Not a Guy

Rainbow photo from our back yard.

It is with humility that I offer today’s thoughts from Chickadee Lane - a critique of the use of the word ‘guys’ to address all people - a bee in my bonnet, a thorn in my side.

Some might say that I am the last one to critique how we use language. For with my Island accent I drive on ‘slippy’ roads and often drop the ‘g’ as "I am goin’ to town.” I who have confused every church music director by mixing up hymn numbers. I who can never quite understand when to use ‘I’ and when to use ‘me’. To the point that in my early ministry a women of the congregation, frustrated with my mixing up ‘I’ and ‘me,’ presented me with an English grammar book, “The Use of I”!

And to you who read this blog, you already know I am not an expert in grammar and have never figured out when to use a semicolon. 

Still… I am not a ‘guy’! My protest is about the use of the word ‘guys’ to address all genders. I am old enough to recall when male exclusive language was used for all genders with the so-called understanding that the male exclusive language included women. Remember when there was only the Chairman… never the Chairwoman.

While we have evolved as a society to realize that mankind does not define all humanity, it seems the use of ‘guys’ has seeped into our conversations serving once again to make gender diversity invisible.  

I also realize that most of us do not consciously intend to make diverse genders invisible. My critique is not to blame anyone. These norms become so engrained in us that many of us use gendered terms without thinking twice. I am therefore very mindful of the contrast between intent and impact; that how things land, may be far from what is intended.

It seems the use of ‘guys’ to address all people, has entered our common language and public form. I hear sports broadcasters addressing a women’s national hockey team as ‘guys.’ A female spokesperson for a national women’s curling team thanking all the ‘guys.’A local politician saying to a room full of mixed genders, “Thank you guys for attending.” A host at church meeting thanks the ‘guy’s’ for showing up. 

I am struck by how insidious the use of ‘guy’s’ has become. Once you hear it, you hear it everywhere. Then suddenly you hear what you might have not heard countless of times. 

I want to get a t-shirt that reads “I am not a guy!” Or to make the point, bare a bit of anatomy.

As a woman, I know all too well the power of gender exclusion and the call to break down the barriers and systems that erase diversity.

So I invite all of us to listen. Hear once again, how male exclusive language fills our conversations. Then stop it!

 

Remembering “Words create worlds.”  (Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel)

Finally, I wonder… what worlds are we creating with the words we use?

In Peace,

Elizabeth

elizstevenson@gmail.com

P.S. I am also not a ‘lady’ - that for another blog.