Communities feelings regarding "hey guys" making non males feel excluded.

[JAForbes]

Often in the gitter someone will ask a question starting with "hey guys", meaning absolutely no harm. But I've seen many women in programming express that this makes them feel like they are not meant to be here.

I've been called on this in the past, and my default reaction was "women say 'guys' just as much as men". But I think its sort of besides the point. The point is, people who don't identify as men have said it makes them feel excluded, and we should accept that at face value and try to make them feel included.

There's rarely anyone in the gitter that isn't a man, and when there is; they tend to disappear soon after. I worry its because of simple preventable things like this. And this really saddens me because A) it sucks they feel unwelcome when our community is super friendly and B) we are missing out on the perspectives of a huge sector of people with a different perspective to our own. There is always something we can learn from people who have different backgrounds to us, technical or otherwise.

I think this is complicated, often we have people in our communities where English is their second language, and gender pronouns are different from language to language. It's already intimidating enough to ask a question on programming while being observed by your peers, let alone if its your second language. Critiquing someone's greeting in this context seems problematic.

But I've seen people address this issue effectively and maturely in a non confrontational manner.

Here's @davidchambers requesting people use other non gendered terms

Hello, @<user>!
> seriously, though...need your help guys.

The community is not yet as diverse as I would like. Let's avoid gendered pronouns. Folks and people are good substitutes for guys.
Are you doing something like this?
Immutable.Map.prototype['fantasy-land/map'] = Immutable.Map.prototype.map;

Link

A simple request and immediately moving on to answer the question. I think this is a great tactic, it justifies the reasoning, it doesn't dwell on it.

But David I think can more easily do that, because it's his community. And if I were to do the above I'd feel strange if I didn't have @lhorie's backing and the rest of the communities support.

So I'm proposing when someone asks a question starting with "hey guys", we follow David's approach, in the interest of making people of all walks of life feel comfortable working and contributing within the mithril community.

But I'm asking for your thoughts and ideas, because it's not my place to dictate culture within mithril chat. I'd like to hear this communities point of view. I know this is a difficult subject, I've seen it tear communities apart in the past, but I think that difficulty only underscores the need for a plan (however informal) on tackling it.

[davidchambers]

In the past I would make contact privately, but at some point I realized this was a disservice to the community. From the perspective of members of excluded groups (woman and non-binary people, in this case) the exclusionary term had gone undetected.

Raising the matter publicly also has the benefit of increasing awareness.

You're quite right that we must consider those for whom English is not the mother tongue. As a native English speaker, the onus is on me to lead by example, avoiding gendered pronouns when addressing groups of people.

[dead-claudia]

@JAForbes

TL;DR: it's complicated, but "you all" could work as a substitute.

• Usually, when referring to a generic group without further context, it's gender-neutral. (e.g. "Hey, guys")
• Usually, when referring to a single person without further context, it's gender-specific. (e.g. "Look at this guy")
• It could change to be gender-specific depending on further context. (e.g. a musical named "Guys and Dolls")
• It's commonly used by men addressing men, women addressing women, women addressing men, and in mixed-group contexts, but not as frequently with men addressing women (although I've heard it before).

Also, in other locations within just the US alone, there's a couple equivalents:

• In the South (technically southeast on a map), you'll usually hear "y'all". (It's a dialect thing.)
• In West Virginia and Kentucky (two states in eastern central US), you'll hear both "y'all" (mostly southern WV) and "you all", and occasionally "you guys".

I personally say "you all", as it avoids the gender specificity altogether, and it's much clearer to non-native English speakers.

[davidchambers]

Usually, when referring to a generic group without further context, it's gender-neutral. (e.g. "Hey, guys")

It needn't be complicated: simply avoid inherently gendered descriptors when one does not intend to convey gender. The absurdity of addressing a group of women with Hey, guys is apparent when one imagines addressing a group of men with Hey, gals.

I personally say "you all", as it avoids the gender specificity altogether, and it's much clearer to non-native English speakers.

:thumbsup:

[JAForbes]

I personally say "you all", as it avoids the gender specificity altogether, and it's much clearer to non-native English speakers.

Yeah, "you all" is great. I think its really important to not get too focused on discussions of whether or not "guy's" is gendered, that is sort of a different, academic discussion. What's relevant is how it makes people who aren't men feel. I don't want anyone to feel excluded.

I apologise for being preemptive here, but I should have been more specific in the original post.

