes, it is disrespectful.