Don't use the word "Lady". It excludes men. Responses?

[AmIreallyBeverly]

This happened a few months ago so too late now but no doubt it will happen again so can any of you lovely LADIES help me with a response when it does please?

Snag tights have a NSFW facebook page. Basically it's women and men in their undies and snag tights posing provocatively. I joined thinking it was a body positivty page but I should have known better! 🤣

A few months ago one of the men on there starting whinging that using the term "ladies" was offensive. He thought it should be a banned word on the site in the name of inclusivity.

Lots of agreement and sympathy with a few people agreeing not to use it but of course we all know what he was saying really.

When it happens again how can I respond to tell them to not be so stupid. The page is linked to a couple of other (less porny) pages that I don't want to get kicked out of. I'm also more about educating others than attacking him.

But, but, but... men can be ladies, too!

I don't buy snag tights or flowers from bloom and wild for this reason and more people should do this.

So take the personal out of it.

“Sometimes users want to hear opinions or experiences from those most like themselves. There is nothing wrong with women/ladies wanting to hear specifically from other women/ladies and using the language needed to make that clear, in exactly the same way that there’d be nothing wrong with tights-wearing men wanting to hear from other tights-wearing men and using the word “men” to do so.”

Is it perhaps not so much that the word ladies itself is offensive, but that he was objecting to an implication that only ladies wear tights? in which case I am cautiously supportive of trying to change the defaults in our cultural vocabulary to acknowledge and notice that not everyone who dresses and acts in a stereotypically "feminine" way is female and not everyone who dresses and acts in a stereotypically "masculine" way is male. this is important, because the alternative povs are so problematic. whilst compelled speech is clearly undesirable too, and there's certainly validity in "ladies" being used like "guys" for a mixed sex group as a shorthand, it doesn't do any harm to either use a word like "folk" or to say "ladies (and all gentlemen and other persons present). It's good to emphasise that there isn't a link between wearing tights and being a woman, makes it clearer that deciding to dress in a certain way, or declining to conform to dressing in that way, has zero effext on womanhood.

I'm not sure I am understanding the issue. It's a page for both men and women to show off their tights / underwear - which are stereotypically for women but men wear them. So it is a bit exclusive saying "ladies" ie assuming everyone on the page must be a lady because it's about tights.

A bit like... A website selling tools addressing posts like "so, gentlemen, which hammer do you like most?" I'd find that offensive as a tool buying woman.

I can see why a man who wears tights feels a bit put out that people assume it is only ladies on the page.

What am I missing? Inclusive language and squashing stereotypes goes both ways, surely?

Very good point about 'guys' - that's exactly equivalent.

How about something like :
It's funny, isn't it? People often use 'guys' even when there are women in the group, and it never occurs to us to be offended. This is just the same, but people are. We don't even notice the way that men are default humans!

I read an amazing book called Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez, where she talks about all the ways women are minimised and ignored in our sexist society, without us even noticing. Totally recommend it - but it will make you so angry! The lack of female - shaped crash test dummies is particularly shocking. It results in women being much more likely than men to die in a similar crash: no-one has bothered to test car safety (and then change the design based on those tests) for the invisible half of the population :-(

Oh, just to make it clear, adding at the end:
even though our bodies are very different to men's - different height, different body composition, different skeletal structure. Our crash outcomes are affected differently to men by where seat belts are, seat adjustment options, airbag design. How the safety features should be configured to work best is significantly different for half the population: and they don't even bother to test it.

@JustWaking yes, I have to wear my seat belt in a different place to my partner because of my breasts. Thinking about it now, the waist bit also sits in a slightly different position.

I like the point about "hey guys" being acceptable.

I acknowledge what you are saying about it being a women and men page. However they were talking about it irl too. I've just found the post again. They are non binary and thinks everyone should use gender neutral terms at allimes. Thing is I do have a gender (even if a lot of that is a societal concept) I don't want to be a "they or them".

As for tights, I'm an average size so shouldn't have issues finding tights but I do.

Follow it with "and gentlemen" and problem solved. Everyone is included.

Men can wear tights but under something else so we can't see something that might scare children.

This is my biggest problem with gender ideology. It holds the hands of enough of my feminist principles to trick me down a dark path.

I usually try to avoid gendered language - not to protect trans people but to protect women. Saying "Hi guys" on a work group email makes me feel like I'm erasing women and forcing them to be "guys". So I use "Hi everyone" or "Hi team" to be more inclusive.

To say you can't use "ladies" is basically using feminism against itself. Did the person with a problem with Ladies say what they wanted used instead?

Language promotes men over women and the battles aren't won yet. So going back to we're all one big happy group of male-dominated people doesn't sit well with me, although I want to be inclusive.

If it comes up again, I would say that not using the word ladies risks further erasing women as a group, when they already face an uphill battle being heard and seen in our male-dominated culture so you'd rather keep using it, thanks. And as I've heard trans activists say, rights aren't a pie. You don't have less if I have more so my right to name myself and my sexed group of people doesn't affect you.

Yes, I’m closer to 200lb and most shops’ tights just aren’t comfortable. I’m about a size 16 and XLs are still too small and roll down.

Saying 'ladies' used to make me cringe until men started objecting to it. So I started using it more.

A similar thing happened to a friend when she was a meeting (civil service).
Man addressed a group of women as “Ladies” he then apologised and asked if it was ok to use that term. A (beardy) man said it was trans exclusionary and it should not be used. My friend spoke up and said along the lines of -I am an actual woman and do not object to being called a lady.
The beardy man looked sheepish and the meeting carried on.

There's no reasoning with the unreasonable. I just ignore and carry on using the correct words.

I don't even like Snag tights that much, and their FB adverts and comms are outrageous. I'm not buying their tights again, I can pay much less at M&S for a similar product.

I really like those responses, ZeldaFighter

Although I hate the 'rights aren't pie' mantra.

Some rights don't detract from anyone else - like the right to a fair trial by a jury of your peers.

Other rights do. If someone gives you the right to live in my house and eat my food, then I obviously lose out.

The right to enter single sex spaces and events is in the second category. If a man is given a right to enter the women's Olympic events, then all women lose the right to compete fairly against only people with the same biology.

Natural language is inprecise. The TRA habit using linguistic tricks to argue something illogical is really very annoying.