alt Hacker NewsNo one decided it was offensive. Show me anyone saying they're offended by the use of "guys" as a gender neutral term.
People get lumped into "guys" and feel excluded. That's such a different bar than feeling offended.
It's ok for you to say, "I'm sorry my language makes you feel excluded, but I'm not going to change" and it's ok for someone to think less of you as a result.
Why does everyone jump to the idea that people who want more inclusive language are offended? Or that the critique being offered here is that the language is offensive?
(Granted, sometimes that is the critique. Plenty of casual racism or ableism is offensive. But that's not the case with "guys".)
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Eh, happened to me. Decades ago, before all this wave of preformativeness. To be fair, I _was_ addressing a small group of girls my age; at the time the gender of the people involved was simply not relevant to the topic and I didn't consider it at all.
This really feels like splitting hairs.
As a woman in this industry, being told that using “guys” to address mixed groups is non-inclusive/insufficiently considerate/worth thinking less of me for (just wow) is much worse than being addressed by “guys” when I’m in a mixed group.
Like… we have real problems with equality in tech, right?