You Guys, Feminists Aren’t Supposed to Say ‘You Guys’
But I say it. And a lot of other things
I always thought the catchphrase “HEY, YOU GUUUYS!” was originally from The Goonies. But apparently, it’s a reference to the 1971 PBS children’s program The Electric Company. I was a titch too young to have caught either of these in real time, but like many kids, I grew up with an ancient VHS tape containing back-to-back, taped-off-of-TV recordings of The Goonies and Flight of the Navigator.
From this early exercise in psychedelic kids TV programming to its present iteration, the phrase “you guys” has had quite a journey. Most recently, there’s a perfectly chill, very reasonable feminist movement endorsed by people I respect arguing for women to no longer call one another “guys” at all. And for the life of me, I cannot get on board.
Did you know this was a thing? I’ve been talking about the battle over this phrase exclusively with hardcore rhetorical criticism nerds for years, but it’s only recently become a debate you can read about on Bustle or hear referenced on a hilarious sitcom. I feel like the argument is pretty self-explanatory but just to summarize it quickly: Some feel that making “you guys” the indiscriminate, universal greeting for all humans is low-key sexist because it emphasizes the culturally established notion that male…
