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?
Why is it so rare for someone to stand up against this type of behavior?
> 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.
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.
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...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/07/07/guys-defen...
> 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").
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... , 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.
> Authoress
English is a bit weird in that it only does this for certain occupations, e.g. actor or waiter but not for example writers (at least to my knowledge). So if I read "a large group of writers" I would presume that is meant as gender neutral and would be completely fine with it. Again the point being that writxs or similar might be another convention, but that does not make people using "writers" "unthoughtful" or whatever other insult the above poster wants to use.
However, kgwgk's comment appears to be that "guys" now is gender neutral.
And it demonstrably has widespread non-gender-neutral uses.
Since you want to use the descriptive approach, if enough people think that "guys" is a microaggression, then doesn't that make it so?
What someone wrote forty years ago is not gospel. Neither is that article, of course. But at least is current.
An aspirational future is not the same thing as the present, and we see "guys", in the plurals sense, definitely being used as male-only.
Another example: "GirlsAskGuys is your social community where girls and guys share their opinions & life experiences, to help better understand each other on topics ranging from dating to fashion." - https://www.girlsaskguys.com/content/about-us.html
The context was 'Since when is the use of the word “guys” a micro aggression?', the linked-to essay refers to people making that claim now, so I assume there are people who don't like being referred to as "guy".
> What someone wrote forty years ago is not gospel
Sure. What it does do is date the "Since when is the use of the word “guys” a micro aggression" as starting at least 40 years ago.
We see guys being used as male-only. We also see guys being used for mixed-gender or female-only groups.
We see them being applied to groups and we also see them being applied to individuals.
We see a lot of things in the present - and 40 years ago, for that matter.
> What it does do is date the "Since when is the use of the word “guys” a micro aggression" as starting at least 40 years ago.
Ageeed, it illustrates that it was used 40 years ago and that there were proponents and detractors of that use. The use may be more extended today - I don’t know. (What definitely has changed is the ubiquity of “microagressions”.)
Another random testimony from the intertubes:
“When I was a teen back in the 1960's (yeah, I'm old!) the "Hey, Guys!" or "Hi, folks!" was a common way to greet a group regardless of gender. For most of us, at least. It was how females greeted their female friends. Almost invariably, if the group was mixed, someone, almost always male, would try to "correct" our gender-neutral greeting. It was irritating.”
(Isn’t it funny that using “guys” in a gender-neutral way is a microagression and telling people not to use “guys” in a gender-neutral way is also a micro-agression?)
Sure. The term is "microaggression" is relatively newly popular. I'm probably also wrong in grouping Hofstadter's "pet peeve" as an example of "microaggression", rather than using a more encompassing term.
But bear in mind that it's being used in this linked-to essay to provoke a knee-jerk response to the term "microaggression", enhanced by using one of the mildest examples - "guy" - as the representative case.
It's so mild it's very hard for me to find any examples of people arguing that “guys” is a microaggression, in order see what those DEI instructors teach. One of the few (after looking at scores of Google and DDG hits) is https://www.clearpnt.com/3-key-trends-in-dei-training/ which says:
> When using scenarios, give examples that avoid words with negative connotations for specific groups, like “blind tests,” “powwow,” “and “guys.”
Thing is, "guys" when used poorly can have negative connotations. "Let the guys select what to do next" is likely read as gendered.
I'm accepting the author is correct in saying DEI instructors are making that argument.
But that acceptance also requires me to accept that the DEI trainers know what they are doing, until presented with evidence to the contrary.
For example, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-022-05203-0 gives these examples of microaggression: "highlighting gender by singling women out in a group of men (i.e., “Hey guys, and one gal”) or treating the women differently because of their gender (i.e., having an open office door policy for the women but not for the men)".
Those would surely be better examples in a DEI training course, yes?
> (Isn’t it funny that using “guys” in a gender-neutral way is a microagression and telling people not to use “guys” in a gender-neutral way is also a micro-agression?)
As an aside, this exchange has taught me that "aggression" has two g:s. And I still make that typo.
I don't think your description of 'is also a micro-aggression' fits the definition of 'microaggression.'
I just read the first 20 or so pages of Sue's "Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation" (2010) book at https://archive.org/details/microaggressions0000sued/page/24... and it characterizes microaggressions as "brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to certain individuals because of their group membership".
Using “guys” in a gender-neutral way doesn't define a group membership.
