I made a video about how we call boy babies ‘Little Man’, but we never call girl babies, ‘Little Woman’.
I got a lot of responses that we say, ‘Little Lady, and so it’s the same.
I would submit that it is not the same, because male is something assigned at birth, and then man is just a promotion from that. There’s nothing you have to do. You just have to survive childhood to become a man.
Lady is connected to behavior. You are never called a lady if you are being crass or misbehaving or doing anything that doesn’t fall within polite society, whatever that is in the context you are in.
Little Lady is reminding female children, and reminding all of us that are hearing it that phrase, that women are supposed to act a certain way and then they get the promotion.
Boy babies just become little man without trying. Let me know what you think.