Description: A five panel comic. In the first picture the main character leaves and a co-worker says “See ya, dude”. In the second panel, the protagonist is in a supermarket and the cashier says “Hey man.” In the third panel, the protagonist is on a train and someone on the phone says “Hello, sir.” In the fourth panel, the protagonist enters an apartment and says “I’ home.” and is welcomed by a woman who rushes towards her and says “THERE she is!” The two of them hug in the fifth panel, while the woman says “How’s my beautiful girlfriend doing??”
Art by Homunculus101
Hi all, not really a comment on this cartoon but a question if that’s ok, I often use guys and dude as gender neutral terms (interchangeable with folks for ex). Is that hurtful or misgendering, are those habits I should break? Ty
Varies from person to person. In general I wouldn’t worry about it too much, the way those are used is pretty gender neutral in general even though they can contextually be male. If you know you’re addressing a trans gal maybe make more of an effort for folks but I wouldn’t worry about it too much. If someone tells you it bothers them, then ya know, try not to. In general the litmus test for me is would it be a problem if they were cis? If not, then not a problem by default (if it bothers them, it’s an exception to account for)
Overall, I think it’s silly to be concerned over the use of guys and dudes instead of the tendency to treat everyone on the Internet as male.
The fact you want to be considerate puts you far ahead of the crowd!
I’d agree but not having to deal with theoretically gender neutral terms is a bit annoying. In German it is especially annoying because of the frequent use of generic masculine which is annoyingly common outside queer and feminist spaces.
I mean the classic rebuttal is:
would saying “I only date guys” (/dudes) connotate gender neutral? Same for “That’s a guy.”
It’s “neutral” because it falls prey to the English language issue of having male-oriented terms as the default for people (whereas objects- ships, planes, etc tend to be female)
I think one argument would be that if you use “only” beforehand then the next linguistic object must (or at least should) be descriptive, meaning that if you only say “guys” then you’re kind of infusing meaning into it, which defaults back to how the word has been used historically. If someone said “I only date cool guys” then I think it’s more ambiguous.
That being said, I also think there is still quite a strong gendered connotation to guy/dude and the gender-neutral definition is pretty modern. The good thing is that language is defined by its usage, so if we decide to use it as a gender-neutral term then eventually that is what it will become.
I’m gonna go ahead and disagree with everybody else. I don’t like it. I generally don’t speak up for myself in real life, but it does bother me deeply. There’s no great solution, this is just my honest opinion that it makes me uncomfortable and I’m trying to not be this way but it does actually bother me.
Like. What do you even think this comic is trying to tell you? It’s EXACTLY like the comic, which is why it is highly upvoted.
Also, it is not gender neutral, it is more complicated than that and much more problematic. “You want to get fucked by ten dudes” is not gender neutral.