I rarely comment on articles or the comments of people commenting on articles, but I decided to defend the headline with the following:
Fathers refer to their daughters as their "little girl" all the time because that is how they see them whether they're 2, 12, 20, or 42. It's a term of endearment. I'm willing to bet that GL and Katie would not find the term insult. Most daughters wouldn't.
I did make a slight mistake in that statement, but one reader decided to let me have it with:
knightander, not all fathers refer to their grown daughters as "little girls." My father never did, because it wasn't the 1950s and he knew I had the capability of taking care of myself. It's an outdated and tiresome phrase, [...] male offspring wouldn't be referred to as "little boys." I'm actually relieved that some of the posters younger than I are unfamiliar with the anachronistic habit of referring to grown women as small children.
In my defense, I replied with:
Then apparently the headline writers at SCI FI Wire are a bunch of sentimental old fogies. I admit that I should have prefaced my statement with "Many" to avoid the assumption that I meant "All" fathers refer to their daughters as their "little girl."
Am I that clueless to find nothing wrong with the phrase? Did I grow up in an entirely too sheltered and conservative home to find the term as one of endearment? Look, if a woman had a bad relationship with her father, I can understand her not being happy with being called "daddy's little girl," but come on. George's oldest daughter, Amanda, is a mixed-martial artist. You don't think he gets a trifle concerned every time he sees his little girl go into the ring? She may be very well-trained, but a parent's love and concern know no bounds.
I know the majority of my readership is female, so I ask you, do YOU have a problem with SCI FI Wire calling Katie Lucas George's little girl in their headline? Or am I just some complete neanderthal who needs to get with the 21st century?
