6 ms·

How do we as a society combat this oversensitivity? Since when is the use of the word “guys” a micro aggression? Why is it so rare for someone to stand up agai

by jraby3 4y ago

How do we as a society combat this oversensitivity? Since when is the use of the word “guys” a micro aggression? Why is it so rare for someone to stand up against this type of behavior?

kens 4y ago
> Since when is the use of the word “guys” a micro aggression? As a serious answer, Douglas Hofstadter (of Gödel, Escher, Bach fame) wrote in 1982 about the problems of using "guys", which has a "default assumption" of maleness. This isn't a new issue, but something people have been discussing for 40 years. See "Changes in Default Words and Images, Engendered by Rising Consciousness" in the book Metamagical Themas: https://archive.org/details/MetamagicalThemas/page/n143/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/MetamagicalThemas/page/n143/mode...
- kgwgk 4y ago
  On the other hand, 2022!=1982 https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/07/07/guys-defense-gendered-etymology/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/07/07/guys-defen...
  - eesmith 4y ago
    That's a call for everyone to interpret "guys" as gender neutral. > In any case, to the great bulk of the population, guys already is gender-neutral and thus inclusive, thanks in part to women who embraced it. Maybe it’s time to set it free. I disagree with that first assertion. While "guys" is somewhat gender neutral, as in "you guys want anything?", it's not gender neutral with something like "two guys came here earlier" (not used to include "two women came here earlier") or "guys only want one thing" (not used to mean "all people only want one thing").
    - diffeomorphism 4y ago
      Eh, it is not really different from other plurals in this regard. For example one might say a catering event has 100 waiters. Depending on convention you could also write waiters/waitresses or waitrx or service personal or... Used generically it is gender neutral, while non-generically it is not.
      - Brian_K_White 4y ago
        I think thoughtful people say wait staff not waiters in that example. I am not on the side of turning technical terms like master/slave male/female blacklist/whitelist into ridiculous manufactured crimes, but that particular example doesn't actually work I think.
        diffeomorphism 4y ago
        > I think thoughtful people That is a pretty backhanded euphemism.... Anyways, I thought "service personnel" already covered that example, but yes "staff" might be more common. Anyways, the point was that these are common conventions and all are intended as gender neutral -- so insulting people for using a specific one seems very misguided.
        Brian_K_White 4y ago
        It was quite literal and not an insult or intended as one. When I hear people who consider their words, that is the kind of phrase I hear in foodservice circles. If you were insulted, perhaps it only implies you think you are not thoughtful? When I insult someone, it isn't ambiguous.
      - eesmith 4y ago
        > you could also write waiters/waitresses The Hofstadter essay kens linked to, from 1985, goes into this exact point, though he uses "waitron" instead of "waitrx". > it is not really different from other plurals in this regard Some yes, some no. Few now say "authoress" or "manageress", as a counter-example. And I don't think anyone ever used "bank telleress" instead of "bank teller." That said, it seems you agree with me that "guys" is not a wholly gender-neutral term, yes? The WaPo article author's argument seems to be that since "you guys" is used as a gender-neutral second person plural [1], "guys" is no longer a gendered word. While I disagree. And gave counter-examples. The Hofstadter essay kens linked to, more specifically at https://archive.org/details/MetamagicalThemas/page/n153/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/MetamagicalThemas/page/n153/mode... , makes exactly the same point, again this is from 1985: > One of my pet peeves is the currently popular usage of the word "guys". You often hear a group of people described as "guys", even when that group includes women. In fact, it is quite common to hear women addressing a group of other women as "you guys". This strikes me as very strange. However, when I have asked some people about it, they have adamantly maintained that, when in the plural, the word "guy" has completely lost all traces of masculinity. I was arguing with one woman about this, and she kept on saying, "It may have retained some male flavor for you, but it has none in most people's usage." I wasn't convinced, but nothing I could think of to say would budge her from her position. However, fortune proved to be on my side, because, in a last-ditch attempt to convince me, she said, "Why, I've even heard guys use it to refer to a bunch of women!" Only after saying it did she realize that she had just unwittingly undermined her own claim. [1] the article is dreadfully lacking in examples, but I think 'Hey guys' as an attention grabber fits into the same category as second person plural.
thefaux 4y ago
Evidently by dismissing any of their concerns and calling them oversensitive snowflakes who are going to ruin America with their woke communism.
- peanutcrisis 4y ago
  Could you list some examples of legitimate concerns of theirs that does not involve misunderstanding or misrepresenting their opponents' position? As an outsider who's not from the west, these "oversensitive snowflakes" do seem to have goals in common with the left, but are fundamentally extreme in their motivations and reasoning (and transitively their causes).
  - TexanFeller 4y ago
    I’m not so sure those with extreme views merely “have goals in common with the left”, I think they are the mainstream left now. The Biden admin appointed a transgender health secretary(my problem is not that they are transgender, but that they were appointed specifically because they were), has tried to force states to allow or even provide medical/surgical transition to minors, in some cases without parental consent, etc. I’m sympathetic to the concerns of transgender persons, but permanent life altering procedures for children is something that should demand a massive level of evidence and public debate. From what I can tell the evidence for who and when and how to treat is still unclear and ideologues are trying quite hard to suppress any debate.
