I'm a woman who doesn't like being called "guy"

[Dinsdale]

@thorny_locust

“Firer” and “braker” sound weird at first, but might catch on.

Here in Chicago there seems to be an effort to call local officials “alders” instead of aldermen/women/persons.

[pulykamell]

No “fire fighter”? That’s what I use. Or are we just looking for clipped terms?

[Yllaria]

@Johanna

So far we’ve learned:
We can’t say women.
We can’t say ladies.
We can’t say gals.
We can’t say womenfolk by the transitive property, because we’ve already ruled out women.
We’re stuck saying “There exists no acceptable word for addressing women except guys. Please ignore all the instances in which it’s exclusively male.”
What does all that say about women’s status in this world?

You think that’s bad? I forget where I read it, so it may not be completely accurate, but I once read that if you search through history, there is no group name for women (seamstresses, nuns, etc.) that hasn’t at some time been used as slang for prostitutes.

@Mangetout

Depends on your audience, I suppose; ‘ladies and gentlemen’ omits non-binary members of the audience (if present) and they may or may not care about that.

Now I’m going to have to look something up. I’m sure I once watched a clip of Kinky Boots that included something like “ladies and gentlemen (pause) and all the rest of you.”

[DocCathode]

@Yllaria

I forget where I read it, so it may not be completely accurate, but I once read that if you search through history, there is no group name for women (seamstresses, nuns, etc.) that hasn’t at some time been used as slang for prostitutes

I have a text of actual slang used by English criminals (I forget what century) for use in Dungeons & Dragons game. Indeed a brothel is a ‘nunnery’ or ‘abbey’ . There is debate over whether Shakespeare intended this meaning with “Get thee to a nunnery!”

So while the ‘fact’ you gave may not be true it is certainly plausible.

[thorny_locust]

@pulykamell

No “fire fighter”? That’s what I use.

The reference was to the “fireman” on historical trains – who was I believe in charge of stoking the fire, not of fighting it.

[Mangetout]

@thorny_locust

sound

Prescriptivism doesn’t work, but talking about things does. The difference is often only that prescriptivism demands or expects immediate compliance.

[Yllaria]

Thanks. I enjoyed learning that Terry Pratchett wasn’t the first person to use Seamstresses that way.

[pulykamell]

Ah, completely missed that.

[scudsucker]

"There is debate over whether
Shakespeare intended this meaning with “Get thee to a nunnery!”

(Quote functionality is misbehaving - that was DocCathode)

That could have had an … uh … an interesting debate in my high school final exams. I wish I’d known!

[Maserschmidt]

Our English teacher told us that, though I can’t recall the careful terms she used. Given it was Texas, maybe something catchy like “house of ill repute”.

[DocCathode]

AFAIK All of Shakespeare’s plays contain dirty jokes. OTTOMH

Henry V Hotspur says “My horse is my mistress!”

Hamlet Hamlet says to Ophelia “I meant my head in your lap. Thought you I meant count-ry matters?”

One of the Henry IV plays has the prince mention that Falstaff and the gang spend their time at “leaping houses”. This is another slang term for brothel

[DPRK]

@sunacres

My preferred solution to all of this is to consciously eliminate gender from language in any context where it is irrelevant. Not easy to do, and awkward at times, but for me it’s the right direction to go.

As a middle school teacher I found this challenging at first but with practice it becomes comfortable and natural, at least until new habits tangle with entrenched traditions.

Sexist language is a problem, and working to mitigate it is a laudable goal. By the way, I am with the OP in that I would not address a woman, or group of women, as guy(s). Nor “dude”, which is its own can of worms…

However, especially with middle-school students (who are required to study a bit of foreign languages, right?) it is important to emphasize the (not always sharp) difference between gendered/sexist language and grammatical gender. There are languages relatively close to English like German and French where this issue is much closer to the surface.

@sunacres

One summer I gave a presentation at a national convention of model railroaders about my use of model trains in the classroom. When I mentioned the roles I had forgotten the change, and my audience (of mostly autistic old geezers like me) completely freaked out, as I should have known they would.

I have never worked for the railways, so I wonder what terms the female crewmembers actually prefer and insist upon? It is not inconceivable that you may have offended them by not calling them firemen, carmen, brakemen, etc.

[Beckdawrek]

Makes me wonder about nuts and bolts.

[gnoitall]

Since we’re talking about gendered and genderless titles and terms of address, I figured I’d mention the customary titles of members of the US Armed Forces.

Despite the historical gender imbalance, most generic titles for those members are free of an explicit gender tag.

Army = Soldier
Marine Corp = Marine
Navy = Sailor
Space Force = Guardian

But my own military alma mater, as well as the Coast Guard, have a bit of implicit sexism built in.

Air Force = Airman
Coast Guard = Coast Guardsman

It’s always bugged me. Especially the Air Force. We came out of the Army; we didn’t have to go backwards.

(Of course, no one was thinking in these terms in 1947, but it’s still unfortunate.)

[DPRK]

No one says “aviator”? (cf aviatrix)

[gnoitall]

That’s not the official title. And for the Air Force, it’s baked into the junior enlisted ranks: Airman Basic, Airman, Airman 1st Class, and Senior Airman.

[Treppenwitz]

@DocCathode

AFAIK All of Shakespeare’s plays contain dirty jokes. OTTOMH

Don’t want to start a hijack, but may I recommend “Shakespeare’s Bawdy” by Eric Partridge (a highly respected lexicographer of unconventional English).

Shakespeare's Bawdy

j

[Johanna]

Relax—you’re not starting a hijack. You’re merely continuing one.

[WolfpackJeep]

I’ll take “guy” any day of the week instead of “shug” or “hun” or “dear” or “sweetheart”. I’m also the only woman in my department, which sometimes causes the casual “hey guys” to turn into “hey guys and…girl?” Of course, we could always fall back on “y’all,” but there’s sort of an unspoken agreement in the department to not sound too southern.

I also sign my name in a block labeled “DRAFTSMAN” whenever I’ve completed a drawing. I can’t imagine this ever changing, not just because there’s no room in the title block for “DRAFTSPERSON,” but the work culture here is such that a change like this would be mocked for being PC or woke.

[DocCathode]

@WolfpackJeep

I’ll take “guy” any day of the week instead of “shug” or “hun” or “dear” or “sweetheart”

Only once in my life has as stranger repeatedly asked me to smile. I was at Steak N Shake, getting a shake at happy hour. The man behind the register thought I looked sad. I explained that I was happy and this is how I generally look. He insisted that shakes sold at happy hour could only be sold to happy people. He would not leave me alone until I forced a big grin.

Even at the time, I was thinking “So besides all the major crap, this is how a woman feels everytime a stranger tells her she would be prettier if she smiled?”