The Common Guy

[proofrawk]

Oprah says it. My yoga instructor says it. College students around the country say it. The cast of Friends says it, as do my own friends, over and over again. At least 10 to 20 times a day, I hear someone say “you guys” to refer to groups or pairs that include and in some cases consist entirely of women. I get e-mail all the time asking after

Comments

[randomneses]

This is an interesting article. I never really thought about this. Will I stop saying "guys"? For the most part, probably not, no point in lying. That said, I appreciate the food for thought and will def be more aware of its usage.

[lilitu93]

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. I mean, I know I say it a lot without thinking, and I agree with the argument, but at this time in my life, it just doesn't bug me that much. It probably should, as generic male in general does, and I should probably examine why it doesn't.

[daybreak25]

same here.

[dangerousdame]

I like gender neutral pronouns, and I don't think they're non-feminist- in fact one of my favorite feminist authors, Cynthia Heimel, wrote an article about why it's good to say "guys" in a non-gender specific way. I'll have to agree to disagree with this author.

[entelodont]

The point is that it's not gender neutal. If I told someone else to go find the guy in red, they would skip over the women in the room, because guy = man. It's only neutral in the sense that "men" in "all men are created equal" is; that is to say, not at all, since it is merely a reflection of how male is the default in our society.

[dangerousdame]

But language is evolving, and I think that "guy" slowly becoming gender-neutral is positive.

[entelodont]

If language is evolving to uphold age-old sexist prejudices, no, I don't think it's positive. It's merely par for the course.

[sitakhet]

French (at least in Québec) is for once not totally perpetuating this problem! Speaking about a group, yeah (ils vs. elles) still not so good, but when causally speaking to a group you're likely to say something like "Salut tout le monde!" (Hi everybody)

[sitakhet]

lol there are so many of us around, I replied to somebody in Longueuil the other night!

I'm sure at some point it'll change - 3-400 years ago we spoke the same french as the French, now we...well we don't. It might take another 300 years (which in terms of gender equality...sigh, too long IMO,) but it will. It better. D:

[janetmweiss]

I see this is the Quebec subthread? *checks in*

[bleed_peroxide]

I'm a Southern girl, so I just say "y'all". Gender-neutral and casual :D

[hellooo]

I'd never really thought about the implication of male = gender-neutral in language until I started learning other languages. I was trying to wrap my head around gendering things in French, Spanish, German, etc., and found it odd that a group of multiple genders could be translated as a group of males. Then I realized that 'guys' does the similar sort of thing in English.

I like saying 'y'all', 'people' and 'gals', but they still sound a bit weird to me since I didn't grow up with them. When I'm with friends I can laugh it off, but if it's a group of people I don't really know, I often revert back to 'guys' because, again, it sounds less weird.