Why I've stopped saying 'hey guys' (as a male in tech)(blog.allybot.io) |
Why I've stopped saying 'hey guys' (as a male in tech)(blog.allybot.io) |
The day after the Amy Coney Barrett used the term 'sexual preference,' Merriam-Webster Dictionary updated it to say it is offensive.
https://www.newsweek.com/amy-coney-barrett-preference-defini...
Are these rules really improving society or are they just being weaponized to impose a political doctrine?
As much as the left claims to love the working class, all this cancellation stuff and hyper-sensitivity effectively disowns and demonizes the entire working class (idk, at least in my experience doing blue collar stuff, pretty much everyone I know in the city now would have an aneurysm sitting around a lunch trunk at break).
> I built a Slack app to help. AllyBot will suggest inclusive alternatives to over 400 non-inclusive phrases to team members.
Professionally I have opted to use 'hey all' in 90% of situations because it's about as neutral as you can get. Doesn't feel as natural to me but then I don't run the risk of offending anyone.
Dictionaries seem to agree: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/guy "used to address a group of people of either sex"
Call it bias, call it familiarity, it's probably something like that.
I understand the logic of "it's not how you mean it but rather how I take it" but at some point people are going to start to think this isn't how you take but some sort of ideological power play.
What did I feel then? Amusement. I'd sometimes reply in jest something about "just our girly things" and the author usually apologized "oh I'm sorry, I didn't notice you on Cc:" which was even more amusing since I didn't really feel there's anything to apologize for.
It wasn't hard to change, with the main benefit being I no longer came off like a complete dumbass to a room full of women or a trans person.
— Hannah Gadsby, Douglas
We learned in letter-writing that if you don't know who might read it, then you start with "To whom it may concern:"
Might I suggest you consider adding - and I put here for HN’s convenience as well — a list of potential great alternatives? :)
‘Hey folks’
‘Hey everyone’
‘Hey y’all’
‘Hey team:’
Even just ‘Hey -‘
I also like ‘Good morning’, ‘Good afternoon’, ‘Good evening’, they’re great ways to inclusively greet people and start a conversation as well.
Thanks again for posting this! :)
Also no one over the age of 50 should be seen topless in public or ever refer to a group of people as “peeps”, “fam”, “party people” or “superstars”.
Did this community mean to be so Ageist and Nativist. (See how hard this is.)
what's even funnier is that this whole inclusive language shaming is something i only see in the tech world. perhaps this is because this industry is more ego centric than any other industry, i don't know, but i know a slew of people in the financial world who roll their eyes every time i have conversations about this.
Given your influences, I'm amazed you've not only recognized this issue, but chose to address it. Even the most liberal among my peers (who are older and grew up without them) hasn't taken this stance. I wonder how you broke free of the "edgelord" bubble and gained this perspective.
I much appreciate the author emphasizing this point, because I think it's crucial and often missed. It's perfectly fine for people to use language that they feel is more inclusive, but not so fine when they try to enforce the boundaries, particularly at the point of a gun, which all laws imply.
But I think that distinction should extend to non-legal "policing". If I say "guys" or "mankind" in a sense that is meant to be inclusive, but someone else interprets that as not inclusive, I don't feel responsible for their interpretation, any more than I would feel responsible for someone's misinterpretation of "niggardly". They can choose to be offended, but if that clearly was not my intent, I don't feel the need to accommodate them. I've found that some people have a desire, even a mission to feel offended, and don't feel that it helps either of us to tiptoe around their neurosis. Because of the seemingly infinite flexibility of their offense taking, I couldn't fail to offend no matter how much I tried, and I've learned that by trying and trying and trying.
If I say a phrase that has long meant "all of you", but you have now decided means "all of you males", then I don't think I'm responsible for your offense taking. I think you're responsible for purposely redefining the clear meaning to score some kind of points.
I used to have a severe anxiety disorder that partly stemmed from being overly sensitive about what other people thought about me. I had to consciously dampen down that part of myself, and I feel much, much better about it.
I think instead of getting individuals to avoid offending others, we should instead foster a mentality of resiliency. People get offended far too easily nowadays. They should learn how to stop caring so much about what other people think.
Of course there's a line beyond which you're just a jerk, but to me, just saying "hey guys" doesn't cross it. But that's just me, and I'm in a region of the country where "hey guys" is acceptable.