    - eesmith 4y ago
      FWIW, that's assistant secretary for health. Also, Harvard and Tulane educated, residency at Mount Sinai, faculty at Penn State, Pennsylvania's physician general, then Secretary of Health for Pennsylvania (unanimously confirmed by the Senate) before Biden's nomination. Why do you think that background wasn't an important part of her nomination, and only her trans status? > has tried to force states to allow or even provide medical/surgical transition to minors, in some cases without parental consent, etc I ... do not believe the assistant secretary for health has the power to force states to do something. By "medical transition" you mean hormone therapy, right? Hormone therapy is associated with a lower rate of depression and suicidality in minors, and transgender youth have a high rate of suicide than non-LGBT youth. https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(21)00568-1/fulltext https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(21)00568-1/full... Which is, as I understand, why hormone therapy is part of the standard for gender-affirming care for minors, as set by (for example) WPATH and the Endocrine Society, and supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and from the American Psychological Association. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/04/29/1095227346/rachel-levine-calls-state-anti-lgbtq-bills-disturbing-and-dangerous-to-trans-you https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/04/29/1095227... This shouldn't be so easily coupled with a "/" to surgical transition, which as her department's fact sheet points out at https://opa.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/2022-03/gender-affirming-care-young-people-march-2022.pdf https://opa.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/2022-03/gender-affir... is "Typically used in adulthood or case-by-case in adolescence". Gender affirming care also includes Social Affirmation and Puberty Blockers. > From what I can tell the evidence for who and when and how to treat is still unclear and ideologues are trying quite hard to suppress any debate From what I can tell, those standards of care come from evidence-based research and been around for a while - long before the current political decision to make a brouhaha of the topic. Here's the WPATH Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People - https://wpath.org/publications/soc https://wpath.org/publications/soc It's the "7th version of the Standards of Care since the original 1979 document." It's about 10 years old. The NPR link says a SOC should be coming out this year.
Dig1t 4y ago
I genuinely don’t know. One doesn’t encounter this stuff out at the grocery store, it’s confined mostly to professional settings like working at a company or at University. It seems obvious to me that these ideas incubate in professional settings precisely because those are settings where they can’t easily be criticized for fear of losing a job or getting cancelled, etc.
hoseja 4y ago
So far the only thing that seems to work is genuinely existential external threat.
TexanFeller 4y ago
If you work in big(or medium) tech you’ve probably been given a list of “say this not that”. Say folks rather than guys. Say blocklist instead of blacklist. Main branch, not master branch. Supposedly it’s to be more inclusive, but I’ve yet to meet an actual minority that feels excluded or offended by such trivialities. They can be rather exasperating too, I’ve been told to say “the candidate” rather than “he” or “she” in post interview round tables to avoid someone accidentally using pronouns the candidate doesn’t prefer.
- eesmith 4y ago
  At https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23763739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23763739 I collected examples posted to HN, like one from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4617174 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4617174 : > A coworker and I were de-duping records in a database. One of us said while pairing on the script "well, every slave needs a master." > An african american woman in the office turned to us and said "maybe it's the master who needs the slave?" > She wasn't really offend or anything and she said it with a sincere smile. She was just calling out our idiotic computer lingo for what it was. So, neither excluded nor offended. But it was still in bad taste.
  - TexanFeller 4y ago
    Thanks for sharing that. I might adjust terminology myself after that even though it didn’t actually harm or offend them.
  - poopnugget 4y ago
- sureglymop 4y ago
  Why is it so hard for some people to change their usage of some words? For me it seems pretty simple and technically speaking the alternative/new words are still understandable. It's not like in this industry it's uncommon to have to learn and adjust or dismiss prior solutions when new better ones arise. Big deal over mostly nothing imo.
kodyo 4y ago
It isn’t oversensitivity. It’s the newest skinsuit worn by Marxists seeking perpetual revolution. Stop treating these people with kid gloves and tell the DEI apparatchiks to piss off.
- aradox66 4y ago
  Anything that big companies are enforcing, as a rule, is not going to be in alignment with Marxism.
  - jtode 4y ago
    Indeed, inclusivity is one of the main pitches capitalism has left - sure, you're getting stomped by the bootheels of capitalist running dogs, but half of those dogs are from visible minority breeds.
  - throw_a_grenade 4y ago
    Nope, corporations are not in alignmetn with communism (an economic concept). But parent is talking about marxism (sociology), and this is essentially correct. This is rebranded class struggle, with easily recognizable details like division between opressed and rulers, up to and including self-criticism. Only vocabulary changed.

