Woman sick of being called a “guy” & “girl” makes pins, petitions dictionaries, the media & influencers

Warning! My snarky pins are at the In Other Words feminist bookstore and community center. Proceed with extreme excitement. 

And thanks to Grace Jennings-Edquist for interviewing me for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

I never told anyone that it bothered me that people said “you guys” to me, even if they meant no harm. I didn’t want to offend anyone. Now I make snarky pins that say, “She/her not ‘guys’” and “Saying ‘you guys’ is totally sexist, you guys ;)”  

I knew I had to speak up when I heard girls didn’t raise their hand and were wrongly labeled as having learning disabilities because kids take words literally. They didn’t think their teacher’s repeated “What do you guys think?” questions to the class were addressed to them. It’s usually only masculine words pretending to be gender neutral.

If you want anyone to listen to anything you say, it’s safer to not unintentionally offend people. Plus, it’s rude to call someone something they said they don’t want to be called. “Privilege is when you think something is not a problem because it’s not a problem to you personally,” David Gaider once said. Read more to find out why calling women “girls” and “guys” is a problem for everyone, and tips for you all.  

The best way to create change is to help me “vigorously nudge” dictionaries and the media: sign my friendly petition to stop job ads hiring a “guy” and people saying things were done by “guys” (but not all were men). It asks them to join Google and define “guys” as men:

And if you Google “guys,” you’ll see mostly white guys:

14 more reasons people say “you all” to help you all

1. Join thousands of people like you that avoid calling women “guys” and “girls.”
2. Using truly gender neutral language decreases the idea that masculine means gender neutral. A 2022 study found that people think men do all kinds of different things but that women only do gender-stereotypical things. One possible explanation for this bias is gendered “gender neutral” English words, such as “chairman.” One solution is to replace those words with truly gender-neutral alternatives. Another study found that when men and women completed a questionnaire of their self-efficacy (the belief in their ability to succeed in specific situations), women reported lower self-efficacy when filling out the masculine-generic form than when they filled out the gender-neutral form. (“Guys” is a generic, not a pronoun.)  
3. Research shows saying “he” and “man” to refer to all people causes people to only think of men. More studies found similarities: 
   When job titles in German—a highly gendered language—used gender-neutral titles (like “firefighter” compared to “fireman”), people were less likely to associate those jobs with men. And when people were asked to name their favorite heroes or musicians in German, people were more likely to include women when gender-neutral words were used. A meta-analysis showing that effects like this have been found in nearly 100 studies across nine different languages. Saying “guys” to mean all genders led influencers like recruiters and job descriptions to say, “let’s hire a guy“ (illegal), companies were done by guys (but not all were men), “hedge fund guys,“ “congressmen,“ etc. Words children hear affect their career choices. In 2017, kids said “hairdresser” was a career for women but men have “jobs where they’re in charge.” Men and women apply for jobs in more equal proportions when inclusive language is used.  
4. Former Army Chief David Morrison is trying to phase out “you guys” from workplaces. He cited Australian Diversity Council research that shows that gender-based language has as much a harmful effect as when you say something blatantly inappropriate to another person, and more inclusive workforces are more effective.  
5. Inclusive language can help everyone. Michael Jascz said that saying “guys” to describe both sexes started catching on in the 1980s, when women were publicly asserting their rights. If men wouldn’t like being called “gals,” then the message is there must be something wrong with being feminine (e.g., man up, don’t cry like a girl). “Guys” does not recognize women. It also excludes them. ”If women primarily exist in language as “girls” (children), “sluts” and “guys,” it’s not surprising there are a lot of gender inequalities to fix like violence,” said Sherryl Kleinman, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Sociology Professor.  Words shape our thoughts. “Not only does language reflect our society’s belief systems, it helps construct them. Sexist language…is a result of the inequalities that also perpetuate them,“ journalist Eva Voinigescui said.  
6. Men are included in words like “people” but other people often aren’t included. Kate Gregory said that studies that looked predominantly at men found that aspirin helped. Trials that looked predominantly at women found no effect. Yet general-purpose medical web sites are still advocating that “people” should do something that is only helpful for men, rather than for everyone. You can see the same thing in stores: razors and women’s razors, Legos and girl’s Legos, hammers and women’s hammers, even laxatives and women’s laxatives. Even articles cite, “There are so few able-bodied young adults around. They have all gone off to work or look for work, leaving behind the old, the disabled, the women and the children.”  
   
7. You all might be happier if everyone uses inclusive language regarding gender, race, sexuality, class, and ability.
8. Women are called guys. Yet they are paid less than guys.
9. Most people don’t like to being called something they’re not. “Making the switch from ‘ladies’ and ‘guys’ to ‘folks’…would be pretty easy if you could see the way it affects people. A small effort from you could make a big difference for a lot of folks,” writes Alyssa Garrison.
10. Even in other Latin languages like Spanish, people don’t call a group of women “guys.” 
11. Author Alice Walker said that some women who say “you guys” may feel the need to be accepted, and that it’s ironic that after so many years of struggle for women’s liberation, women are called guys.
12. It’s disrespectful to call men “boys,” so join Mayim Bialik (from the show Blossom) and others calling women age 18 and up “women.” Carmen Rios said calling women “girls” doesn’t take them seriously, and “girls” don’t need maternity leave, and don’t get the same pay as men.
    
13. Watch the comedian, Limmy, show the absurdity of calling women “guys.”
14. Join linguists and join authors Brene Brown, Amanda Montell and Caroline Criado Perez that avoid saying “guys” means “all.” 

24 tricks to make you all feel better 

1. Call people what they want to be called. Say someone’s gender when you know what words that person uses. It’s safer to say “person/people, “folks” or “everyone.” 
   
