gender-neutral second-person plurals

[firecat]

I left this datapoint in selki's journal. (She said that the word "guy" isn't "some sort of modern gender-neutral salutation". Let me be clear that I completely respect this viewpoint.)

"Guys" or "you guys" has a completely gender-neutral connotation to me...but only when used as a second-person plural pronoun, the same way people use "y'all" or "youse". It feels wrong to me to address or label a woman or girl as a "guy" or to say "Those guys over there" when referring to a mixed group or a group of women/girls. But I'll comfortably say "OK, you guys..." even to a group of all women.

This isn't modern; I've been doing it my whole life and I'm over 50. I grew up in Michigan; I wonder if this is a regional usage.

In contrast, "dude," "men," "mankind," and "he/him" have a male-only connotation to me, although I can hear other people use "dude" in a gender-neutral manner. (I can't do that with the other words.)

Thoughts? Datapoints?

I also use "y'all," "youse" (but they don't feel like "my language"; they feel like I'm stealing them from other people's language), "peeps," and "folks." ("Peeps" feels modern to me, and "folks" feels old-fashioned.)

Comments

[sonia]

I used "you guys" as a gender neutral expression without any awareness that it might be problematic until I was chastised for it one day at Mama Bears women's bookstore in Oakland, probably 15 years ago. Yes I did watch Electric Company which started, "HEY YOU GUYS!!!" in elementary school.

Over time, I've gradually replaced the phrase with with "you folks" or "you all" or "you ladies." Or, to be honest, "you guys I mean you all."

I'm taking a class on fighting oppression and domestic violence. There are 20 women and 2 men in the class. It grates on me something fierce when the presenter says, "You guys blah blah blah." To me it speaks of lack of awareness in a specifically feminist context.

The other place it grates on me lately is coming from the exclusively male management of the computer engineering company I work for, because I think they really do mean, "You men (oh yeah, maybe there are a couple of women too)," and I always want to say, "Hey, I'm right here!"