We don’t eat out a lot, but when we do, it’s always interesting to see how our server will greet us. Will she say, “How are you all doing today?” Or, “What can I get you folks to drink?” Nope, more often than not, we hear: “Hi, my name is Mavis, and I’ll be taking care of you guys today.”
“You guys.” When did “you guys” become gender-neutral?
A couple of weeks ago, while we were sitting at our table at breakfast, a friend stopped and said, “You know what you should write about? Write about using ‘you guys’ to refer to both men and women. I still wear a bra; I’m not a guy!” And almost immediately after she left, our server, a young woman, came up and said, “Hi, what can I get you guys to drink?”
It’s hard not to notice how often men and women use the phrase “you guys” to refer to both sexes. I know I use it. Lots of my friends say it. Oprah says it!
A couple of times a day, I hear someone say “you guys” when they’re referring to groups or pairs that include and in some cases consist entirely of women. It’s become so common that it’s almost not noticeable.
But I know it’s irritating to many women.
So, here’s a question: why is “gals” gender-specific and “guys” is not?
If you walked up to a group of men and women and said, “Hey, you gals, what’s happening?”, I’ll bet you wouldn’t get a positive reaction! The guys in the group wouldn’t find the feminine label amusing. Or, if you call a group of all men “you gals,” they’re not going to think you’re just celebrating our common humanity. So why is “you guys” acceptable?
One of the online dictionaries that I frequently use has a separate listing for “you guys,” saying it is a pronoun that is “idiomatic and colloquial, chiefly in North America, Australia and New Zealand. A plural of you.”
In the usage notes for this entry, there is this explanation: “The term ‘guy’ is generally restricted to males, as in ‘Was that a guy or a girl?’, but the form ‘you guys’ may be used for groups of any combination of genders, whether they are all male, all female or any combination.”
There’s a part of me that doesn’t mind this usage at all. I think “you guys” can be said affectionately. I know I say it to my grandkids all the time. The words themselves don’t have inherent meanings; the meanings come from the context and the usage. “You guys” sounds casual, friendly, harmless.
Our society, in the past, has always been patriarchal, and masculine pronouns were used to refer to both sexes. (“Will the owner of the red car please move his vehicle?”) The word “guy” is masculine (That guy dented my fender.). The word “guys” is, too (Will all the guys please remove their hats?). But when you add “you” and make it “you guys,” it somehow loses its gender-specificity, doesn’t it?
Some might contend that “you guys” should not be gender-neutral.
Consider the usage of other generic words, like “chairman,” “alderman,” or “mankind.” You could argue that such words make women invisible by reinforcing the idea that men are the norm against which women are compared, that it perpetuates the subtle yet damaging belief that being male is more valuable than being female.
Over the last few decades, our society (especially the media) has worked to adopt at least a semblance of nonsexist language. “Chairman” has become “chairperson” or just “chair,” regardless of who holds the position.
“Alderperson” is now the acceptable term. We no longer have “stewardesses,” “waitresses,” or “actresses”; we have flight attendants, servers and actors, regardless of their genders.
I don’t know, is “you guys” a big deal or not? I’d like to hear from readers about this. Was our friend at the restaurant being “too sensitive”? Should she “lighten up and go with the flow”?
Is it OK for women to refer to other women as “you guys,” but not OK for guys to use the expression? What do you guys think?
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