That mostly looks like Female Assistant here, but a lot of examples don't have enough context for this.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Also, this page shares the title with two
different works, both of which are about survival on a deserted island rather than about this trope.
It sounds like Girl Friday is pretty much an established term for a female Robinson Crusoe, not for a female assistant.
Zzzzzzzzzz
Oh, it's an established term, but not for a shipwreck survivor:
girl Friday
n. Informal An efficient and faithful woman aide or employee. (from [girl + (man) Friday.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000
n (Business / Professions) a female employee who has a wide range of duties, usually including secretarial and clerical work [coined on the pattern of man Friday]
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged
n.
a female assistant (as in an office) entrusted with a wide variety of tasks
Origin of GIRL FRIDAY: girl + Friday (as in man Friday) First Known Use: 1940
Merriam Webster
The Phrase Finder has a detailed examination of the term.
Hell, even the Urban Dictionary, which is where I would expect to find an alternate definition if there was one in use, only lists one definition:
"A 'go to' girl; a female who will help you get things taken care of; a female you can rely on when you are in need of extra assistance; a female who acts as a 'jack of all trades' and is capable of doing almost anything; a girl you can count on when you are overwhelmed with your own chores and the duties must be done; a girl who does most of the leg work on a project, but never takes (or gets) credit."
Also, I'm not seeing where it says she may be the Distressed Damsel. It says she isn't the distressed damsel... "She's not an Action Girl, but neither is she a Distressed Damsel; ..."
edited 20th May '13 3:56:55 AM by Madrugada
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
I assume the shipwrecked woman thing comes from Robinson Crusoe and the person there that is called Friday.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Zzzzzzzzzz
That's exactly it. The native that Crusoe rescues from the cannibals he names "Friday". Friday becomes his servant, doing anything he needs done. "Man Friday" became a term for a male assistant-of-all-work (unlike the servants who had specific duties — you wouldn't ask the butler to dust or lay out your suit, you wouldn't expect your valet to take dictation, you wouldn't expect your secretary to serve dinner. You could easily expect your Man Friday to do any of those things.)
It was adapted to Girl Friday in the 1940's and applied to the type of office woman that would now be called "executive assistant" — the person whose job it is to do, as Pepper explains, "anything the boss needs done, including, sometimes, taking out the trash."
edited 20th May '13 4:03:24 AM by Madrugada
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
Well, movies from the 1940s notwithstanding, the fact is that there is a 1994 TV show, a 2003 song, and a 1982 novel that use the term "Girl Friday" to mean something completely different.
Aside from that, I think we're supposed to avoid trope names that are also the title of a work, yes?
Zzzzzzzzzz
Those works were named after the existing term. The only work that predates the popular use of the term is "His Girl Friday", which is not a direct collision.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
So, in other words, this needs just the description clarified.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Zzzzzzzzzz
Yep.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
This is a common real world term that gets massive use outside of media. It's not something we made up. I agree that the definition just needs to be clarified.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Captain of USS Bajor
For starters, we can clarify that the two deserted-island Girl Fridays are neither Trope Namers nor examples and that this is a preexisting term.
No, the other one.
I'd actually never heard the term outside TV Tropes (aside from as girls' nights in bars), but if that's how it's used, I think that's how we should use it.
Check out my fanfiction!
This trope page points out that neither of the two trope namers (the friendly savage from Robinson Crusoe and star reporter from a 1940 picture that few people will remember) is actually an example of the trope. That's an indication there might be a problem here. Robert Heinlein's novel about a girl named Friday is not an example either.
Looking over the page itself, it is far from clear what this trope is. According to the description, it's about a female servant; that's way too broad though. The description then points out that she "may" be useful, she "may" be a Damsel in Distress, and she "may" be a Battle Butler. That's nice to know, but "maybes" do not define a trope, and all of this is already covered by other tropes anyway. The examples aren't any clearer; there's just a random assortment of female characters that are either sidekicks or they're not.
Overall it seems to me that everything on this page is already covered by other pages, and we should move the examples to the pages where they fit best, and turn this into a redirect or disambig. Thoughts please?