Does it matter that women get misgendered

[mariamin]

Women get misgendered by being called guys all the time.

Oh, and almond, I would classify most of the accents in Boyhood as "Texas light." (I think you asked about that yesterday.)

Thank you!

YonicScrewdriver I recognise that unfortunately it's down to market forces. Male sport can be sold for a higher sum because there is currently greater interest from the viewing public, therefore the participants earn more. In recent years women and girls have been encouraged into competitive sport (e.g. the girls for gold programme) therefore in time I'd like to think that the balance will shift. We do at least have some female sports presenters nowadays - that would have been unthinkable 30 or 40 years ago.

Even if people are comfortable with current unisex usage of male-centric collective nouns such as "guys", I think it's still worth emphasising the fact that the unisex word usually started as a male-only word.

I think the evolution of unisex collective nouns from male-only words does not happen by chance. I think it occurs mainly by the habitual refusal of most boys and men to accept female-centric words as unisex, because female is lower status than male. This then results in male-centric words being the only words with any realistic chance of widespread adoption as unisex collective nouns. In other words, we can have any unisex word we want, as long as most men and boys find it acceptable.

Women have the subordinate position in the gender hierarchy and this has forced the competition between male-centric and female-centric words for unisex status to be inherently unfair. Until women are liberated from this subordinate position, the competition between male-centric and female-centric words for unisex status cannot be fair.

Yeah, what Vesuvia said.

Ok, 53, so market forces devalue women's sporting achievements. I'll agree with that. But market forces are just consumers, and consumers are just people.

But, my culture is clearly not your culture. In mine, 'guys' isn't unisex. So I suppose this is a translation issue really - it's not 'this is what the word means and always shall!' it's 'why should my culture matter less'?

I do not think your culture matters less, but preservation and protection of cultural identity/language cannot exceed the general collective desires of individuals within said culture, otherwise it takes on the ill tones of its bastard cousin, racial purity.

Say in France, where the Académie Française take foreign language terms (almost universally English) that have entered common usage and pronounce what the 'French' version should be. You could say they have a problem an order of magnitude worse that 'americanisms' infecting the UK English space, but are they doing a favour or a disservice?

"cannot exceed the general collective desires of individuals "

And how have you assessed the general collective desire of individuals, with respect to the word "guys"?

I could probably estimate the demographics that would be more or less comfortable with it, as could you. I suspect at this point in time, the demographic groups less comfortable would be larger. Particularly if the question was restricted to females.

Thoughts?

Like I said, my youngest daughter and her friends use it comfortably with one another. When I was her age 'guys' had absolutely nothing to do with females. But what happens, over time, is that we old folks die off, though generally the young stop listening to us before that anyway. What we once thought is then no longer culturally relevant, except as history.

And sometimes when the young become adults, they change their language again.

Neat, huh?

I like y'all, but prefer "all y'all". Not sure any Brit could get away with it though!

Guys isn't something I encounter these days - too old - but I don't think I'd feel misgendered myself, more, perhaps misaged, if that exists as a concept, as guys has, to me, an association of vigorous young things - perhaps just because I mostly hear it on tv.

Well, dad I'm sure your daughter is a really nice guy! But it is still a male word.

If I can tange somewhat, I don't really like the word "misgendering". I'm not offended at my sex not being recognised in any word that's used, I'm more concerned at the default being male rather than something neutral.

I agree, Flora.

I agree. It took a few posts on this thread and others before I realise that that's what's happening > .

I'm also pissed off that we are being told we shouldn't worry about/discuss this coz its normal innit.

As a pp said, I'll stop worrying about it when unisex clothes include dresses. >

It's completely normal for men to simply not see or understand that person = man and that that translates into the default collective greeting being aimed at men.

Just for balance, have asked DS and his pals and they universally said that guy was a term for a group of men or a mixed group if the person is being ironic.

Takes all sorts to make a world, innit.

Young people use language in ways that don't always stick. Otherwise there would still be a whole generation wandering around calling things groovy and referring to everyone as 'man.'

Not all word use by young people should just be accepted. There are plenty of young people who use 'gay' to mean something bad.

There is certainly a view that it is okay to ignore the views and preferences of older people in society on the basis that they'll all be dead soon, as if once you get past thirty you no longer matter, or shape and influence society. But it's not one that seems particularly accurate or ethical to embrace.

A lot of ideas emerge again rather than pass into history as well.

Buffy, My teenagers do not think it is acceptable to use gay in that way, so I think it depends where you have been to school, where you live, what attitudes you hold etc.

I was thinking about your thread on the future on the feminism as it has some similar points to language change. I don't think that queer theory is a 'new' idea that replaces second wave, socialist or radical feminism. I think it has developed from Freudian ideas and that is what it replaces.

Personally, people started mentioning gender identities to me in 2008, and the last time anyone felt the need to comment on my subconscious and how I was trapped in the oral phase was 2007. So a neat crossover for me, but I also googled it and found people do trace the development of queer theory for ideas that came from Freud, Lacan and so on. I think it would be hard to argue that queer theory was more damaging than Freudian ideas. I believe both ideas are part of a certain thinking style and perspective that probably always exists, as do its opponents/fellow ideological travellers through time. I don't think any of them lose and pass into history. They just morph.

Sorry for massive derailment.

And sometimes when the young become adults, they change their language again.

Depends if teachers pick up the words or see them as 'other' to language, they act as a filter to the wider community and while they rejected 'gay' as a reference to 'bad', making it a flash in the pan usage for the term, they seem to have embraced the term 'guys' in day to day usage. Sometimes the common usage of long standing words just dies out. The UK seemed to use the gendered term 'chaps' at the time the US used the genderless 'folks'? Perhaps you had the chance to adopt a generic term for a disparate group that was gender neutral but were waiting for 'guys' to come along to replace 'chaps'? No idea, perhaps 'chaps' is not as outdated in the UK as I think or perhaps it is more gender specific than I think. That said 'folks' is way outdated in the US and has been replaced with 'guys' so you could say it went from genderless to gendered. Origins of 'Folk' were (google)... umm... old English 'folc' adopted from old Irish meaning raining/bad weather/being rained on? Perhaps I googled wrong? Does it suggest the English were rained on so much on a day to day basis for years they basically became the thing itself?

Folk comes from Proto-Germanic I believe (volk). It just means people (see Norfolk, Suffolk etc)

The young in the park today certainly have very colourful language ...

The ways in which "folks" is and was used in the US is often regional. In the South, it's a synonym for parents or sometimes, family and has, I think, always been used that way.

Not forgetting Volkswagen of course, chopper - "the car of the people"