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From: xrarp@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Aliza R. Panitz)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Guys and Girls, Ladies and Gentlemen
Message-ID: <3461@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Date: 21 Sep 90 15:40:26 GMT
Reply-To: xrarp@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov
Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center - Greenbelt, MD, USA
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There are three common nouns for females...  Girls, Women, and
Ladies. There are four common nouns for males...  Boys, Guys,
Men, and Gentlemen.  (Many others exist, but they are hopelessly
slangy.)  The problem is not just one of mapping from four cases
onto three, but also due to social trappings and trainings that
do not recognize a valid niche for "Woman."  Perhaps some of the
propagation of the term "Lady" was encouraged by lower-class
women who wanted to be treated better...  I do not know.

For a while, I was the only female member of a work team.  One
of the others [interesting how I declined to use a noun here]
would address his e-mail memos to "Lady and Gentlemen:"
Perfectly "correct and proper", but it always struck me wrong,
since it was no longer the standard formula, but singled me out.

I've been addressed as a guy, (and *not* in the sense of "one of
the guys", which is derogatory in its own way), as in (on the
phone) "Aliza?  Great, you're just the guy I wanted to talk to."
Unfortunately, I don't expect to see this become widespread.

I have seen others refer to or address a group as "people."
This salutation/appellation has many advantages, but is
certainly awkward to get used to (i.e. "the people in the
secretarial pool", "the people in the mail room", "the
maintenance people.")

When I write informal memos to my colleagues, I address them as
"Folks."  I don't expect to see this usage adopted widely, since
it is pretty informal, but there is no doubt that it is gender
neutral.  Does anyone have a better suggestion?

- - - -
Aliza R. Panitz                                 Obligatory Wasted Bandwidth
xrarp@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov