Not very often. What do you say when you want to refer to boys and men? I almost never hear people referred to as “males” outside of medical studies and police blotters. It’s a common enough adjective, sure, but it’s rarely used as a noun.
And when i was in college, a group of adult humans was referred to as “men”, because that was correct grammar. Something about the male embracing the female, snicker snicker. Certainly, it was grammatically correct to refer to an unknown person as “he” when i was first taught grammar.
That seems unlikely. I don’t care for it, but it’s at worst a micro aggression, not a big deal. And i can’t imagine it will ever be reprehensible to refer to men as guys.
Because no one is presuming that children are actually mostly goats, and it’s the weird outlier who is a human. But “guys” does make the presumption that the default human is male.
If everyone were careful about its use, it would never “get there.” Maybe that’s part of the point too.
In any case, it’s not a steady progression from a strict meaning of males only to a different strict meaning of any gender only and never used for males only. That’s why saying how long you have been using the word that way misses the point. 60 years ago the women’s lib movement was just getting started, and many folks didn’t take it seriously. People might have thought that using “guys” to mean everyone was a recognition of equality. Things have moved around a lot since then, and never in a straight line. Ideas such as micro-aggressions, and the sometimes-subtle power of male dominance have developed and are gradually being taken into the mainstream view of the world. Sometimes people find out that things they have always done don’t work any more – like that soccer coach in Spain (it was soccer, wasn’t it? My sports knowledge is not strong). “But I’ve always kissed my star female soccer player” didn’t really fly, even though there was still some support for that view.
I feel like a lot of us are talking past each other. I never meant to imply it was incorrect usage or could not be used as a non-gendered word. My point is that it is a gendered word that is sometimes used in non-gendered contexts, and we should consider the impact of assuming that a male word is fine for mixed groups.
This is ironic, because you seem to be suggesting that your experience should fit all women.
Yes, exactly. My son signed an old lease that includes a footnote about male terms also referring to females. I meant that was still correct, standard English when i was in college.
Exactly. I’m a feminist. I’m not an incredibly active one, but I hold those ideals. Don’t presume damage where there may well not be any. “Guys,” in the midwest is like “coke,” in the south. It’s a regionalism, and context specific.
I dislike, “ladies,” I’ve heard it often used as a class indicator. I really hate, “females.” Dogs, horses, etc. are females.
Our city’s codified ordinances has the same such footnote.
Still, when we make changes to ordinances or add new ordinances I make sure we de-gender any gendered language, even if it’s not in, but merely adjacent to, the specific section we are modifying as a city council.
The good news is our city lawyer is on board with me and he makes sure those things are revised before they even come across my desk.
It’s been mentioned above that there are regional differences. I’m from California and don’t remember when guys wasn’t gender fluid. Dude is getting there. (I remember the construction: dudes and dudettes.) ((I’d like to think that’s what you’re referring to, here.))
And yet I remember, back in junior high, when “woman” was dismissive and sexualizing. The plural “women”, not so much. And if you were being polite, it had to me lady/ladies.
A decade after that, we were discussing the pseudogroup LAW (Ladies Against Women).
Yeah, I bandied it upthread and it was immediately shot down.
This thread isn’t the only place where individual sensitivities carry great weight. As a classroom teacher in a school that specifically supported kids with gender identity concerns it was very clear that our language did not evolve in a gender blind culture and everyone struggles to make it work at a barely passable level. It is possible to speak without any gendered terms at all but it sounds pretty stiff most of the time. Eventually in order to move forward everyone has to cut everyone else a little bit of slack and don’t give up trying. When conversing in the context of a forum that is used world wide it seems pretty unproductive to haggle over regional differences. I’m sure we’re all learning from each others’ experiences.
I think one of the reasons that words like men, dude, and guys become the predominate way to refer to a group is that they are short words. It’s quicker and easier to say a one syllable word like “guys” than multi syllable words like “everybody” or “people”. That may be one reason why women refer to groups of women as “guys” rather than multi syllable words like “women” or “ladies”. Although the word “gals” might work in that instance. For an alternative word to become commonplace as the gender neutral term for a group, the new word would probably need to be one syllable as well, such as folks or y’all.
I’m a woman, I use ‘guys’ to refer to a group of people irrespective of gender all the time, and I MOSTLY don’t care if someone uses it referring to me. And I’m generally feminist as hell, fwiw.
I agree that at this point it’s a pretty gender-neutral thing until other words and actions from the person using it proves me wrong. I pay attention to the overall vibe a person gives off and their overall use of language. It can indeed be offensive or, dare I say it, demeaning, given the context.
Language is so fluid now that I think it serves me better to pay attention to tone and intent than to the actual words used (minus the obvious slurs and demeaning labels, of course).
I try to avoid using “guys” when addressing a group that includes women. “Folks” or “friends” are decent substitutes. I’m also partial to “sportsfans,” which I picked up from Pat Conroy’s The Great Santini.
I’ve noticed that “dude” seems gender-neutral to most young people these days.
Another UK doper here. I would say “guys” is pretty much the standard, generic non-gendered word for a group here. Alternatives are much less common.
Definetely “y’all” and “yous” are rare enough to be noteworthy, and how do you get the attention of a group that way? “Hey y’all” might raise eyebrows, particularly in a formal setting.
I did hear years ago that some women did not like the use of “guys” in this way. But nowadays I think I hear women use “guys” for a mixed or even all female group more often than I hear men say it.
