Mayim Bialik has implored her social media followers to stop referring to women as "girls" in a viral video.
The Big Bang Theory star uploaded the video to her Facebook page on Thursday, where it has since been viewed over 2.5 million times.
The video begins with the actress and neuroscientist (really: she has a PhD from UCLA) revealing she recently went to a bar with some male friends, who referred to a woman nearby as a "girl".
"I start looking around, wondering why they would let a child into the bar," Bialik jokes in the clip.
"Then I realised that when he said 'girl', he meant 'woman'. But, because she's in that super narrow age range between five years old and 55 years old, we just don't know what to call her. So we call her a 'girl'."
The actress goes on to argue that "language matters", particularly when it comes to gender and equality.
"When we use words to describe adult women that are typically used to describe children, it changes the way we view women, even unconsciously, so that we don't equate them with adult men," she says.
Although she acknowledges this is rarely the intention of people of any gender who call women "girls", Bialik says the effect is still present, noting that no one calls a grown man a "boy" without it coming across as "demeaning and emasculating".
Mayim Bialik is the founder of Grok Nation, a progressive-oriented pop culture website.
In a Facebook post on Saturday, Bialik, who has previously described herself an "aspiring Modern Orthodox" Jew, thanked those who had watched the video.
"So my Grok Nation vlog about 'not calling women girls' kind of went viral. we are at about 2.5 million views heading into Shabbat. Who knew?" Bialik wrote. "So freaked out. It's a big deal for me and my bestie Immanuel Shalev who produces these videos and also guides me as a person. Wow. Shabbat shalom!"
