#GAReads | The Problem With 'Hey Guys'
photo credit: Kristina Flour, via Unsplash
“The Problem With 'Hey Guys'“:
“Okay, guys,” a female coworker of mine recently began, as she addressed me and a female colleague. Then she stopped herself, said she was making an effort to use more gender-neutral language, and carried on talking.
It was a small self-correction, and a glimpse at the conflicted feelings stirred up by one of the most common greetings in the English language. Guys is an easygoing way to address a group of people, but to many, it’s a symbol of exclusion—a word with an originally male meaning that is frequently used to refer to people who don’t consider themselves "guys."
My coworker is one of many who have started editing themselves in response to this exclusion.