Is that something specific to this particular story? When the police chief says "the boys down in ballistics have their hands full with the shootout last night" we don't assume he's talking about children.
Sure, but the title of this is "Girl figures out how to program giant computer".
"The boy down in ballistics got in a shootout" is not something our hypothetical police chief would say.
The title also implies some level of surprise that 'girl' 'figured out' this 'giant computer'.
It might seem like a nitpick, but stuff like this adds up. I used to call women 'girls' occasionally, but I stopped when I realized that I'd rarely use 'boy' if the gender was flipped.
"The boy down in ballistics got in a shootout" is not something our hypothetical police chief would say.
The title also implies some level of surprise that 'girl' 'figured out' this 'giant computer'.
It might seem like a nitpick, but stuff like this adds up. I used to call women 'girls' occasionally, but I stopped when I realized that I'd rarely use 'boy' if the gender was flipped.