I don't want this to turn into a (somewhat ironic) thread of only men debating whether or not "guys" is gendered, while meanwhile lots of people who aren't men have said it bothers them. I want to see how much support there is in this community for making people who aren't men feel included. I'd really like our industry as a whole to move from 15% women/nb to at least 50% women/nb. Historically programming was always considered "women's work" and somewhere a long the way we've made software stereotypical male work and created a culture where women feel they need to leave.

I think if there's any community that should be able to overcome this hurdle, it's mithril's. So please let's not get caught up on etymological technicalities, or discussions of regional dialects: its a worthy discussion for another time, but probably not helpful in making sure people feel welcome. Let's just take it as a given that women/nb are telling the truth when they complain about this, and let's assume we care about that.

So what's the best way of addressing it without making people feel singled out etc? Is David's approach a good idea for this community? Would anyone object to me following suit?

[pygy]

"Hello folks" and "hi everyone", "hey there!" work fine as well. When addressing the group, one can use "What do you Mithril users/folks/devs think?"

I'm currently working with two women who use "guys" when addressing the group (of 3, most of the time, sometimes 4), but I do avoid using it in general because I know that it makes some people feel excluded.

Not sure what to prescribe though...

Gendered language is a PITA. It's worse in French because the grammar is actively sexist. Not only we don't have an equivalent to the gender-neutral "they" (well, there's "on", but it is totally indefinite, not just gender neutral), but adjectives are gendered as well, so neutral speech is impossible. For groups, adjectives take the male gender if there's just one man in it ("Le masculin l'emporte.").

[JAForbes]

So please let's not get caught up on etymological technicalities, or discussions of regional dialects:

For groups, adjectives take the male gender if there's just one man in it ("Le masculin l'emporte.").

😆 😄

[JAForbes]

Sorry just thought the juxtaposition was funny 😺

[pygy]

Well errrmm... ;-)

Seriously, it was meant to contrast with the fact that, at least in English there is a way to express oneself in a uncontroversially gender-neutral way, and that I do my best to use it (and tend to encourage people to do it as well, even though I don't feel like policing it actively)...

[JAForbes]

😆

at least in English there is a way to express oneself in a uncontroversially gender-neutral way,

Yeah great point.

even though I don't feel like policing it actively)

I'm happy to take the lead on this as long as I'm not annoying anyone. I've been keeping tabs on who says "guys" and I think people who do this are usually new to the community, and probably lurk for a fair bit before asking a question. So hopefully it becomes self reinforcing after new people see this happen a few times.

[StephanHoyer]

I always have problems referring to "the user"/"the developer" in third person pronoun. I tend to use she all the time but I'm not happy with it. Any tips from you folks?

[pygy]

You can use "they" as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun. At first it felt somewhat contrived to me, but it's a matter of getting used to it.

[leeoniya]

I tend to use she all the time but I'm not happy with it. Any tips from you folks?

i use s/he sometimes.

[CreaturesInUnitards]

What @pygy said.

Merriam-Webster on "they"

The use of they, their, them, and themselves as pronouns of indefinite gender and indefinite number is well established in speech and writing, even in literary and formal contexts.

[tivac]

I'm 100% for this.

[vdsabev]

On the one hand, I'm concerned with becoming overly "politically correct", because I have a tendency to filter myself anyway, and notice microaggressions or Jackal-language (apologies to your eyeballs) when no harm was meant. My intent is to say "hey, everyone", but I'm not sure I always do.

On the other hand, I would be very happy to be part of a community where everyone accepts each other as they are. I understand how people identifying with a certain group (that most other people typically don't understand) might feel offended. And we badly need diversity in the software community.

IMO the key here is really the approach to educating the rest of the community how to respond to gender-specific messages:

A simple request and immediately moving on to answer the question. I think this is a great tactic, it justifies the reasoning, it doesn't dwell on it.

I'm very impressed when someone manages to do that with kindness, and answer the question at the same time. It's like "hey, you said something that you could've phrased differently so that more people feel like they belong here, but no biggie, we mithrillers (?!?) accept you too, and BTW here's how you could solve your programming issue". I think we all need more of that in our day :smile:

[JAForbes]

Alright well that's consensus I think, with some concerns that are duly noted.

I'll close for now, if anyone wants to re-open, feel free. 🎉

[orbitbot]

If anyone is looking for a mechanical way to avoid the problem, I'd suggest replacing "guys/gals" etc with a comma. That seems to work out just fine most of the time.

And if you want to adress the problem elsewhere than on the internet, I would suggest raising an issue at work or trying to affect your hiring processes/decisions.

[shekharsom]

How about "Hey All". This takes care of everything.