Then you use the derogatory term 'snowflake', only you twist its meaning to call out people for not bowing to your whims, to me you are the one thinking they are special, and are too much a 'snowflake' to see the other side of the argument.
There is a huge difference between giving and taking offense.
For me a team is a group of about 5 people working together to achieve a clear goal, going to lunch together almost every day, having coffee together, while talking about solving deep technical issues. It doesn't scale to more than 8 people, because I'm just not able to understand deeply what more than 8 people are doing, and follow their code base.
It was the same time when all hands meetings got political and uninteresting, skipping all the technical details on announcements that made them interesting (and that made cross-team collaboration possible), and I just stopped going to these meetings, because they started to be just a waste of my time.
But in the professional context, none of that really matters IMO. If someone in your team is offended (and yes, it might seem stupid to you), then the dynamic of the team is thrown off. And ultimately, productivity suffers. That's how I'm thinking about it these days.
I found that the fact these people get offended by such issues says more about themselves than the fact "guys" is sexist in some way.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the point of inclusive language is so that people who identify as female or non-binary have less reason to be offended, and can generally feel more safe in an environment because less trigger words are used.
edit: I would also appreciate that the people downvoting me would comment as to why they think my post does not contribute to the discussion in a respectful manner?
Sure, there are plenty of radicalized people who take this as an opportunity to shame, but I do not see the harm or difficulty in changing "guys" to "folks" or "team" if it makes someone feel more inclusive.
I've hired and work with a number of trans and marginalized people, it was extremely simple for me to start saying "hey folks" without the need to throw a tantrum over it.
It's not an attempt - it's used that way all the time, and the demonized are generally the ones who haven't had the privilege of attending college.
It's a great way to other-ize all the "uneducated" among us. The ones who don't live a comfortable sophisticated city existence with a service-sector job.
i'm constantly mistaken for a white male. i'm on the receiving end more often than you think.
When a member of a group says y'all to the group it is warm.
When an outsider says y'all to a group it can be pejorative.
Compare the following in both senses: "Let's get it together y'all!"
In the first sense, it is a rallying cry. In the second sense, the speaker may think you aren't trying hard enough. There, "y'all" was added only to put some stank on the sentence.
The pejorative may be limited to the end of the sentence.
As in: Think! vs Think Y'all!
I experienced a less subtle version of that with my usage of "howdy".
Context: I wasn't born in the US, but was only 4 when we immigrated. For whatever reason young me gravitated toward "howdy" as my greeting. Probably just my young love of westerns; regardless, "howdy" has always been my informal "yo".
Anyway, my first few months in the South, local would ask me if I was making fun of them when I said "Howdy all" / "Howdy guys." Same way I've always said it. Now it was rare, but I would hear locals say "howdy" on occasion without ridicule. Something about my saying it caught a weary eye.
When I'm down South now, I just say "Hi". Weirdly, no one else has ever mentioned it.
I guess it's possible for both sides to be at fault - one side should be sensitive to others' preferences and proceed carefully perhaps by wearing a mask when they know it isn't required, perhaps by using pronouns carefully even when they don't know which are preferred. The other side needs to recognize that their preferences are not universal. People tend to want to bend all others to their particular risk assessment, and bend everyone to their usage of English to differentiate human beings from each other. Do they have a point? Sure. Is it worth the relational damage to impose this viewpoint on everyone? Maybe? Maybe not.
And PC can backfire. Making a point of not using a PC-speak word, when the PC word is clumsy or silly, makes the not-PC-speak word a very effective cultural code word to those who want to reinforce the very things the PC police are trying to change.
And arguing over words has almost zero possibility of any positive impact. There have been a few exceptions (say, for example, the N-word [no, no, don’t say the N-word]).
I will refer you to the wikipedia articles about political correctness and gender-neutral language as they probably do a much better job of defining the matter than I would.
I understand that you feel like "someone" making these definitions should have some kind of authority to be trustworthy. However, what happens is that someone makes a claim and then a large portion of society agrees. This is what gives them authority. And that is just how change is done usually in the democratic process. For example, at some point someone decided that women should vote and large portion of society agreed. And now, a few years later, we live in a society were women voters are the most normal thing you can think of.
> And arguing over words has almost zero possibility of any positive impact.
You just say that but you don't cite any scientific sources?