Hi guys! You don’t mind if I call you guys, right?

[noblegiraffe]

Just out of interest, if you are female:

YABU: yes, I do mind being referred to in a group as guys, even if it’s just a minor niggle that I will never bring up.

YANBU: I don’t give a toss if you refer to me in a group as a guys. It’s a gender-neutral word these days.

I don't like it and i do complain - in that i ask whoever said it not to call me a guy. If they do it again i complain again. And again.

I'm not a guy - guys are men. On occasion I've been in a group which is majority men and been called "guys, because most of you are". funnily enough when the group has been mainly women with a couple of men apparently saying "hi ladies" is provocative and demeaning?

I use it in the classroom but not entirely happy with it - teenagers don't like "boys and girls" I sometimes say "ladies and gentlemen" but that's a bit too formal - I need a new word!

@RedOasis
''Folks'' seems to be a Scottish term for 'parents'...I had a Scottish DP once who always talked of ''His Folks''....and yet mine were referred to as ''Your Parents'' with a semi sneer.

No problems with guys, or ladies and gents, or guys and gals.

Dislike pal, mate, son, etc.

Loathe our Global Head of Supply Chain calling mature senior management and senior technical staff "all the boys and girls" on zoom calls. Makes my teeth itch every single time.

I work in It and someone once called our team ‘lady and gentlemen’. I think I prefer ‘guys’ by a country mile!

I absolutely hate it...would much prefer to be called madam

I don’t think any mixed group of people should be referred to as anything other than “Mesdames et Messieurs”

Superb! The French have nailed it. 👍

It’s not gender neutral though, is it? You’d never say ‘I’m going out with the guys’ if you were going out with your women friends. You’d say ‘I’m going out with my friends/mates’.

It doesn't apply to all though, does it? Nobody uses it to refer to one female, e.g. if they said "that guy over there", you would look for a man.

The assumption is that any women included in a group referred to as guys are fine to be ignored/mislabelled, even if that mislabelling has now become the social norm.

I agree it is sexist, and that men would not put up with being called the female alternative.

I can live with a mixed group being referred to as guys.
Chaps no and even worse I had a manager who would use chaps & chapesses.
Folks just sounds insincere Americanism.

If I'm addressing a mixed sex group informally, I tend to use 'everyone'. How is everyone? Or very informally 'morning lovely people'.

My (female) manager calls us ‘ladies’ or ‘the ground troops’ both of which make me think she’s a dick who doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about.

If we say that ‘language has evolved’, then that means that for a long time women were thoughtlessly referred to as guys even though it meant men and the women just put up with it. So we’ve just been ground down to acceptance?

Yep.

I used to think 'guys' was fine until I realised this too.

Ground troops vom

In most cases It’s just a more friendly, less impersonal way of saying ‘everyone’

if it's referring to everyone in a group how is it not impersonal. Everyone is fine, so is "all" instead of guys. I'm not perpetually offended and I'm not a snowflake. But I'm not a guy.

"Oh i saw a guy walking down the other day, and she had this really cute dress on" it's bollocks, isn't it?

I'm not offended by it, but I do find it quite irritating, particularly in the over jolly way it's used by waiting staff, for example.

I don’t like it purely because it’s a fake, cheery way of addressing people. It’s an ugly phrase.

I don't mind at all! I'm the only girl in my college class and the tutor always says 'right guys...' then looks at me and says 'and girls'.

I really don't mind being called guys at all!

And before anyone says, I don't mind being called a girl either. I'm only 24 I'd rather be called a girl than a woman!

I think 'everyone' is quite useful, if it's really necessary to use a word at all.

Half of the points on here are sooo true - I guess I’ve just never ever really sat and thought and analysed it that much! I don’t really mind guys. What I don’t like is ‘mrs’. Used to have an old work colleague who was an absolute arse kisser and used that phrase all the time ‘ oh you look lovely today mrs’. 👿 like nails on a blackboard. (Are you even allowed to say that! Given that the board is factually black and not, say, red?)

Greendale humanbeing anyone?

I don't like it but prefer it to being called 'girlies'

I loathe it. Firstly because it’s usually used in a fake/ “cheerleadery” manner, but mainly because it’s yet another way in which language is used to relegate women.
Guys means “men” and we’d never address a mixed group of people by a word meaning “women”. In fact if you addressed a group which included men “Right girls, let’s start the meeting”, eyebrows would be raised, some would see it as insulting.

YABU for the two options you give.

What about

‘I don’t mind because it’s been so watered down it’s it irrelevant’

I wonder if men would be offended if I said ''Hi Gals!''.....I might try it, just to see how it goes down.

I quite often address mixed groups as 'Ladies'. Generally, it prompts wry smiles from the 'chaps' involved, in my experience!

Don't mind it at all, and use it myself. What I do object to is men 'correcting' my language by telling me it's sexist to refer to women or mixed groups as guys! This has happened to me on three separate occasions. They didn't see the irony in being a man telling a woman how she can refer to herself and her friends.