this is a perfect example of why, in a globally connected world, this problem will never be solved:

different cultures have different standards for appropriateness and harrasement: you are trying to not be offensive and so used the world "girl", and someone else is offended because you didn't use the word "woman."

How about we all stop looking for reasons to be offended all the time and presume innocence and good faith until we actually do get a clearly expressed intent or do feel genuinely uncomfortable (as opposed to slightly annoyed)? I'm sure a lot of these situations can be explained by cultural differences or even language barriers such as in this case. English is the de-facto language of the tech scene, but that doesn't mean that everyone who joins in a discussion can be expected to master all the nuances of the language. It seems to be hard enough for Brits and Americans, just imagine how it is for us whose native language isn't English at all.

To be clear, I'm not talking about the harassment case here, I'm talking about the "call them women" comment.

We have to do better on our Education to get this going, I know in America they don't properly teach cultures (candy coated stories and stereotypes are vast) and social communication at early ages. They leave children to their own devices to figure it out.

Just gonna leave this here for y'all:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle