"Don't you want to be a proper young lady?" is a phrase I heard all the time (directed at girls like my sister) in the conservative Christian world I grew up in.

Everyone knew what "young lady" meant. Quiet. Soft. Compliant. Pretty. Not competitive with boys.

The funny thing is that the answer was simply presumed ... that of course the girl in question wishes to be a "lady."

That's actually one of the reasons I bristle today when people refer to women as ladies.

I recognize the bias built into the vocabulary.