by jraby3 4y ago

How do we as a society combat this oversensitivity? Since when is the use of the word “guys” a micro aggression? Why is it so rare for someone to stand up against this type of behavior?

kens 4y ago

> Since when is the use of the word “guys” a micro aggression? As a serious answer, Douglas Hofstadter (of Gödel, Escher, Bach fame) wrote in 1982 about the problems of using "guys", which has a "default assumption" of maleness. This isn't a new issue, but something people have been discussing for 40 years. See "Changes in Default Words and Images, Engendered by Rising Consciousness" in the book Metamagical Themas: https://archive.org/details/MetamagicalThemas/page/n143/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/MetamagicalThemas/page/n143/mode...

kgwgk 4y ago
On the other hand, 2022!=1982 https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/07/07/guys-defense-gendered-etymology/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/07/07/guys-defen...
- eesmith 4y ago
  That's a call for everyone to interpret "guys" as gender neutral. > In any case, to the great bulk of the population, guys already is gender-neutral and thus inclusive, thanks in part to women who embraced it. Maybe it’s time to set it free. I disagree with that first assertion. While "guys" is somewhat gender neutral, as in "you guys want anything?", it's not gender neutral with something like "two guys came here earlier" (not used to include "two women came here earlier") or "guys only want one thing" (not used to mean "all people only want one thing").
  - diffeomorphism 4y ago
    Eh, it is not really different from other plurals in this regard. For example one might say a catering event has 100 waiters. Depending on convention you could also write waiters/waitresses or waitrx or service personal or... Used generically it is gender neutral, while non-generically it is not.
    - Brian_K_White 4y ago
      I think thoughtful people say wait staff not waiters in that example. I am not on the side of turning technical terms like master/slave male/female blacklist/whitelist into ridiculous manufactured crimes, but that particular example doesn't actually work I think.
      - diffeomorphism 4y ago
        > I think thoughtful people That is a pretty backhanded euphemism.... Anyways, I thought "service personnel" already covered that example, but yes "staff" might be more common. Anyways, the point was that these are common conventions and all are intended as gender neutral -- so insulting people for using a specific one seems very misguided.
        Brian_K_White 4y ago
        It was quite literal and not an insult or intended as one. When I hear people who consider their words, that is the kind of phrase I hear in foodservice circles. If you were insulted, perhaps it only implies you think you are not thoughtful? When I insult someone, it isn't ambiguous.
    - eesmith 4y ago
      > you could also write waiters/waitresses The Hofstadter essay kens linked to, from 1985, goes into this exact point, though he uses "waitron" instead of "waitrx". > it is not really different from other plurals in this regard Some yes, some no. Few now say "authoress" or "manageress", as a counter-example. And I don't think anyone ever used "bank telleress" instead of "bank teller." That said, it seems you agree with me that "guys" is not a wholly gender-neutral term, yes? The WaPo article author's argument seems to be that since "you guys" is used as a gender-neutral second person plural [1], "guys" is no longer a gendered word. While I disagree. And gave counter-examples. The Hofstadter essay kens linked to, more specifically at https://archive.org/details/MetamagicalThemas/page/n153/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/MetamagicalThemas/page/n153/mode... , makes exactly the same point, again this is from 1985: > One of my pet peeves is the currently popular usage of the word "guys". You often hear a group of people described as "guys", even when that group includes women. In fact, it is quite common to hear women addressing a group of other women as "you guys". This strikes me as very strange. However, when I have asked some people about it, they have adamantly maintained that, when in the plural, the word "guy" has completely lost all traces of masculinity. I was arguing with one woman about this, and she kept on saying, "It may have retained some male flavor for you, but it has none in most people's usage." I wasn't convinced, but nothing I could think of to say would budge her from her position. However, fortune proved to be on my side, because, in a last-ditch attempt to convince me, she said, "Why, I've even heard guys use it to refer to a bunch of women!" Only after saying it did she realize that she had just unwittingly undermined her own claim. [1] the article is dreadfully lacking in examples, but I think 'Hey guys' as an attention grabber fits into the same category as second person plural.

