Hey, girl!

When is it sexist to call a woman a girl? I was just thinking about this the other day when in conversation I commented to a female co-worker that she was a smart girl. I immediately flash-backed to my youth when my mother used to constantly remind me that it was not appropriate to call full grown women 'girls'. Well, my co-worker is probably in her early 20's and is still very 'girlish', none-the-less she is a woman. Should I have said she was a smart woman? I thought about it and I figured that in any circumstance that I would not call a man a 'boy' in similar circumstances it would not be appropriate to call a woman a 'girl'. So I replayed the incident in my mind, this time putting a penis on my co-worker...hmmm, you're a very smart boy I said to myself. Very condescending it sounded which was not the intent of the comment. So in conclusion, at least in this situation, it was sexist to call this woman a girl.