Good lord, I can't believe CNN actually wrote this in their story about Roman Polanski, talking about the 13-year-old he sexually assaulted:
https://view.newsletters.cnn.com/messages/171029497459629e4f556d7e7/raw
Prosecuting Polanski: Roman Polanski will face a Los Angeles civil trial in August 2025 for allegedly raping an underage woman in 1973, a judge determined Tuesday.
I mean, come on—you gotta be kidding me here.
There is no such thing as an “underage woman”. A female is either a woman or a girl, and a girl who has not reached the age of majority is a girl and not a woman, full stop.
By stating that an underage female is a woman, the implication, however inadvertent, is that she is a valid option as a sexual partner for an adult, because legally speaking, an adult is allowed to have sex with women, but not girls. That’s basically the dividing line of what separates a “woman” from a “girl”!
And even though the phrase “underage girl” is redundant, it is certainly far better than the falsehood that an underage girl can be considered a woman at the same time.
This first struck me when some sports website a few years ago referred to a "high school women's basketball team", which is possible only if the entire team is the age of majority or over. The total lack of exactitude of this kind of thing just drives me bonkers.
This is a stark example of either sloppy thinking or political correctness, and in this case, neither is good.