Content/trigger warning. glass door, (internalised) misogyny, transphobia, gendering, pronouns
Glad you made it to this space. In spaces I’m in, I will never say “Hey guys!” again. I used to. But I haven’t for a number of years already, and I won’t, and I’ll tell you why.
What – in large part – brought on this change in my behaviour is that I identify as transgender. Before that time, it’s not that I didn’t care enough to be aware of, or act on, the toxicity that “Hey guys!” entails. I was passively aware of it, but I simply didn’t consider myself to be worth enough to fight for myself, let alone fight for others. I literally had no “self”. That’s one of the major shifts in my being since I accepted myself as transgender. I have a “self” now and acknowledge it, I can and do acknowledge your “self”, and I advocate and fight for mine as well as yours on equal footing.
* Premise I: a collective noun a noun referring to a collection of things taken as a whole.
* Premise II: “guy” or “guys” is inherently and intrinsically gendered, as it – in singular form – explicitly refers to a guy, a person of male gender and/or gender.
“Guy” (singular) should not be used when addressing or referring to a person who is of female gender an/or sex. “Guys” (plural) has a dictionary definition of “members of a group regardless of sex”.
* Premise III: In the strict context of the (live) music industry, our industry is still seen as a male(-dominant) work space.
* Premise IV: In trying to be(come) a more inclusive (work) space, glass doors and ceilings that limit access to all aspects of that (work) space need to be acknowledged in order to be broken, or removed altogether.
How often do you – whether on tour, in-person during casual get togethers, or in online spaces – hear used, or you yourself use “Hey guys!” to get everybody’s attention?
Let’s see who could be hearing themselves being addressed with “Hey guys!”, and what they’d feel in response.
How often do you know for a fact that everyone is intrinsically and wholeheartedly fine with being addressed by you that way?
Cisgender men? Quite probably. But most likely also the group to “not even notice it.”
Transgender men? Probably, maybe even more wholeheartedly so than their cisgender peers, for being explicitly acknowledged and seen – enter gender euphoria.
Cisgender women? Typically make no fuss about it, while increasingly more feel the itch to speak up against it.
Transgender women? That’s quite likely a hard and vocal “No!” – enter gender dysphoria.
Non-binary people? That’s quite likely a hard and vocal “No!” – enter gender dysphoria.
Are groups that are addressed (typically) homogenous? Should we assume they are? Why do we assume they are? Is it to appease them, or is it to appease ourselves?
So, why do we use “Hey guys!” when addressing a group of people?
Be it our colleagues, local crew, the fans, or in a broader context, our family, friends, acquaintances, random group of people.
The most-oft heard justification by someone using “Hey guys!” is one that is almost verbatim: “Well, I mean it in a generic, non-gendered way!”
That sounds like a fair statement, and seems to be supported by Merriam Webster:
But is it really non-gendered? Is it really “regardless of sex”?
What does it say to the people who are (made) acutely aware of their gender when addressed that way?
Do they belong in that space when “guys” doesn’t align with their gender?
Does it mean that this space is meant only for guys?
Depending on how those questions are answered, what that space should be like can – and deserves to – be defined better, more clearly.
If the word “guys” is used intentionally, you need to be aware of that implicitly making that space for guys only.
If the word “guys” is used unintentionally, you will need to try and find new and better ways to address the people within.
To quote Maya Angelou: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
Is there a need to say “Hey guys!”? No? Then why use it?! Especially if you know it potentially rubs people the wrong way.
Do you know there’s other ways to address a group of people?
“Everyone, lovelies, people, darlings, y’all, folks, colleagues, friends, dears, folx, crew”… There’s so many non-gendered collective noun options available it makes it really bizarre to choose to continue to use “guys”, simply because that’s what you’ve gotten used to. To the point of being seen as callous, jaded, insensitive, archaic, rude, exclusionary… And that list goes on, as more people become aware of the carelessness with which “guys” gets used.
Try this for an experiment, and flip the script and say “Hey girls!” * and upon receiving a lot of negative feedback, also reply with “Well, I mean it in a generic, non-gendered way!”
See how quickly these people will – hopefully – get the hint, and start understanding the problematic nature of the use of “guys” to refer to a group of people.
* = an extra note on the problematic nature of “girls”; it infantilises women; when using “guys”, it refers to both adults and minors perceived to be of male sex, while “girls” exclusively refers to minors of female sex.
See how quickly these people will – hopefully – get the hint, and start understanding the problematic nature of the use of “guys” to refer to a group of people.
* = an extra note on the problematic nature of “girls”; it infantilises women; when using “guys”, it refers to both adults and minors perceived to be of male sex, while “girls” exclusively refers to minors of female sex.
I am not sure why female-identifying people address a group of their peers with “hey guys!”
It could be part of the “Well, I mean it in a generic, non-gendered way!” but even then, or especially then, is there a specific need for that?
It could, instead, also be part of internalised misogyny. Having been so inundated with being “hey guys”-ed that it has become part of their fabric.
Everything I have written goes for the individual as well.
How often has the non-male sound engineer been asked “(So) where’s the sound guy?” What does that question (un)intentionally say about that person’s validity?
How often do people in the industry refer to the sound engineer as “the sound guy”?
And how often are other (non-tech) functions referred to with female terms? Think “the merch girl”, and “the wardrobe girl”.