Consider your own example “highlighting gender by singling women out in a group of men (i.e., “Hey guys, and one gal”)”
Don’t you think that some people would see there a “invisibilization” micro-aggression if “Hey guys” had been used instead?
No, not quite.
> it demonstrably has
Again, no. The claim was that for large groups it is used as gender neutral, for small groups it is not necessarily neutral. No contradiction and very common for other words as in the examples above.
> If enough people think that
No, wrong side. The people saying words give them meaning, not the people misunderstanding them.
To be fully correct, the author says "second person plural", which includes small groups.
> The claim was that for large groups it is used as gender neutral
As the Hofstadter essay points out, the claim was also that "man" for large groups was gender neutral. Except of course it often wasn't - and Hofstadter gives counter-examples.
But the overall point is the "microagression" concerning "guy" has been around for decades. It's not a new thing. It's certainly not part of an existential threat to doing good science.
> The people saying words give them meaning, not the people misunderstanding them.
That's ... okay, so you're saying the people who hear the implied/default maleness in "guy" never actually say the word "guy" in their own conversations? Even to refer only to males?
Because that's the only way I can make sense of what you wrote.
I find it hard to believe that the only speakers of the word "guy" for groups do so only in gender-neutral terms.
No that is not what I am saying and by now I do not believe anymore that you are trying to argue in good faith.
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.
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.
Stop treating these people with kid gloves and tell the DEI apparatchiks to piss off.
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/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/2022/04/29/1095227...
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-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
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.
> Why do you think that background wasn't an important part of her nomination, and only her trans status?
Because Biden has unabashedly doubled down on intersectional identity politics. For example for the supreme court justice and his VP pick he explicitly said he would pick black females.
There's quite a lot to unpick here.
1) Rates of regret for transition are lower than most other medical treatment. You're applying a lot of scrutiny to regret, which is fine, but you're only applying that scrutiny to trans care. You're not applying the same scrutiny to eg cancer treatment.
2) Why is regret such a horrific prospect to you? You see someone going through gender affirming care, and then regretting it, and then being forced to live with the result, and this is horrific to you. I don't understand why you don't apply the same standard to the people who are denied access to gender affirming care - the people who are forced to live with the results of not getting the care they need. Why is one situation so terrible and the other is good?
3) In general we allow capacitous people to make choices about healthcare. We tell them what's involved, we tell them about the risks, and then we let them make the decision. We allow people to make unwise decisions, even if those decisions will cause their death. If a person has a necrotic gangrenous leg their doctors will say "we need to amputate this or you will die" but that person is allowed to say "I'd rather die than have you amputate my leg". Why are people okay with bodily autonomy unless it's a trans person getting trans healthcare?
There's also quite a few points you've made that are based on out of date, or misinterpreted, information. Stuff like bone density has been debunked - trans people have reduced bone density before they start gender affirming medical treatment. At the moment people think that the bone density problems are caused by lack of access to sport and exercise.
Which is relevant to this discussion because .. why? Just because there isn't an accepted evidence-based standard of care for X doesn't mean there can't be an accepted evidence-based standard of care for Y.
(I don't know what "settled medicine" means here, given that standards of care can and do change.)
> giving postmenopausal women estrogen has many issues as well
Yes, that standard of care has changed based on evidence.
> puberty blockers
Which are reversible. As my linked-to fact sheet points out.
> they haven’t been studied long enough for my taste
I think I'm warranted in trusting the opinion of the 7 or so medical organizations I listed far over your opinion.
How long will be enough to make you happy? There's been, what, 100 years of studies on the topic? And I pointed out the relevant WPATH Standards of Care started in 1977.
How long is enough?
> there will be significant numbers of people that regret their decision
How many is "significant"?
Do significant numbers of people regret their tattoos? Their plastic surgery? Their chemotherapy? Their lottery pick? Does that justify stopping all of those activities?
And, as I pointed out, by NOT getting the standard of care, the amount of depression and suicide ideation increases. How many regret NOT being able to get the medically recognized appropriate standard of care because politicians prevented it due to transphobia?
> Because Biden has unabashedly doubled down on intersectional identity politics
Every single one of those people had a background which, had they been white straight men, would have been generally acceptable for their position.
That's a far cry from a claim that they must be incompetent and were picked only for theig "intersectional identity politics".
This surprise lots of people, but rates of regret for patients getting chemotherapy or other cancer treatment are quite high. They're much higher than rates of regret among people getting gender affirming care.
I am curious how you are defining woke here.