You are viewing a single comment thread. Show all comments.

redfem-radpillMarch 9, 2025

For me, "you guys" is our second-person plural form of address. It's never caused any problems, and I think it's a bit much to make a big thing out of it.

If I say "i saw a guy walking down the street who..." everyone knows that it means I saw a man, or possibly an older adolescent male. No problem.

If I say to my sisters, "Where do you guys want to go for lunch?" -- also no problem. Because it's "you guys." Just a plural "you." In other contexts, it means men. Except that sometimes I'll refer to objects being dealt with, moved sorted, etc., as this "these guys over here" or "those guys over there." It's just a little quirk, and again, creates no problems.

I love Alice very much, and her work has done good in the world. But there have been times, as she's gotten older (like all of us), when she'll bring emotion and thinking or analysis together in ways that are a real stretch, and really don't make sense, or aren't real. I'm sorry that I'm tired now, it's bedtime, and I can no longer recall what exactly I saw her say, or get into, that flagged her in my brain as no longer necessarily reliable. Actually I think now it had to do with a British anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist, like, big complex global conspiracy, possibly even the lizard people thing...Oh yeah, it's this guy.

https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/12/20/18146628/alice-walker-david-icke-anti-semitic-new-york-times

So I bless her and appreciate what she's done, but I also step back a bit on some of her views.

I tend to agree with this.

And I'll add - I've tried, but it always feels a little bit sexist to use a female specific word when the "you guys" I'm talking to are all women... Like, why am I singling them out for their sex?? It's kind of like saying "women" instead of "people" when sex isn't relevant to the matter at hand... women are people too, you know, there's no need to other them from half the population. I used to prefer "pregnant people" for this very reason.

But I suppose this is all because it is very much ingrained in my thinking that 'guys' is neutral when used in the second person (or when referring to objects) and male is the default human.

I guess I will just say "you people" from now on and see how that goes. :P

redfem-radpillMarch 9, 2025

LOL I'm sure you won't encounter any problems with that!!!! 🤣