"guys" - an acceptable form of address for women?

Chicks is awful. I use 'gang' sometimes, but my job is informal. I'm not sure I'd use gang in a business environment.

Hate 'chicks'.

I think 'guys' has become neutral gender.

In close circles of friends I don't get offended by chick, doll or the like. It's about context. If my head of service came in and said it we would certainly feel different.

Girls, chicks, birds, dolls - all imply something silly, weak and immature.

Ladies does at least simply refer to a group of women. That's all it means.

.....Because chicks is an informal friendly term that is common unoffensive term within my close circle of friends and colleagues. I wouldn't use it with a group of women that I didn't know.
Wlking into a room of mates and saying 'hello women' would sound really strained in my neck of the woods.

I find 'guys' and 'folks' gender neutral and can be seen as a friendly greeting to either sex or to a mixed crowd.

upahill wrote - "I would HATE to walk into a room of female colleagues and say 'Hello Women' sounds bloody awful as a greeting tbh."

but you think "chicks" is okay.

Why?

Guys is just the updated version of calling the whole of the human race men and referring to people of either sex as he, then claiming that women are included too.

If men wouldn't like to be called "girls", then why should women put up with guys, apart from the fact we're not supposed to rock the boat?

Is this an age/generation thing?

If I said "the guys from accounts" I would mean the people from acounts, whose gender is not important to whatever I am about to say. If I specifically wanted to indicate their gender (and it was a single-sex group) I would say "the boys from accounts" or the "girls from accounts".

I think it's fine. And to make an issue out of it with the person who said it was silly at best. Not sure why the shocked face, OP....

I work with mostly under 30 year olds. Guys is pretty common nowadays. The managers tend to refer to the staff as Ladies as it tends to be all female apart from me.

I would HATE to walk into a room of female colleagues and say 'Hello Women' sounds bloody awful as a greeting tbh.

How about using the word "women" to refer to women?

Everyone is probably the least affected.

'Hi everyone'.

Considers switching.

'Everyone' would do the job.

Guys, folks, peeps, people...they all grate imo.

Agree with Knit2tog

I just say "everyone"

Hate guys and folks

I use 'folks' and 'guys' to a group on an informal basis. EG walking into the office and stores and greeting everyone or saying tra ra to people. (see ya folks, have a good week end)

A group of male friends or work colleagues often get 'fella' ( Hi fella's, what's the story?)

A group of women friends or colleagues it tends to be hi, hi, hi ( then loads of kisses for some reason) Some mates say Hi chicks. No one is fussed tbh

that's interesting rainbow - dp works in a boys' school and was complimented on his calling them 'gentlemen' (as opposed to 'boys' I think).

I hate 'ladies' and'girls' (will hide most threads where OP starts with 'ladies...'), though don't mind 'ladies and gentlemen' strangely - perhaps it's context? guys is gender neutral for me but i would be careful using it. prefer 'folks' as others do

Stewies - when I was doing my teacher training one of the male students was observed by an outside assessor and seriously pulled up on starting his lesson by saying "ladies and gentlemen".

Seeker I agree with bunbaker though that in diffeent areas words have different connotations. That was evident from the ladies/girls thread yesterday in AIBU. Some people thought of girls as a compliment as in fun loving, young, and others saw it as an insult and means they arent taking seriously.

Some on this thread like ladies but straight away I relate that to being pervy/sleazy as that is what it is seen as in my local area. I think it all depends on the group in question to what they see as acceptable.

Guys here would be seen as either sex to me, same as mate.

When I was at uni my tutors just used to say ok everyone are you ready to start etc. I dont think anyone can really take offence to that.

I think language and what we call things is important. It says a lot about how we think about them. If the male term for something is predominant, it indicates that as a society, we regard males as predominant. Do we really watn our daughters groing up in a society where male is the norm, and female the adaptation?

You can say "It's only words" and "Don't overthink", but words are crucial to our humanity - and in my experience, underthinking is much more of a danger than overthinking!

I would class the term as an idiom of speech rather than something that needs to be grammatically correct. So it depends where you come from. In the North East they quite often add "man" when exclaiming and I don't bat an eyelid.

I don't object to "ladies" either if I am in the company of just ladies. What is wrong with that? I think some people are overthinking this.