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"C'mon, you guys, hurry or we'll be late!"
Sound familiar? It should. The use of the phrase "you guys" to refer to a mixed group of males and females as well as to groups of males is now widespread in American conversation, and it is used by both males and females. Could that be considered sexist? Surely not. It implies that the males and females are equals, which is the opposite of sexism.
Now consider this example, which actually happened: a female nurse was instructing a class consisting of men and pregnant women. At one point she said, "Now when you guys are going into labor ..." Guys? Suddenly something is wrong, perhaps amusingly so.
"If you think that's funny, you betray awareness that the word 'guy' does
still have gender implications," said Indiana University cognitive
scientist Douglas Hofstadter in a lecture titled "Old Sexism in New Guise"
Feb. 11 at Ernie Pyle Hall in Bloomington. (Hofstadter noted that the title
can also be read as "Old Sexism in 'You Guys.'")
He maintains that using "guy" to refer to females is sexist because it
means elevating certain females to the same status as males. And that
implies a different status for females to begin with, which is sexist. It's
just a lot more subtle.
In an effort to purge his own speech of sexist terms, Hofstadter refuses to use "guy" to refer to anyone but males, and he tries to persuade others to do the same, often with frustrating results.
"When I say the usage of 'guy' is sexist, I'm not saying anything about the person who uses it," Hofstadter explained. "The people I try to explain this to in conversations tend to be liberal and non-sexist, and pretty soon they're saying to me, 'You're a sexist!'"
He believes that the word "guy" is attractive to females because they associate it with favorable aspects of masculinity, such as the freedom to dress and do as they please, and to think for themselves. Males use "guys" in addressing a mixed group of males and females as a way to let the females know that they are considered part of the group.
And yet, Hofstadter pointed out, this usage is only true in the plural form of "guy." The word "guy" in the singular still means boy or man 99 percent of the time, he believes.
"For example, I'm a runner, and if I said, 'I saw a guy running up Indiana
Avenue really fast, and I was impressed,' what image would you see in
your mind? Probably a male," he said. If he said he saw "some guys"
running, it could have been a mixed group.
Or if you are out for a walk with a companion and you say, "Look at that
guy across the street," and there is only a woman in plain sight, your
companion is likely to say, "Where?"
What makes this situation especially significant, Hofstadter believes, is that in recent years the same thing has happened in a number of other languages in other countries -- in France, the Netherlands and China, for example, which are three very different cultures with different traditions.
"It's a disturbing worldwide trend," he concluded.
Editor's note: Hofstadter, director of the IU Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for his book, "Gsdel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid " {popularly known as "GEB"}, which incorporated many fields to show how consciousness, free will and a sense of personal identity emerge in systems that enjoy a specific type of self-reflection. His lecture last week reflected on "one of the curious twists in the story of sexism: how new words rushed in to fill the void created by the departure of the generic 'man.'" The lecture was sponsored by the IU Honors Division and the Wells Scholars Program. You can read Hofstadter's "On Viral Sentences and Self-Replicating Structures," from a collection of work first published in "Scientific American" at the Web site below:
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