thefaux 4y ago

Evidently by dismissing any of their concerns and calling them oversensitive snowflakes who are going to ruin America with their woke communism.

peanutcrisis 4y ago
Could you list some examples of legitimate concerns of theirs that does not involve misunderstanding or misrepresenting their opponents' position? As an outsider who's not from the west, these "oversensitive snowflakes" do seem to have goals in common with the left, but are fundamentally extreme in their motivations and reasoning (and transitively their causes).
- TexanFeller 4y ago
  I’m not so sure those with extreme views merely “have goals in common with the left”, I think they are the mainstream left now. The Biden admin appointed a transgender health secretary(my problem is not that they are transgender, but that they were appointed specifically because they were), has tried to force states to allow or even provide medical/surgical transition to minors, in some cases without parental consent, etc. I’m sympathetic to the concerns of transgender persons, but permanent life altering procedures for children is something that should demand a massive level of evidence and public debate. From what I can tell the evidence for who and when and how to treat is still unclear and ideologues are trying quite hard to suppress any debate.
  - eesmith 4y ago
    FWIW, that's assistant secretary for health. Also, Harvard and Tulane educated, residency at Mount Sinai, faculty at Penn State, Pennsylvania's physician general, then Secretary of Health for Pennsylvania (unanimously confirmed by the Senate) before Biden's nomination. Why do you think that background wasn't an important part of her nomination, and only her trans status? > has tried to force states to allow or even provide medical/surgical transition to minors, in some cases without parental consent, etc I ... do not believe the assistant secretary for health has the power to force states to do something. By "medical transition" you mean hormone therapy, right? Hormone therapy is associated with a lower rate of depression and suicidality in minors, and transgender youth have a high rate of suicide than non-LGBT youth. https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(21)00568-1/fulltext https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(21)00568-1/full... Which is, as I understand, why hormone therapy is part of the standard for gender-affirming care for minors, as set by (for example) WPATH and the Endocrine Society, and supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and from the American Psychological Association. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/04/29/1095227346/rachel-levine-calls-state-anti-lgbtq-bills-disturbing-and-dangerous-to-trans-you https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/04/29/1095227... This shouldn't be so easily coupled with a "/" to surgical transition, which as her department's fact sheet points out at https://opa.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/2022-03/gender-affirming-care-young-people-march-2022.pdf https://opa.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/2022-03/gender-affir... is "Typically used in adulthood or case-by-case in adolescence". Gender affirming care also includes Social Affirmation and Puberty Blockers. > From what I can tell the evidence for who and when and how to treat is still unclear and ideologues are trying quite hard to suppress any debate From what I can tell, those standards of care come from evidence-based research and been around for a while - long before the current political decision to make a brouhaha of the topic. Here's the WPATH Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People - https://wpath.org/publications/soc https://wpath.org/publications/soc It's the "7th version of the Standards of Care since the original 1979 document." It's about 10 years old. The NPR link says a SOC should be coming out this year.

