2,229 articles
Gerard Menuhin
Gerard Menuhin (born 1948), British-American writer and film producer, son of violinist Yehudi Menuhin; Holocaust denier, removed from the Menuhin foundations in 2005 and 2007, author of Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil (2015).
Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer (born 1939) is an Australian feminist writer and academic, author of the 1970 bestseller The Female Eunuch, known for her celebrity feminism, later works like The Whole Woman, and controversy over her statements that transgender women are not women.
Gezi Park protests
The Gezi Park protests were a wave of nationwide anti-government demonstrations in Turkey beginning in late May 2013 over plans to redevelop Gezi Park in central Istanbul.
Ghosting (behavior)
Ghosting: abruptly ending a relationship by stopping all communication without explanation. Also called slow fade's sharper sibling; documented in dating, friendships, and psychiatry; prevalence 13–85% depending on study.
Gianna Beretta Molla
Gianna Beretta Molla (1922–1962), Italian pediatrician, wife, and mother from Magenta; died 1962 after choosing her unborn child's life over her own; beatified 1994, canonized 2004, feast April 28.
Gigolo
Gigolo: a man paid or kept by a woman, usually older or wealthy, as companion or lover; from French gigolo (1920s English). Covers etymology, male sex work, stigma, law, and films like American Gigolo.
Girl
Girl: a female child; girlhood is the associated cultural category. Key facts: girlhood studies, an interdisciplinary feminist field, emerged from the late 1980s and 1990s, studies intersectional girlhoods, and documents barriers such as child marriage and educational exclusion.
Girlboss
Girlboss: slang for an ambitious, entrepreneurial woman, popularized by Sophia Amoruso's 2014 book #Girlboss after earlier American newspaper uses from 1895; celebrated as empowerment feminism in the mid-2010s, then turned ironic after Nasty Gal's 2016 bankruptcy and the 2021 Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss meme.
Girlfriend
Girlfriend: an English noun for a woman or girl in a romantic or sexual relationship with someone, or, secondarily, a female friend. First recorded 1859; romantic sense by 1922; alternatives include partner and significant other.
Girlfriend experience
Girlfriend experience (GFE): a commercial sex service style in which a provider simulates a romantic relationship through companionship, conversation, kissing, and emotional intimacy; studied as emotional labor, marketed online, and used as coded prostitution terminology.
Gisèle Pelicot
Gisèle Pelicot, French victim of the Mazan rape trial; drugged by ex-husband Dominique Pelicot and raped by dozens of men 2011–2020; opened her 2024 Avignon trial to the public, saying "shame must change sides"; 51 convictions, 20-year maximum sentence.
GLAAD
GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) is a 501(c)(3) LGBTQ media advocacy organization founded in New York in 1985, known for the GLAAD Media Awards and the Where We Are on TV and Studio Responsibility Index reports.
Glass ceiling
Glass ceiling: metaphor for invisible barriers blocking women and minorities from top management, coined circa 1978-1986 in the US; related to glass cliff, sticky floor, labyrinth; tested empirically and addressed via board quotas.
Global Gender Gap Report
Annual World Economic Forum report since 2006 using the Global Gender Gap Index to rank economies on parity in economic participation, education, health, and political empowerment; 2025 score 68.8% closed, led by Iceland.
Global Slavery Index
Global Slavery Index (GSI), Walk Free's flagship report, estimates modern slavery prevalence, vulnerability, and government response for 160 countries; 2023 edition reports 50 million people in modern slavery in 2021, up 10 million since 2016.
Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt
Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt (1904–1965), American socialite, second wife of Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt and mother of designer Gloria Vanderbilt, who lost custody of her daughter in the sensational 1934 "trial of the century" in New York.
Gloria Steinem
Gloria Steinem (1934–2026), American journalist and feminist organizer, co-founded Ms. magazine, the National Women's Political Caucus, and the Women's Media Center; received the 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Glossary of BDSM
Glossary of BDSM: reference vocabulary of kink terminology, covering the acronym (bondage & discipline, dominance & submission, sadism & masochism), roles like dominant, submissive, and switch, and terms such as scene, safeword, SSC, RACK, aftercare, and munch.
Glynn Wolfe
Glynn "Scotty" Wolfe (1908-1997), American Baptist minister from Blythe, California, held the Guinness record for most monogamous marriages by a man, 29 or 31; his last wife Linda Essex-Wolfe held the women's record with 23.
Go back to where you came from
"Go back to where you came from" is a nativist racist epithet used in the US, Australia, and elsewhere to exclude immigrants and citizens of color; documented from the American Colonization Society era through the 2019 Trump "go back" tweets, Title VII workplace law, and the Australian TV series of that name.
Go Topless Day
Go Topless Day is an annual demonstration day, held since 2007 on the Saturday nearest August 26 (Women's Equality Day), organized by GoTopless to assert women's equal right to go topless in public; distinct from the trademarked May Jeep event of the same name.
Godparent
Godparent: a baptismal sponsor creating spiritual kinship with a child and the child's parents; also called fictive kinship or, in Latin America, compadrazgo. First mentioned by Tertullian; parents were barred from sponsoring their own children by the eighth century.
Gold digger
Gold digger: derogatory term for a person entering a relationship for money, applied mostly to women. First recorded 1915; popularized by Hopwood's 1919 play The Gold Diggers and Depression-era films.
Goler clan
Goler clan: poor rural families on South Mountain, Nova Scotia, near Wolfville, descended from War of 1812 Black refugees named Gold. In 1984 a teenage girl's disclosure exposed generations of incest and child abuse; sixteen adults were jailed, and the case produced R. v. Johnstone, Johnstone and Goler (1986) and the book On South Mountain.
Gooning
Gooning, also called the goon state or goon space, is internet slang for prolonged edging to pornography seeking a trance-like state. Originating on Urban Dictionary in 2005, it grew via Reddit subcultures from 2019 and went mainstream around 2023; it is not a clinical diagnosis.
Gotra (गोत्र)
Gotra (गोत्र) is the Hindu patrilineal exogamous clan, traced to a common male ancestor, regulating marriage via gotra and pravara rules alongside the sapinda bar; same-gotra marriage is legal under the Hindu Marriage Act 1955.
Gould family
Gould family: American dynasty of Gilded Age financier Jay Gould (1836–1892), his wife Helen Day Miller, and their six children including George Jay Gould, Helen Gould Shepard, and Anna Gould, duchess de Talleyrand-Périgord.
Grace Ingalls
Grace Pearl Ingalls Dow (1877–1941), youngest Ingalls sister of Laura Ingalls Wilder, born in Burr Oak, Iowa; teacher, journalist, wife of Nathan Dow; "Baby Grace" of the Little House books.
Grace Tame
Grace Tame (born 1994) is a Tasmanian survivor-advocate who overturned Tasmania's sexual assault gag laws via #LetHerSpeak, was 2021 Australian of the Year, and founded the Grace Tame Foundation, which closed in 2026.
Grandparent
Grandparent: parent of one's mother or father, a kinship role spanning caregiving, demography, and culture. Median age at grandparenthood is 49 (US women); grandparent life stage lasts 21-35 years.