2. Dictionaries are apologizing for reinforcing sexism. Words like “bossy” and “nagging” are not gender neutral. And examples of pronouns in dictionaries for “doctor” and “research” are male, while a “she” could be found doing “housework.” When Michael Oman-Reagan looked up the word “rabid,” the dictionary said “rabid feminist.” He tweeted it at Oxford Dictionaries with the suggestion, “maybe change that?” When he woke up the next day, he found that his tweet was shared hundreds of times. Oxford ultimately tweeted an apology. Think of something you’ve done that you’re most proud of that helped other people. Then sign this friendly petition asking some dictionaries to change their definition of guys as "persons of either sex” to “it’s sometimes offensive to call everyone ‘guys.’ Also, there are more than two genders.” It’s not too much to ask for because they already say calling a woman a girl is “sometimes offensive.” Dictionaries will be more likely to change if you share this post on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Medium, Tumblr and Pinterest.
3. If someone says “you guys” to me, I’ve said, “I know you didn’t mean harm when you called us ‘guys.’ I’d really appreciate it if you said 'you all.’ Saying 'guys’ for all genders led companies to say, 'let’s hire a guy.’ I’ve been reading about how there’s a problem when sexism sounds so darn friendly. I know people don’t mean harm when they call women ‘guys.’ But it can perpetuate how it’s okay to be one of the guys but not okay for men to be feminine. If women are called ‘guys,’ ‘girls,’ ‘bitches’ and ‘sluts’ it’s not surprising there are a lot of gender inequalities to fix like violence.” Or if I’m feeling cheeky, I might say, “I’m not a guy. Yet ;)  But seriously, I’ll call you whatever you want. I’d like to be called a woman instead of ‘guy’ or ‘girl.’" 
4. If influencers like the media say things like “guys,” “congressmen” or “hedge fund guys” when they mean all genders, share this post or my post on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Medium and add something like “.@[InsertUsername] Instead of calling everyone ‘guys’ or ‘girls,’ can you please #SayYouAll? Why it’ll help you all: bit.ly/redefinewomen. #NotAGuy”
5. Lots of people are putting their pronouns in online meetings, bios, name tags and email signatures. I add this to mine: “she/woman” not “guys” or “girl.
   
6. Pledge to avoid making sexism so darn friendly. Then you’ll get an email with all tips in this post in a short and sweet reminder you can print.  
7. Be like staff at npm (a tech startup) and put $1 in a jar each time anyone says “guys” when they mean “people.”  
8. Invite your organization to be like the City of San Francisco. Their mandatory harassment prevention training included a slide on when people call women “you guys,” it could be because of their unconscious bias.
9. Try inclusive words used by countries (e.g., Australia), colleges (e.g, University of Nebraska, U of Michigan, Duke, CalState, Princeton), and many U.S. states (e.g., WA, FL, NC, CA, NY, VT, ME, RI, UT). For occupations, they say “nurse” not “male nurse,” “first year student” not "freshman,“ “meteorologist” not “weatherman,” “cleaner” not “cleaning lady,” “ancestors” not “forefathers,” “actor” not “actress,” “server” not “waiter/waitress,” “foreperson” not “foreman,” and “fisher” not “fisherman.” They also replace “people/society” with “mankind,” “layman” with "layperson,” “man hours” with “work hours,” “man made” with “artificial, handmade, manufactured,” and “to man” with “to operate/to staff.” You can also avoid talking about a man by his last name and a woman by her first name, and avoid wrongly assigning a gender to people by adding Mr. or Ms. when you don’t know their gender.
10. Join people inviting presenters to avoid saying “you guys” when addressing audiences.  
11. You can also say, “When you said ‘guys,’ did you mean a more inclusive word like ‘everyone’?” 18F and other federal agencies, Salesforce, Slack, Spotify and Glitch created a similar auto-response in the Slack messaging and team collaboration tool. In Slack, try the AllyBot, which checks for over 400 non-inclusive words and phrases.  And try Microsoft 365′s inclusiveness reminders.
12. If people ask about a baby’s gender, turn to the baby and say, “Baby, tell us your gender. Just kidding! The sex of my baby is ____. Their gender is up to them.“ Some people call their baby boy “my little man” but call girls “girls” even after they’re women. You can change that.  
13. If you see job postings with gender discriminatory words (e.g., guy), ask the hirer to change it or report it on LinkedIn. Also, paste job ads in the Gender Decoder to find subtle bias in job ads.
14. And darling, calling people pet names like “sweetheart” can legally constitute sexual harassment or discrimination because the effect is the primary issue rather than intent. 
15. Join me in wearing all these things at once: my shirt, pin and brooch that say, “Saying you guys is totally sexist, you guys” ;) 
16. Call everyone “ladies” and get this funny shirt that says, “’Ladies’ is gender neutral.”
17. Set Microsoft Word to auto-correct when people write “guys.”
    
18. Customize your Mac computer, iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch to replace “guys” with “folks.”
19. Join @redefinewomen in changing other words in the dictionary that might surprise you!
20. Join programmers like Taylor Barnett who created a bot so when people write "guys” in Github, it prompts to try a more inclusive word.  Also, Andres Nava replaced “guys” in documentation with Microsoft staff.
21. Fast forward with one click past Youtube intros that start with “hey guys.”
22. Get Google Chrome browser extensions that replace gendered words like “guys” with gender neutral terms like “people” or “babies.”
23. Try even more inclusive language.
24. Nudge your organization via Conduct, which helps create a more inclusive culture, such as through language. 

See tips to manage unconscious bias and talk so people will listen, and ways gender conformity hurts everyone so try these tips and gifts that aren’t pink for girls and blue for boys.  

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Updated April 3, 2024