Dig1t 4y ago

I genuinely don’t know. One doesn’t encounter this stuff out at the grocery store, it’s confined mostly to professional settings like working at a company or at University. It seems obvious to me that these ideas incubate in professional settings precisely because those are settings where they can’t easily be criticized for fear of losing a job or getting cancelled, etc.

hoseja 4y ago

So far the only thing that seems to work is genuinely existential external threat.

TexanFeller 4y ago

If you work in big(or medium) tech you’ve probably been given a list of “say this not that”. Say folks rather than guys. Say blocklist instead of blacklist. Main branch, not master branch. Supposedly it’s to be more inclusive, but I’ve yet to meet an actual minority that feels excluded or offended by such trivialities. They can be rather exasperating too, I’ve been told to say “the candidate” rather than “he” or “she” in post interview round tables to avoid someone accidentally using pronouns the candidate doesn’t prefer.

eesmith 4y ago
At https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23763739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23763739 I collected examples posted to HN, like one from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4617174 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4617174 : > A coworker and I were de-duping records in a database. One of us said while pairing on the script "well, every slave needs a master." > An african american woman in the office turned to us and said "maybe it's the master who needs the slave?" > She wasn't really offend or anything and she said it with a sincere smile. She was just calling out our idiotic computer lingo for what it was. So, neither excluded nor offended. But it was still in bad taste.
- TexanFeller 4y ago
  Thanks for sharing that. I might adjust terminology myself after that even though it didn’t actually harm or offend them.
- poopnugget 4y ago
sureglymop 4y ago
Why is it so hard for some people to change their usage of some words? For me it seems pretty simple and technically speaking the alternative/new words are still understandable. It's not like in this industry it's uncommon to have to learn and adjust or dismiss prior solutions when new better ones arise. Big deal over mostly nothing imo.

kodyo 4y ago

It isn’t oversensitivity. It’s the newest skinsuit worn by Marxists seeking perpetual revolution. Stop treating these people with kid gloves and tell the DEI apparatchiks to piss off.

aradox66 4y ago
Anything that big companies are enforcing, as a rule, is not going to be in alignment with Marxism.
- jtode 4y ago
  Indeed, inclusivity is one of the main pitches capitalism has left - sure, you're getting stomped by the bootheels of capitalist running dogs, but half of those dogs are from visible minority breeds.
- throw_a_grenade 4y ago
  Nope, corporations are not in alignmetn with communism (an economic concept). But parent is talking about marxism (sociology), and this is essentially correct. This is rebranded class struggle, with easily recognizable details like division between opressed and rulers, up to and including self-criticism. Only vocabulary changed.