I Am Not a “Guy”

I first heard gals and guys referred to collectively as “guys” in 1970, along with hundreds of strangers huddled in a dark movie theater as we watched the film Love Story. We wept as poor Jenny, the film’s protagonist, lay in her hospital bed, dying a dramatic death from a terminal disease. I remember her grieving father, Phil, sitting vigil by her side, distraught, holding the hand of his 25-year-old daughter whose doomed future hovered in dramatic anticipation. Jenny's husband, Oliver, walked in, meeting Phil's sad eyes. Phil then rose from his chair to address his daughter and son-in-law: “I'll leave,” he said, “and let you guys be alone for a while.”

My ears perked up; my mind spun. I yelled (to myself, of course), “Did everyone just hear Phil call Jenny a guy?!” Surely, Jenny was not a guy, even while in the company of actual guys.

Flash forward 50 years. We're still referring to mixed-gender groups as “guys.” Some of us have progressed — to “dudes.” Last week, a client of mine referred to her brother and sister as “dudes.” I responded, “Is your sister, Lynda, really a dude?” It was indeed possible that Lynda, whom I knew as a youth, was a transgender male, and it was I who needed educating. But my client responded the way many self-proclaimed progressive folks do, even those for whom “language matters” (just ask them!) yet who cling to male-defined identity as though ordained by legislative order: “Well, you know what I mean.”

Try greeting a mixed-gendered group of folks by proclaiming, “Hi, gals!” Will the guys be offended and flaunt their sexist shortcomings by insisting with repugnance (a dead giveaway itself) that they’re NOT gals? Will the gals be offended and claim their own sexist shortcomings by insisting (with righteous pride) that they ARE guys? It’s an experiment I use each time I stand before a group of English-speaking workshop students in my gender equity presentations, shortly after introducing myself. I write “men” and “guys” on the whiteboard, and then “women” and “gals.” I proceed to give a primer of sorts about Standard American English (SAE) and our “gender words.” It turns out, everyday folks don’t like to discuss language as an academic subject, so I cut to the chase and remind folks what lexicographers do and don’t do: Lexicographers, those dictionary writers, describe– — not prescribe– — word usage. All words. All of ’em. I learned to cut a 10-minute spiel to a one-sentence pony: “All users of American English decide what words mean; even illiterate folks who do not read or write English, but who do speak English, determine English language usage.”

I hold up my Standard American English (SAE) dictionary for the #1 usage for “man” and see that “man” is still a man (adult male). We then look up “guy,” and see that it’s still one male. And a “rose” is still a rose– — still.

I am not a guy. Or a man, or one man of men. Or a guy among guys. Or a dude. I’m a female, a

gal, a person, a woman (as a child, I was a girl), a human being, a Homo sapiens, a friend. In past and current parlance, I’m also just plain folks.

I am not a guy, though my conditioning has told me that it’s a-OK for me to be called a guy but that it's a no-no for a guy to be called a gal because, OMG, no guy would want to be called a gal — right?

English falls within a language family that actually isn’t designed to erase females. The Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian), on the other hand, demand a linguistically patriarchal, pro-male stance. They have “grammatical gender.” And, it’s worth noting, the Romance language family is one of the largest in the world, with almost a billion first- and second-language speakers. For brevity’s sake, I offer a single example: In Spanish, one male parent is “padre.” But two parents, such as a mother and a father, are “padres.” In Standard American English, though, one parent is a parent, and two parents, of whatever genders, are parents. SAE genders some nouns: aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, but generally pluralizes without gendering (usually using an “s” or “es”), so that more than one sister is “sisters”; more than one mother is “mothers”; more than one guy is– — you guessed it– — “guys.” SAE users have “sibling,” so that the sex or gender of a sibling -isn't forced out as it is in the Romance languages.

The truth is, in many instances, English users must engage in linguistic somersaults to force sexist usage. Throughout the years, English speakers have forced “ette” (and mostly “ess”) suffixes– — such as “majorette” or “usherette” or “hostess” or “actress” or “poetess” — to a silly degree: adulteress, heiress, Jewess, murderess, Negress, temptress, songstress. In the 1800s a female physician was a “doctress”; a generation later, she became a “lady doctor”; yet another generation later, she grew to a “woman doctor”; today she has matured to a “doctor.”

As a gender equity educator, my workshops take a historical quick-look at our linguistic past. We consider 20th-century terms such as “college freshman” (first-year student), “manhole covers” (sewer or utility covers), “lady lawyer” (lawyer), and even more absurd terms such as “female Congresswoman” (Congressmember) or “female lesbian” (I'm not kidding) — words that linguistically placed women as second-class (or “other”) citizens, and consider our grudgingly slow progress. The beautiful, evolutionary quality of any language reflects its users — all its users. Some folks want to return to a cultural past. Some want to move on. And the words they choose reflect those desires.

Linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf had it right in their linguistic chicken/egg hypothesis: Language and thought are interdependent, they argued, regardless of which came first. Linguists teach us that the structure of a language determines speakers’ perceptions, categorizations, and worldviews; our language use shapes our attitudes about everything. Put another way: If a person is accustomed to referring to themselves as a “peanut” and to all folks as “peanuts,” when an actual peanut is placed before them, they will subliminally think of themselves as a … nut. (I have a joke about a certain politician here, but I refrain.) In the case of our “man words,” if a woman is used to thinking of herself or referring to herself as as a “guy” or a member of “mankind,” rather than a “woman” or a member of “humankind” (or of “womankind”), when an actual guy or member of mankind is placed before her, she is, as the Sapir-Whorf theory goes … likely confused.

Twenty-first century speakers and writers of English would do well to use 21st-century language. Gals are not guys; guys are not gals. Folks are folks. People are people. Human beings. Homo sapiens. See any current American English dictionary and look up “folks”; that’ll be you reading the 21st century, #1 definition of the word, not looking to Love Story-era throwbacks, no matter how much that movie made you cry.