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“Guy” is also gender-neutral for me. When approaching other girls, my normal greeting is “hey guys!” Saying “hey gals!” is...an off-putting notion. “Gal” insta
by FiddlyPack 8y ago
“Guy” is also gender-neutral for me. When approaching other girls, my normal greeting is “hey guys!” Saying “hey gals!” is...an off-putting notion.
“Gal” instantly conveys a long-gone era of disempowered women to me. In an era of non-binary genders, I think reclaiming it would only serve to further exclude. Rather than try and force the world to use a new gender-neutral word (“zer”?) just let “guy” be the gender-neutral word it has been used as for decades. It doesn’t have the gender connotations of he/she/him/her and needs no correcting.
- klyrs 8y agoAs I mentioned, "guy" wasn't the problem. But while everybody's so torqued about the word "guy" I'll take the opportunity for a gedankenexperiment. A poll among straight men, where the questions "is the word 'guy' gender neutral" and "how many guys have you slept with" are asked in random order, followed by "how many men have you slept with." Because for all people pounce to excuse "guy" as gender neutral, this article only composes that with "he/him," which actually aren't gender neutral pronouns. Counterexamples to the "gender neutral" claim are far to easy to come by.
- FiddlyPack 8y agoWell articulated. I’m sold. I retract my prior argument. “Guy” is not gender neutral. My apologies for encultured shallow thinking.