How often do riders refer to certain tech positions in male terms (see aforementioned “sound guy”, but only recently, I literally pointed out to a visiting male tour manager – we had worked as touring colleagues for a different band – whose rider I saw when working as a local stagehand, that their rider specified “two guys” to help with the load-in).
While these are all “well it used to be that way” settings of the time hopefully past, their usage still persists.
I started touring full time 20+ years ago, wen the world still saw me as “a guy”. I never was, I just tried to play the part because I couldn’t, and didn’t dare wrap my head and heart around being transgender. Back then, if there would be a woman on tour, it was a near certainty they’d be doing merch. Tech positions were exclusively occupied by men.
Sure, between musical genres (cultures), things shift slightly, and I worked mostly in rock/metal, where the one non-guy was the exception that confirmed the rule that everyone is a guy.
In the first 9 years of full time touring, I had worked with 2 women in tech positions (they were the same two women I’d tour with on several tours). And a handful of women selling merch.
In contrast, the last tour I did in 2022; our crew consisted of 41 people; 9 of which were observed (I say “observed” as they may appear like women, but may identify differently) as women, across 5 departments, with 5 of these 9 in tech positions.
So, why is using something other than “hey guys!” so important in the (live) music industry?
Because it explicitly others and alienates those who do not identify as male; telling them implicitly they don’t belong there (as much).
Because it prolongs the sensation that this work place is for guys only.
These two constructs are both complicit in why and how there are so few women and non-binary people work in the (live) music industry.
They’re part of intricate web of constructions that maintain the integrity of the glass door keeping these people out.
There is no rule that one must have a penis to work in (live) music.
There is no rules that one must be able to “man handle” 300 pounds to work in (live) music.
How many times have I literally heard bands and management discuss “well, I don’t want that spot to be filled by a woman”?
Too often! And every single time extracurricular arguments were used to thwart a woman from stepping on the tour bus as crew.
“It’ll kill the vibe on the bus.” No actually, it won’t, it’ll make it better!
“So now we need to pee sitting down on the bus.” Actually, that’s always a rule!
“So now I can’t get groupies on the bus.” Please go back to your cave. That was never acceptable; it was simply tolerated, and cheered on other male cavemen, as it was part of the “sex, drug & rock ‘n’ roll” mythos. As part of an almost excluslively male-dominated workplace.
I have learned that this is all taught behaviour, and that it is part of keeping that glass door closed. At all costs.
I can guarantee you that the unkempt bloke who boasts having nailed several groupies on tour will be very well-spoken and well-behaved when they jump off the tour to go straight to their grandmother’s 95th birthday. That makes the misogynist (and/or queerphobic, racist, or otherwise discriminatory) behaviour an at the very least a careless – but possibly an active – choice. I say “active” here, because if you do something without being aware of the negative effect it has on someone’s well-being, you may perhaps be excused, if you repeat your behaviour after you’ve been made aware of that, repeatedly, you should not be excused, but instead, held accountable. The felt need to perpetuate that behaviour in the live music industry pretty much forces the perpetrators to actively need and keep that glass door kept shut.
But the women kept out aren’t the problem here.
The glass door isn’t the problem here.
It’s the misogynist (and/or queerphobic, racist, or otherwise discriminatory) guy keeping the door shut that is the problem.
And on a deeper level; do you actually know whether the person you’re addressing identifies as male, female, non-binary?
Just because someone has a beard doesn’t make them a man, just like someone with breasts isn’t automatically a woman.
When making the assumption someone is the way you think they are, you may be right, but chances are that you are not.
Be aware of that.
I’ll give you my example, and I am writing this as a binary transgender woman. My pronouns are she/her/hers.
I am not in sound, I do backline, but if I were in sound, I’d possibly use “sound girl” to refer to myself (I’d more likely refer to myself as sound engineer or technician, as it is an actual profession, not just a hobby), I’d probably be appreciative if others called me “sound girl” (with the same sidenote as above). I would never refer to someone else as a “sound girl”. For that, I would need to A.) explicitly know they like being called that, and B.) I would probably still default to calling them sound engineer or sound technician, because they and their profession deserve (or better: demand) that. That same argument goes for “sound guy”.
And it’s the same with pronouns. Unless I explicitly know (and that is not by seeing a beard or a pair of breasts, but by the person telling me) their pronouns, I will default to using their name if they introduced themselves to me with a name. And if I don’t know their name, I will refer to them with gender neutral pronouns.
We don’t like being misgendered; do we? Then why do we choose to (possibly) misgender others? Or worse yet, if we know someone is transgender or non-binary why do we insist on misgendering them? Then, what could initially have been simple and innocent ignorance, turns into transphobia.
On a broader level again. Not all men like being called “guys”, just like not all women like being called “girls”.
As long as we refer to ourselves in a certain way, be it pronouns, be it a gendered collective noun, be it something else…
Just like with labels, anything you choose for yourself, for your persona, your identity, your “je ne sais quoi”, is inherently correct, good, right, truthful…
Any label you possibly stick on someone else may at best be a lucky guess. Acknowledge that you will be more likely to guess wrong. With ensuing hurt being cause.
And don’t get me started on people who are non-white in the (live) music industry; their glass door situation is even more dire than that of those who don’t identify as male.
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